Little Horkesley: Education

EDUCATION.

By 1818 a Sunday and weekday school, each with 20 children, were supported by charitable contributions. (fn. 1) In 1833 there were 20 children in the Sunday school and the vicar also paid £20 a year for 30 children to go to school in Great Horkesley. (fn. 2) In 1835 a school had 14 pupils during the week and another 23 on Sundays. In 1841 there was again only a Sunday school, with 10 boys and 15 girls; chil- dren went to Great Horkesley during the week, at the expense of the vicar and another par- ishioner. (fn. 3) In 1846-7 only 3 boys and 9 girls attended school during the week and another boy and 21 girls on Sundays. (fn. 4)

An infants' school was recorded in 1866, and in 1870 a schoolhouse was built. (fn. 5) The school, with accommodation for 72, ran for some years, but closed on the death of Thomas Bourdillon of Little Horkesley Hall in 1888. (fn. 6) The children were then taught at Great Horkesley until 1894. In that year a church school opened in the old schoolhouse, against the wishes of the vicar, to avoid a school board. It received yearly government grants from 1895. (fn. 7) The school was reckoned to be inefficient between 1909 and 1911; a new classroom was apparently added c. 1910. It was reorganized for juniors and infants in 1927, and closed with 12 pupils in 1936; the children were transferred to Great Horkesley School. (fn. 8) The red brick schoolhouse survives at the rear of a 19th-century house on School Road.