Film director hopes to "vindicate" memory of 19th century Edinburgh teachers who faced 10 year court case

Now the story of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie - two Edinburgh teachers at an Edinburgh boarding school who were accused of performing lesbian sex acts in bed in front of a pupil - has been told in a film premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The Education of Jane Cumming deals with the story of Drumsheugh boarding school where Ms Pirie sued the wealthy grandmother of a former pupil after she slandered her and Ms Woods, encouraging all parents to remove their daughters from the school, forcing to to close.

The papers relating to their court case, which eventually saw them found not guilty, were sealed in a box for 100 years.

Director Sophie Heldman said she had first heard about the story almost 15 years ago and had worked since to put it on screen. The film, which stars co-writer Flora Nicholson as Ms Pirie and Fiona Shaw as Lady Cumming Gordon, was shot in Edinburgh, using Malleny House and Gardens in Balerno as the school, which was originally in the city’s West End - and The Georgian House on Charlotte Square.

“To my astonishment, few people knew about this case in Edinburgh, but it really resonates now,” said Ms Heldman. “It has a lot of themes that are relevant in 2026, of class, of gender, sexuality and race that are much discussed now.”

“It feel exactly the right place to premiere it here in Edinburgh because it is very moving that it happened here, where the festival is. Every pavement, every stone, speaks about this story.

“I’m so excited I can bring this story back to the heart of the city, it’s very moving for me because I feel I can vindicate the characters who are in our film.”

She said stories of those like the women in the film - including Ms Pirie and Ms Woods, who were not well off and Jane Cumming, who was an outcast in her wealthy family due to her Anglo-Indian heritage - are often lost to history.

“Stories about average women or women of colour were not considered worth preserving and this story is preserved because Jane Pirie had the guts to take this - and what was happening to her - to court,” said Ms Heldman. “She dared to take a very influential woman to court and it became a notorious case at that time.”

The judge deciding the case opted to ensure the case was debated behind closed doors and any papers relating to it locked away for 100 years.

Ms Heldman said: “In the National Records of Scotland, there is a box with the real case that basically preserves the lives of these women and we wanted to basically open that box with this film.”

The film also drew on research carried out by American author Lillian Faderman’s book Scotch Verdict, which also utilised the closed records to get to the bottom of the case.

Ms Heldman added: “Obviously, it’s a fiction film, it’s not a documentary, but we want the audience to be taken into this extraordinary story and become almost the judges themselves.”

After its Edinburgh premiere and subsequent screenings as part of the EIFF, the film will open Sea Change Festival on Tiree on 18 September and will be released in UK cinemas in January.