All Change Again

 By 1931, the East phase, the first of the three educational re-organisation programmes, was more or less complete.  At least for the moment.  So, on to the Central phase.  As with the East phase, Central wasn't quite self-contained, but somehow the Education Committee needed to create Primary or Junior Mixed Infants (JMI) schools from the elementaries at Alma Road, Bernards Heath and Garden Fields.  To achieve this senior boys would attend Hatfield Road (how many more pupils could this set of buildings accommodate?) and senior girls would attend Priory Park.  If you have been following closely to this series of posts you will note two facts: that Alma Road was already full of senior girls and Priory Park was already full of senior boys.  But at least the girls would be given access to the new Central School and the junior age girls would remain where they were.  The girls now to attend Priory Park were given one benefit at an otherwise inadequate building: a hot water central heating system would replace the inefficient and time-consuming coal burning classroom stoves.  At the same time St Peter's Elementary next door would become a JMI with the older seniors transferring to the same two senior schools. 

Bernards Heath School frontage in Sandridge Road, built to serve the community of Sandridge
New Town.  It became infants only when Spencer Junior School (now renamed) opened.
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Christ Church School, Verulam Road, in 1936.  The same building is now occupied by the
Royal British Legion.
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Out west St Michael's would become a JMI, Abbey would become Juniors only and Christ Church would limit itself to Infants only.  The first of two senior schools would be constructed on a new site in Townsend Drive.  Initially called the Church School(s) it was formally named  Townsend School(s) on opening.

Townsend CE Senior School buildings almost complete at the end of 1933.
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Back East the Education Committee had to manage three new issues in the form of expanding housing.  Beaumonts estate was already emerging from the ground in the early 1930s; just in time the Committee promptly snapped up three future streets east of Oakwood Drive for a pair of senior schools.  Plans were being laid for a significant new residential estate between Camp Road and London Road, although it was still too early to identify potential land purchases. Finally, more new housing was imminently expected at Marshalswick, the land for its future school being acquired in Sandpit Lane – an extension of the site for a future primary school and the new Beaumonts site, eventually extending in a continuous band from Hatfield Road to Sandpit Lane, extending Oakwood Drive through to Sandpit Lane – although that never happened.  

Plan drawn up in 1936 for land acquired east of Beaumont Avenue.
The pink area is the school's original footprint and the three access
points from Oakwood Drive (left). In the future the boundary would
be extended to Hatfield Road (bottom).  Further land towards Sandpit Lane 
(top) just purchased for playing field for Beaumont Schools girls, a future primary
 school and for a future senior school to serve Marshalswick; the latter proposal,
however, faltered.
COURTESY HALS

In each case both JMIs and senior schools would be required, but the most immediate requirement would be for the Beaumonts site.  Plans were ready for building to begin in 1936.  The girls' school would be on the first floor while the boys would occupy the ground floor level.  There were, inevitably, very limited shared facilities, mainly the gymnasium, and even that was not part of the initial proposals. Before c1937 the schools design template required school halls to double up as gymnasia.  As with other similar schools it remained a pair of senior schools until 1947, the singular alteration being the removal of the final s, becoming Beaumont Schools rather than Beaumonts Schools shortly after opening.

Beaumont Schools opened in 1938, with girls occupying the upper floor and boys on the ground.

Opening in 1938 the first tranche of pupils transferred from Hatfield Road and Priory Park, and a school not yet featured in these posts, Colney Heath Elementary, allowing that school to transform into JMI status.

From the mid-twenties Parliament paid much attention to the question of secondary schools.  The term senior was traditionally the older department of elementary schools, and simply hiving off those pupils into separate buildings while still calling them senior schools, did nothing positive for their educational aspirations unless closer  attention was given to the curriculum.  The much acclaimed Hadow Report highlighted the right of every pupil to take advantage of a secondary school, irrespective of ability to pay the fees, if they could legitimately take advantage of its curriculum.  Spoiler alert for the eleven plus coming up!

So it was that still more schools of a new type would be required during the 1930s; they would be known as Modern schools – confusingly the first of two styles using this designation.  We will follow up the Modern schools next time and discover what happened to them.

So, we are on the cusp of the Second World War and the East End still has Fleetville and Camp school buildings, plus recently added new Central (1931) and Ss Alban & Stephen (1934).

Let's Think Again

 No sooner had the County Education Committee come to terms with the requirements of the 1902 Balfour Act, surveyed its sometimes woeful array of school buildings, and set out a plan for the future, than the upheavals of the First World War intervened.  At least, the east side of St Albans fared well from those early years; the two buildings of Fleetville Elementary Schools were both open before the onset of war, and Camp Elementary School just before the millennium.  But in the latter case day-to-day existence persevered  with limited water supply, no heating and an unfinished playground.  But at least the buildings were sound.

To herald peacetime the government announced further legislation.  Finally enacted in 1921 and known as the Fisher Act, the new Education Act established an all-embracing education programme for children between the ages of 5 and fourteen, with separate phases defining Infants (5 to 7), Juniors (7 to 11) and Seniors (11 to 14, but initially 13).  For the first time the Act laid out an approach to learning, not simply attendance and inspection; the phrase child centred learning entered the educational lexicon.  

The Education Committee, having carefully launched its initial programme, stretching limited funds as far as they would reasonably go, was now expected to adjust and expand even further, with no immediate expectation of increased funding.

The former St Albans School of Art in Victoria Street, whose buildings eventually extended
back to what became the Chequer Street Car Park following the closure of the brewery site.
The building also incorporated the first public library, the Central School and workshops for
senior boys from the town's schools.

However, there is one more local school not mentioned so far, which came into being during the Balfour era; and there were plentiful examples of them throughout the UK.  Central Schools were established in response to a demand by senior pupils coming to the end of their elementary education but with no access, including scholarships, to the existing secondary schools, which in St Albans at the time meant St Albans High School for Girls and St Albans School for Boys.  St Albans Central School was accommodated rather uncomfortably in the first library and art school building in Victoria Street.  It included workshop rooms for senior boys from the city's elementary schools that lacked their own facilities.  It was a shoe horn existence and badly needed sorting out.

The issues facing the Education Committee in addressing the Fisher Act requirements in St Albans was complicated by the nature and condition of the existing estate and it was agreed to manage the process by phasing the improvements, beginning with what was perceived as the most challenging to tackle; the East Ward.  Central and West areas of the city would have to wait their turns.  Even so, the East Plan's implementation stretched out over more than a decade, exacerbated by the stream of housebuilding in the Ward, unbroken for the past forty years or so. Thus huge pressures were placed on available spaces in all three schools; Hatfield Road, Camp and Fleetville – even though the former was not actually located in the East Ward.

Top priority was given to building boys' and a girls' senior schools on land the Committee had purchased in Fleetville (where today's Fleetville Junior School is located).  At the time, in 1921, the land was naively considered sufficient for two separate schools. The norm for the time would have been each school occupying the ground or first  floor of a single building; an arrangement which the Education Committee referred to as "adjacent sites".   While it was a bold start to the plan the new schools would take many years to open; an interim solution was desperately needed for shorter term gain.

Top: a Fleetville School senior class from 1931. From the following year the girls would attend
the new Central School on the other side of Hatfield Road.  Below: In the same year, senior
children at Camp School.  From 1932 senior girls would transfer to the new Central School, 
and senior boys to Fleetville seniors or Hatfield Road.

Funding for a girls' senior school was granted, though no building emerged.  If it had the new building would accommodate senior girls from Fleetville and Camp, and girls from the Central School in the centre of town.  The Camp senior boys would transfer to Fleetville and allow Camp to become the first of the Primary (Junior Mixed Infant) schools.  The interim plan wasn't signed off until 1928, at which time there was still no new senior school!

Top: the new Central School main building – although this photo was taken later than the year
of opening (1931) by which time a new teaching block had been added.  Below: a cookery class in one
of the practical rooms at the new Central School.

Meanwhile, conditions at the Central School deteriorated further and it was agreed – a euphemism for protracted and sometimes heated discussions – that a complete new school would be built – on the land at Fleetville previously reserved for two senior schools.  Central's new school, with an increased number of places, opened in 1931.  The Fleetville and Camp senior girls could finally move into bright new buildings, but Fleetville could not become a primary while its senior rooms were full of Fleetville and ex Camp boys.  Gradually boys transferred from there to Hatfield Road as its accommodation became available; Fleetville therefore emerged as a Primary over time; and it seemed that no sooner had later boys enrolled at Hatfield Road they transferred en-bloc to another new school which opened in 1938 at Beaumonts!  But that is a later chapter in the story.

Fleetville's senior boys did, however, enjoy one new benefit from 1931.  The new Central site also included workshops for practical activity, deemed essential since the existing elementary schools had contained no such facilities.

Ss Alban & Stephen's new school building opened on the corner of Camp Road and Vanda
Crescent in 1934.
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A further school which had been educating children from across the city, had its base behind a church building in Beaconsfield Road.  Its lessons were regularly interrupted by the arrival of trains at the station at the foot of the shallow cutting.  Ss Alban & Stephen Catholic School became part of the system under the Balfour Act, in which grants were paid by the local authority.  Such schools, controlled by the Church of England or Catholic Church, were and are known as Voluntary Controlled or Voluntary Aided schools.  In 1932, the Church acquired land from the Friederick Sander estate in Vanda Crescent for its new school (now the Ss Alban & Stephen Infants); perhaps surprisingly opening as an elementary model, but that was undoubtedly its most economic arrangement given the smaller numbers of expected pupils.  So Alban and Stephen became the next new establishment in the East End, just a year after the new Central.

Although later phases of the re-organisation plan would also impinge on the East Ward a brief explanation would be better left to a later post, otherwise readers would, I fear, find the changes more mystifying than the Hatfield House maze! 

It's Elementary

It is now over thirty years since the first major legislation authorising education provision on a national scale; the 1870 Education Act.

The original inset name panel at Alma Road School is below the first floor window. Although the date of installation is not known, the lower Public Elementary School panel would have been installed
post-1902 and fixed directly into the brickwork without being set into a border frame.

After playing around with government's potential responsibilities for educating the nation's children, the Education Act of 1902, commonly referred to as the Balfour Act, sealed the state's future pathway, formalising the provision of education throughout the country for all children, not only those who weren't lucky enough to receive a classroom place from one of the voluntary organisations.  Further, transferring existing responsibilities from local boards (described in the previous blog) and voluntary organisations to the recently formed county councils.  Although districts could apply for exemption, St Albans, after much lengthy discussion, agreed to pass over its schools to Hertfordshire County Council (HCC).

While HCC lost no time in familiarising itself with its portfolio of existing premises and the need to standardise the facilities' requirements for new buildings, it was clear to the authority that improvements to existing buildings would be limited, given the disparity between need and available resources.  For example, the entirely sensible desirability of providing a bathroom for the benefit of any child arriving at school dirty from normal living conditions endured at home, would potentially have a facility to use before the school day began.  However, some members of the education committee were not convinced of the committee's responsibility to ensure children were clean. Standard building foundations would also be reduced for new buildings to a depth of 18 inches.  Porches would not be provided, and pianos were also considered unnecessary expenditure.

It may be a challenge to view, but this photograph, published in the Herts Advertiser in 1914, 
shows boys from Hatfield Road Elementary School working on the school's allotment garden
in the Ninefields, Brampton Road.  The houses in the background are on the south side of
Brampton Road.
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On the other hand,  a proposal for woodwork to be introduced for boys, and for school gardens to be provided, both for which were accepted. Accommodation for the first was found initially at the old Art School premises in Victoria Street, and a section of ground at Hatfield Road Boys' School was made available, although it is not known whether other schools also benefited before the First World War.  During the war the same school took on allotments on spare ground north of Brampton Road. 

The committee was also concerned that younger children, including infants, traditionally spent too much time sitting at desks. It urged that more time was given for education for the body – active pursuits.

So, the new school style would provide full-time attendance at a recognised school from the age of 5 to 7 in mixed infants classes, thereafter in senior classes of single gender until the age of 12, above which it was slowly but progressively advanced by a year at a time.

Two recent views of the former St Peter's Elementary School, the top picture from Old London
Road and the lower picture from the top of Cottonmill Lane.

The first school to operate as an Elementary school was the former St Peter's Rural Board School, opened in 1898, which was quickly renamed St Peter's Rural Elementary in time for the new Act, and quickly identified as Camp Elementary Schools.  It should be noted that in most cases the title was pluralised to Schools as each section was operated as a separate school department, whether or not it operated within the same building.  Camp Schools quickly filled up as children not living within the city boundary, but who had previously received informal permission to attend their nearest city school, were now required to  attend their nearest "other" school. Since most of the new housing being provided on the east side of the city fell within the "other" areas and there was only one available school, the Camp School's accommodation was soon depleted.  More new homes were also being provided astride Hatfield Road – but  no school, board or elementary, was initially provided in that location.

Camp Elementary School in Camp Road.  The top image is a recent view of a little-altered
frontage (except for the hanging baskets).  The lower image shows a group, possible, two
classes from the leavers' year, aged 12, c1900 to 1905.

Parental pressure quickly mushroomed among parents moving to Fleetville, and by 1906 a site, intended to be for future houses in Royal Road and Tess Road (now Woodstock Road south) was turned over to the County Council for its next new elementary school.  By November 1908 the senior section of the new Fleetville Elementary  Schools was complete.  However, as the infants building was still in the future – and would not open until 1913 – it was decided infant classes would be enrolled and join the senior groups in the 6-classroom building.  For five years the three  infant classes would share the hall space.  

Recent photographs of the former Fleetville Elementary Schools.  The top image is the building first opened in November 1908.  This was intended for Senior classes, later designated Junior and Senior
classes.  The lower image is the smaller building, opened in 1913, for three infants classes.

The previous two paragraphs are naturally inadequate to describe the East End's two original schools.  So they will join a growing list of organisations enjoying more extended posts – eventually!

In other parts of the city and in more rural settlements the existing British, National and Board schools would continue as usual, but as Elementary establishments, the responsibility of Hertfordshire County Council.  Its Education Committee would then decide when a school was deemed full, with arrangements made to add either permanent or temporary rooms according to need. Or, of course, adding more desks to existing classrooms!

Remembering that the system in St Albans largely relied on making use of existing buildings for an existing system.  Unsurprisingly, it did not take long for the modified structure of the Education Committee to require unpicking.  The elementary system was about to be re-organised less than two decades onwards. We'll discover how next time.

Towards Public Learning

You may be surprised when opening this page. Is this the correct link?  Rest assured; from this post the top banner has finally been replaced to match the banner of the website – I finally got there! 

Before moving on to formal systems of education, there is one further photograph which belongs in the previous post on the subject of private schools.  Mention was made of Manor Lodge School in Upper Lattimore Road.  St Albans Museums does have a small monochrome photo of the school, but since the building survives I've included instead a picture of the house today as you might come across it while walking along the footpath towards Hatfield Road and just before reaching the Friends Meeting House.

This house used to be Manor Lodge School; located in Upper Lattimore Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Now on to the subject of this week's post.

Until the 1870s there was little of relevance to our East End in the availability of education for children, there were, after all, so few families living in that part of the parish of St Peter, except those in isolated hamlets, farm houses and cottages of a few agricultural labourers.  The education of girls was mainly home learned; boys worked on farms, or may have made their way to St Albans and been employed in workshops where there might have been an industrial school.  Less of a school; more of the industry.  However, it can't be denied, a system had grown slowly and spasmodically.  It would be pertinent to explore its beginnings and how it relates to current school sites throughout the city.

Surviving British School at Hitchin, today a thriving education museum.
COURTESY THE BRITISH SCHOOLS MUSEUM

At the start of the 19th century there arose a movement to widen the availability of schools through a concept of mission to strengthen the national industrial base and wider empire trade. An organisation was the known as the British and Foreign Schools Society, begun in 1808; their schools were called British Schools.  In St Albans a British School opened in Spencer Street; while I'm not certain when it first opened, the building is shown behind Dagnall Street Baptist Church, a site in use since the 1720s, and for the purposes of this summary, it would have become a British School soon after 1808 even if schooling took place in some other form before then. As with other nonconformist churches they led the way in holding Sunday schools and classes in the closely associated churches where the buildings could be used during the week.  The St Albans British School is said to have had a maximum of 90 boys on its roll according to the Herts Advertiser Almanack printed in 1877.  Incredibly, in 1886 over 1,000 children were enrolled into the Sunday schools at the four nearest chapels to the British School.  

Within three years of the formation of British Schools the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor was launched and typically set up schools in parish churches and were generically called National Schools. Their intentions were to further the principles of the Church of England, and they were able to benefit from a larger number of available buildings – the parish churches and their church halls.  They also found it easier to attract state funds, and to operate their schools on lower costs.

So, let's discover the range of National schools in St Albans.

The wide, sprawling and mainly rural parish of St Peter had its school for up to 85 infants in Bernard Street.  It was typical of early schools tucked away in the side streets of the town centre; a single room in which the children were educated or "looked after". It is likely that the prime motive was not so much the provision of an education but to free up mothers for useful employment.  Incidentally, the term "infant" did not have the precise meaning the word does today; older and younger children were sometimes accepted as well.

In 1872 on a rather more open site at the junction of Old London Road and Cottonmill Lane was
the St Peter's National School. The footpath which passes to the south of the school can just
be seen to the right of the gates in the photo below.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The entrance to the former St Peter's School.  The gates are today named Old Priory Park.
Priory Park School, buildings extant, was further along Old London Road.

The parish's main school building was on the corner of Old London Road and Cottonmill Lane and opened for 205 pupils in 1850.  Ad hoc accommodation may have been utilised at the church in St Peter's Street before the separate school could be afforded.  As we shall discover in a later post, a separate school was later created for children living beyond the city limit, but in the early days distance was the main obstacle in attending the parish church National school.  The parish church school was, as was not uncommon, restricted to girls when first opened.  The current St Peter's JMI now operates from modern buildings nearby.

What of the other city parishes?

St Stephen's, like St Peter's was responsible for a large rural parish, some of which spread towards our East End, and its urban  population was small.  There were around 60 pupils on roll in 1890, reducing to around 30 in 1923.  The opening of a school, possibly on a different site from Watford Road, is not known about.

St Michael's can trace its first parish school, in the church, back to 1811, accommodating girls whose families lived on the Gorhambury estate.  A separate building was opened next to the church in 1854, and it took until 1876 for a separate National building, nearer to the river, to open for boys.

The crowded site between Dagnal (with one l) Street and Spencer Street in 1872.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Abbey parish occupies the smallest acreage but possesses the greatest population density.  In the narrow and crowded Cross Street close to Dagnall Street opened Cross Street Infants which opened in 1836 accommodating 120 children.  It is therefore possible that abbey-owned building was utilised before then. Spicer Street provided accommodation from the 1840s for junior and senior girls and boys, amounting to over 400 children on a very constrained site. It was not until the post-war period that new buildings were provided in Grove Road.

In recognising the role being played by the National and British organisations the state formalised a system of maintenance grants to schools from the 1830s.  These were dependent on common standards being set and met.

Shortly, we will enter the period when Government began to formulate laws and lay the foundation for compulsory education.  During February we will identify the locations of Board schools to which children would attend; and the transformation into Elementary school.