Hanged at the Prison 1

 For the first half of the 19th century the county's prisoners remained held at the Abbey Gateway, but in the 1860s it was considered the accommodation in this building was too restricted and basic, so a field was acquired next to the planned railway station, which today happens to be the western limit of what we, on this site, have come to know as St Albans' Own East End; in today's Grimston Road.  No sooner had the prisoners made the move, pupils from the Royal Grammar School at the Abbey were moved from the Lady Chapel  into the Gateway accommodation in preparation for rebuilding the Abbey.  Children, it appears, were provided with less consideration than prisoners!

The Abbey Gateway.  Prior to the 1860s this building housed prisoners, before they were given

a new prison building in Grimston Road.  Boys from the Royal Grammar School were

subsequently housed in the Gateway.

The new prison offered less than fifty years of service, having closed in 1913, but was immediately taken over for military purposes during the First World War.  Plans had been made for the reburial at Hatfield Road Cemetery, of capital prisoners, of whom there were four.  But presumably, because of the complications of transfer to the military, the reinterments did not take place.  After the war the prison remained empty until 1930, when St Albans City Council purchased the premises for the purpose of converting it into the Highways Department's headquarters, although to ensure sufficient space, the internal cell  block and other buildings were demolished. 

One of the few images of the prison in use, here flying a black flag thought to signify a day

when an execution was due to take place.

COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Modern photo of the same section of the remaining part of the prison. The tall tower, which
may have been a water tower, being part of the core structure, was demolished c1930.

During these works someone obviously realised that the re-burials had not taken place as intended, in 1913.  Rather belatedly the operation took place in March 1931.  The event was a straightforward one, with no ceremony and no minister of religion present.  The grave plot was provided by the council, located on a corner near the eastern pathway, and in the tradition of all common graves no headstone or other marker was provided.

The space to the left of the tree, right foreground, contains the remains of the four prisoners
re-buried from the grounds of the former prison.

During the period of operation four prisoners, three male and one female, were handed capital sentences.  That much is known, although not so much detail of the individual prisoners and the nature of their trials.  Fortunately, research carried out by Nicholas Connell and Ruth Stratton has been published under the title Hertfordshire Murders.

Let's reveal the story of Charles Coleman and discover how he met his end at the young age of 36.

Coleman was a Rickmansworth man, having been born and brought up in the town.  We know where he was in 1911, because the prison governor listed him as one of his inmates in that year's census.  By midsummer he had been released, having served a sentence of six months for "mutilating a dog".

A classic image of old Mill End
COURTESY RICKMANSWORTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY

As with many released prisoners he joined the pool of casual labourers at Mill End, Rickmansworth, and we assume work to have been various but intermittent  We know from the published court records that he met a former acquaintance, Rose Gurney, where they spent some time in a local public house. Witnesses reported seeing the pair later that evening, and Coleman was observed having his hands around Gurney's neck.  They then came across two other male acquaintances of hers; she left Coleman and accompanied them. Coleman stated he did not appear to be concerned about the parting although he was observed to have shown some irritation at the time.  No other event of that evening was reported to the trial.

Two female witnesses reported walking through Rickmansworth Park the following morning and came across the body of a woman who was subsequently identified as Rose Gurney, with neck bruises and a number of knife stabs on her chest.  Coleman was found later that day at a public house in nearby Sarratt village.  The arresting police officer found fresh blood on his clothing, and in the trial Coleman was quoted as saying "I'm not afraid to die", inviting the officer to hang him for what he had done.

A postcard view of Rickmansworth Park probably taken near the time when the murder of Rose
Gurney took place.

We don't have a detailed account of the trial and are left with the impression that witness statements and other evidence were fairly brief.  The jury was evenly split, causing a judge to re-hear the case later in Hertford, where Coleman was found guilty.  His previous convictions also came to light at this point: indecent behaviour in a church, larceny, wilful damage, game trespass, assault, drunk and disorderly behaviour, and the above mentioned mutilation of a dog.

Coleman was returned to St Albans Prison and executed on 21st December 1911, the final capital punishment before the prison closed.

The case was covered in detail by the Watford Observer and in one or two national newspapers, but not at all by the Herts Advertiser, possibly on the grounds that the prisoner had no connection with St Albans other than the place of his incarceration, in spite of the newspaper's considerable circulation area, covering at least half of the county at the time, including Watford and Rickmansworth.

New Building Systems

 The recent blog post Post-war Primaries provided insight into the startling contrasts in architectural and building styles between our schools from pre-war days and those which came to blossom in our communities from the 1950s onwards.  In this final post of the series about our schools here is a more extended portrait of the Hertfordshire Surveyor's Office response to providing school buildings in the period after the excellent brick structures of the thirties, with their nod to Georgian and classical styles.  It was in this period that the County Architect's Department was conceived, and it was in 1940 that John Newsom (later Sir John, whose seminal report Half Our Future was published in 1963) was appointed as the County Education Officer.  He and Henry Morris, Newsom's equivalent in Cambridgeshire, developed radical views for the time on how how children might in the future be educated.  Key to that was to be the environment in which the learning would be carried out.

As Andrew Saint's brief overview Not Buildings But a Method of Building states "If you take seriously the philosophy that good architecture is not so much about appearances as about enabling people to live fuller, richer lives, then there are only a few kinds of buildings in which you have the opportunity to try it out in detail."

The skeleton of an 8 feet 3 inch building.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

By far the majority of schools which would be required after the war would be primaries, and such schools would be ideal trialling grounds.  But the demands on resources would be considerable.  In addition to the normal buildings requirement for a county of Hertfordshire's size, the government's post-war New Towns strategy would place four such towns – Stevenage, Hemel Hempstead, Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City extension – inside Hertfordshire's boundaries and which would be developed concurrently.  Such an intense commitment required up to ten school sites to be commissioned each year once the building programme had been geared up.

"The School in the Orchard:" Aboyne Lodge Infants School, 1950.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

 Among the building materials in short supply were bricks, and in order to shorten the completion time for each project at whatever time of year more reliance would have been required on units of the structure made in factories ready to assemble on site.  So a system evolved based on standardised module kits based on 8 feet 3 inches.  Though successful as a learning tool for the architects – and maintaining consistency in project costs – subsequent modules were made based, first on 3 feet 4 inches, and then 2 feet 8 inches.  Increasingly, therefore, more flexibility was available while using the same units of construction.  Classrooms, which at one time had been boxed off cuboids linked by corridors; the latter were specifically walking routes between the classrooms though not well utilised at times other than peak movement ("between lessons").  Corridors  were widened and became shared spaces with nearby learning areas. 

Light and airy classroom, Aboyne Lodge Infants School 1950
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

We are all familiar with modern schools having large window walls to allow light to flood into rooms and provide vistas towards outside planted green spaces; courtyards and other external spaces for classroom extensions were introduced.  The post-war schools were not part of a fixed plan, but a developing vision resulting from architects, teachers and educationalists jointly learning to make optimal uses of the emerging structural technologies.  Of course, walls of windows required sun shielding methods – endless horizontal blind systems needing frequent repair; those steel V beams across rooms at ceiling height which were major dust collectors, as were the heating cabinets which drew in cool air at ground level and spewed it out again at head height, also requiring maintenance inside the cabinets for dust removal and occasional replacement of fan motors; the plasterboard mouldings surrounding the steel pillars every eight feet or so which, accidentally or not, were easily kicked.  Tungsten lighting was gradually replaced by fluorescent tubes and false ceilings became the later norm, hiding the V beams (and those dust ledges) and provided useful service ducts and a modicum of insulation.

Adaptable and interchangeable space in a typical 1960s primary school.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Insulation, of course, remained an issue in the years of single pane glazing and metal panelling, dozens of access doors which often  remained open after use, mostly led straight into rooms or corridors without an intervening air-lock space.  Heated by oil for the most part until gradual conversion to gas, the buildings were inevitably expensive to heat, and the mainly flat roofs required attention after fifteen years or so.  But such were the inevitable downsides of brave attempts to introduce what some have termed kit schools.  As the methodology has matured and was adapted to larger secondary schools and colleges, today's educational buildings are a world away from their 1950s beginners.  They are also far more expensive as the benefits of scale building programmes were lost following the first two decades post-war.  Those early buildings have become far more resilient than predicted at the time: a school opened in 1960, for example might have been expected to serve a minimum of 25 to 30 years but are still flourishing more than sixty years later.  School population fluctuations in the past 40 years have been largely managed by either fixed extensions, portable classrooms (as in Terrapin or Trafalgar types) or by closing one building and amalgamating with a nearby school.

Today's building requirements need to achieve the same flexibility of internal space as Hertfordshire's pioneer teams specified, while returning to greater use of more traditional external materials such as brick.

One further feature of those early post-war schools which some of us will recall are the extensive use of bright wall colours, and specially commissioned curtaining materials, usually in the halls.  Sometimes controversially, commissioned murals occupied external walls instead of bland concrete, and – usually at secondary schools – the purchase of items of sculpture to inspire.

Hertfordshire module system adapted for St Albans College of Further
Education in Hatfield Road 1959.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

As the early Hertfordshire model became more widely known other authorities took notice and adopted the same or similar concepts, including widely in London, which of course, would benefit from systems building, given the amount of war-time damage and freshly designed residential neighbourhoods.  Hertfordshire was in the vanguard of school building design and the young architects from its department spread their wings and influenced the approaches to school building in the counties in which they were subsequently employed.

In the east end of St Albans we have a representative collection of schools built in the Newsom era and the decade following.  Reflecting on Andrew Saint's quote from above:

"If you take seriously the philosophy that good architecture is not so much about appearances as about enabling people to live fuller, richer lives, then there are only a few kinds of buildings in which you have the opportunity to try it out in detail."

Up To Date

 Well, education services have come a very long way since the arrival of Board schools in the 1870s and 1880s (see the early posts in this series).  There had been one all-purpose school in each parish, including the rural ones, and two or three independent.  These were broadly from the existing early 19th century British and National  establishments. At the last count St Albans contained thirty-nine schools (more if separate and privately-run nurseries are included).  For the purpose of these blogs I have excluded Harpenden although it is very much a part of St Albans District.

Courtesy Garden Fields JMI School

Courtesy Marlborough Science Academy

The story of our secondary schools reached the post-war period as designated by the Butler Education Act (1944) and had just about settled into a range of grammar, secondary modern and technical schools to add to the established independent schools.  Once the system had bedded in a report chaired by Sir John Newsom investigated how the system was functioning as the Act had intended.  In fact, the resulting report (Half Our Future, aka The Newsom Report) and published in 1963, had a rather narrower focus; its terms of reference were

'To consider the education between the ages of 13 and 16 of pupils of average or less than average ability who are or will be following full-time courses either at schools or in establishments of further education. The term education shall be understood to include extra-curricular activities.' 

Sir John Newsom was none other than Hertfordshire's former Chief Education Officer who had overseen some remarkable improvements to this county's educational provision.  Half Our Future was also a thorough review of the inquiry which had taken place and formed the basis of the next stage in the national advancement for post-eleven year olds.  Enter the new wave of comprehensive schools,  also referred to as all-ability schools).

Courtesy Oaklands College

Courtesy St Albans School

To say there were fireworks was an understatement.  These centred on the future role of grammar schools in a world without the tripartite network.  Over a period of time in the 1970s St Albans Girls' Grammar School (STAGGS which lost one G in the process), Francis Bacon Grammar School and St Albans County Boys' Grammar School, widened their admission criteria, and the latter also revised its name to Verulam School.

During the same period the former Secondary Moderns also widened their intakes.  During the planning for these changes the small-to-medium sized secondary model also required adaptation to avoid extra schools in a world of increased pupil numbers.  All the existing schools found spaces within their footprints for additional classroom blocks, facility buildings and administration wings. 

Even as the secondary modern schools were creating their own roles for the wide range of children unsuccessful at gaining places at a grammar school (from which the term failed the eleven plus gained momentum), it was recognised that secondary modern schools were often well on the way to becoming all ability by virtue of the shortage of spaces in grammar schools, and, in some cases the preferences expressed by a modest number of parents choosing a particular school for their children irrespective of designation.  Schools across the board were quick to promote a wide spectrum of GCE O and A Level results long before Newsom's report was on the table.

Courtesy Cunningham Hill Schools

Courtesy Beaumont School

The all-ability model still forms the basis of our learning environment, whether today it is called a school or an academy, or even a college.  It may be an all-through establishment, as in Samuel Ryder Academy, a specialist academy, as in Marlborough Science Academy; or a community school, such as Beaumont.  Federations of schools work together to make more efficient their respective Sixth Form offerings (Sandringham, Verulam and Beaumont, for example), and the Teaching School Hub principle (Sandringham) is similar to the early Pupil Teacher Training Centres (such as the former Central School).  Even primary schools are linked together or to secondary schools as a component of academy trust groups.  So, today's structure is complex.  

All schools are now in the same game of attracting pupils to join their environments.  The modern version of the front gate or open evening is the school website.  And the only password thought to be acceptable in the educational market place seems to be Outstanding! 

And I haven't even mentioned other specialist schools for the particular needs of small groups of children, for example Batchwood and Heathlands.  To complete this series of posts there follows a listing of what are believed to be all schools from all phases in and around St Albans.  If I have accidentally omitted an establishment, I hope a supporter will let me know.

Courtesy Mount Pleasant Lane Primary School

Aboyne Lodge

Alban City

Batchwood

Beaumont

Bernards Heath Infants

Bernards Heath Juniors

Camp

Colney Heath

Cunningham

Fleetville Infants 

Fleetville Junior

Garden Fields

Heathlands

High School for Girls

How Wood

Killigrew

Loreto College

Mandeville

Maple

Margaret Wix

Marlborough Science Academy

Mount Pleasant Lane

Nicholas Breakspear Catholic

Oaklands College

Oakwood

Park Street

Prae Wood

Samuel Ryder Academy

Sandridge

Sandringham

Skyswood

St Adrian's RC Primary School

St Albans

Ss Alban & Stephen Primary School

St Albans Girls

St Columba's

St John Fisher

Townsend

Verulam

Wheatfields Infants

Wheatfields Junior

Windermere

Board Responsibility

 Before continuing with this week's post an apology is due to all SAOEE readers.  The current series of education blog posts was created in advance and then released individually each week.  With only one instalment to go I realised I have two posts held in draft. So, the "chapters" of the story which you have all read have an important gap, in that the reference to the Board schools is missing.  You, dear readers, have been remarkably restrained – and patient.  Below, therefore, is the really important thirty years in which the 1870 Education Act enabled local education Boards to get to work. 

Enjoy!

Abbey parish created its National schools in Spicer Street, and the title is still displayed
boldly above the entrance to the former boys' school.  From the 1870s new schools built by the 
St Albans School Board provided places to larger numbers of children.

1870 was a key date for children's education; this was the first time Parliament assumed a responsibility for education – note, a responsibility, not the responsibility.  The existing system of British and National schools continued, for which the state provided grants. Now there was to be a Board of Education and local committees to ensure sufficient resources were available for all children within the age confines stipulated, which initially was ten years, but later extended to 12.  What the state undertook was to build a system while the existing parish schools continued to operate separately.

The first board school was on land owned by St Peter's Church and named Hatfield Road Boys'
School.  The buildings were subsequently enlarged as the population increased.  During the
post-war period the same buildings were used by Pemberton JMI school until their new site was
completed in Hall Place Gardens (now called Maple School).  Many residents will recall
children at play on the former playground (photo below) where the St Albans City
School is today.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

To illustrate the slow pace of progress in St Albans, its Board unwilling to do anything which would cost money, and only then when they really had to!  Talk was as far as the Board got until 1877.  However, two Board schools emerged quickly after that.  Hatfield Road School opened in 1881, and an almost immediate enlargement gave it a capacity of 500 boys by 1885.  It was built almost opposite the Marlborough Almshouses and where St Albans Free School is today.  The school continued until 1938 when the remaining pupils transferred to the then new Beaumont School.  However, the buildings re-opened after World War Two and became the temporary home of Pemberton JMI School.

The architect's drawing of the second Board School in Alma Road.  The view is from the junction of Alma Road and Bedford Road.  Once more the school was enlarged for greater numbers. The
entrance on the corner was reserved for children of the Infants department.  It became Alma 
Road JMI in the re-organisation plan, and post-war was a temporary home to at least three 
starter schools before their new buildings were complete.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

Opening a year later than Hatfield Road, in 1882, a second Board school opened in Alma Road for 250 infants and 230 older girls.  It was the first Board school in St Albans to have classrooms on two floors.  Alma Road became a JMI after 1930s reorganisation, and continued to offer accommodation temporarily to many schools right through the 1960s.  The existence of these two Board schools greatly relieved the pressure on classroom space throughout the city.

By the end of the 19th century it was necessary to divide the senior boys in St Albans between two
schools.  Priory Park was opened on a site in Old London Road and adjacent to St Peter's National
School.

Many residents remember Priory Park being a girls' school, which it was following the re-
organisation plan in the 1930s.  The plaque still proves, however, that originally it was 
Priory Park Boys' School.

The period from 1870 was also one of accelerated population growth with new house building in the development area known as New Town, both as Bedford Park and St Peter's Park.  So, by the turn of the century a third Board school was created in Old London Road.  Located next to St Peter's National School, Priory Park was a basic school for boys (on a not very convenient site).  From the 1930s reorganisation Priory Park became a girls' school and only ceased to be a school after the opening of St Julian's (now Marlborough) School in the 1960s; although in the meantime some of its accommodation was utilised by St Peter's next door, which is probably why the title St Peter's was occasionally applied to both buildings.

Before Priory Park, however, the overcrowding from the central infants sites had to be
managed.  This was handled by the building of Garden Fields Board School. Below the top roof
space the plaque still announces St Albans School Board. Above the entrance to the right
the name Garden Fields School is identified.

The St Albans Board opened a further school in 1896, Garden Fields,  at the western end of what was then known as Catherine Lane (now Catherine Street).  Specifically, it was intended to replace the much overcrowded and restricted buildings in Cross Street and Bernard Street.  Both infants and girls accommodation were extended within a few years.

A part of St Albans then outside of the city boundary was a developing area called Sandridge New Town.  We know it as Bernard's Heath, but for education purposes it was the responsibility of the St Albans Board.  The building was an all-age facility, but a later addition opening onto Upper Culver Road became separate infants accommodation.  By 1914 there were 150 infants, and 225 girls and boys on roll.  In 1950 it became an infant-only school; the juniors taking advantage of a new school, Spencer, in Watson Avenue.  So, a single school with two difference names, a confusion not adjusted until 2005 when Spencer Junior School was renamed Bernards Heath Junior School.

A further school of the Board period, though rather later, was the responsibility of St Peter's Rural Council.  Its Board  planned a school in Camp Road, for opening in 1898, and accommodating children of all ages in the rural district, which would, within a couple of years also include an increasing number of Camp and Fleetville children.  While technically planned and opened as a Board school it has always been considered an elementary school – the developing system which heralded transfer of responsibility for schools to the then new county councils.  This is undoubtedly the reason for the wall plaque displaying the name St Peter's Rural Elementary School.

So, at the start of the Board system, if we assume the new school infant numbers to be about 170 boys and 170 girls, who would then transfer to the appropriate senior departments, this would still leave the two senior girls schools less than half full, and Hatfield Road boys' only one-third full.  Three processes were probably at work concurrently.  First, the previously described population expansion in the New Town area.  It was only in 1879 that the city's eastern boundary was moved from Lattimore Road to Albion Road.  Second, a proportion of older children previously at one of the National or British schools undoubtedly took the opportunity to transfer to a Board school.  Third, there will have been an unknown number of children who had received no education at all in their younger years and as the facilities became available these new learners took up their places at the Board institutions – just as the state had intended.

Next time we discover the role of Hertfordshire County Council in developing the elementary system in line with government expectations.