Christina Kay

Christina Kay (11 June 1878 – 23 May 1951) was a Scottish school teacher and served as an inspiration for Miss Jean Brodie, the leading character in the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.

Private life Kay, an only child, was born at 4 Grindlay Street, Edinburgh, where she lived most of her life. She was a pupil at the James Gillespie's School for Girls from the age of five, and she later taught there. Her father, Alexander Kay, a cabinet maker, died when she was 15. She continued to live with her mother and cared for her until her death in 1913. Like Miss Jean Brodie, Kay told her pupils about her travels in Italy and was an admirer of Mussolini. She had a picture of the Fascisti on her classroom wall. Kay called her class "the crème de la crème" and formed friendships with individual pupils, including Muriel Camberg and her friend Frances Niven. She took some of them on private outings.

Kay's pupils believed a rumour that she had lost a fiancé in the First World War, though she never confirmed it. In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Miss Brodie also had a fiancé whom she lost in the war.