Joseph Hardy Neesima (Jo NIIJIMA) opened a school for girls in 1876 (later called the Doshisha Girls' School), which was ultimately the predecessor of the Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts. The school was within the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park, and it was also the residence of the Doshisha's teacher Davis, in which former court nobility (the Yanagihara family, from which Emperor Taisho's mother came) had lived.
新島襄によって1876年（明治9年）に京都御苑内の元公家屋敷（大正天皇の生母の実家の柳原家）で、当時は同志社教師デーヴィス氏が住んでいた邸内に設立された同志社女子部（後の同志社女学校）を前身とする。