The first five students were Miss Gibson, Miss Lloyd, Miss Lumsden, Miss Woodhead, and Miss Townshend; besides Miss Manning, who was to be there for only one term, and did not intend to take any examination. Miss Gibson has described her reception by Miss Davies, on her first arrival at Hitchin. Before she had time to knock or ring, “the door was opened, and on the threshold there stood the keen little lady to whose courage and energy the whole scheme of a College for women was due, and who was now quivering with excitement, thinly veiled under a business-like manner, in this moment when her cherished hopes were actually beginning to materialize”. Four days later, Miss Davies wrote to her friend Miss Richardson:

My Dear Anna,

We are here. The little band arrived in due succession on Saturday, and we have now had three lectures.… Adelaide [Miss Manning] has just been ejaculating “It is so pleasant to be at the College”, and the students are saying it in their bright faces and in their tones all day. I scarcely expected that they could all have worked together with such entire cordiality and that so small a number could be so “jolly”. Miss Lloyd is most valuable. Being a little older than the others, she makes a link between them and the authorities.