Chiswick: Education

EDUCATION.

A schoolhouse repaired in 1642-3 and 1663-4 probably was also used for vestry meetings, since it was to make way for a new vestry room by the church gate in 1691. (fn. 1) Presumably it had no successor until a charity school, also near the church, was founded in 1707. (fn. 2) Aided by legacies, (fn. 3) the school expanded until in 1813 (fn. 4) the boys were rehoused at Turnham Green and in 1819, when it was a National school, the vicar claimed that Chiswick offered sufficient education for the poor. (fn. 5) Dissenters' schools, of which there were two by 1833, (fn. 6) proved short lived but perhaps prompted the foundation and enlargement of National schools for Turnham Green and Strand-on-theGreen, as did the opening of Turnham Green Roman Catholic school c. 1848. (fn. 7) From 1857 all three of the parish's main settlements were served by National schools, which in the late 1860s catered for c. 1,000 children. (fn. 8)

A school board was elected in 1872, when, being predominantly Anglican, (fn. 9) it took over all the National schools with very little opposition. Although there was then no shortage of places, the spread of housing had led to overcrowding by 1876. Provision for the most populous areas started with the lease in 1874 of part of the new Glebe estate, where a school was opened in 1877, and continued at Turnham Green and Chiswick until a new school was opened in Hogarth Road in 1884. Overcrowding recurred in the 1890s at Strand-on-the-Green, where attendance was poor and where the school was enlarged, and Turnham Green, but the board's standards were generally held to be high. (fn. 10) From 1893 the endowments of Chiswick National school formed an educational charity, a branch of the parochial charities, to support a Sunday school. (fn. 11)

Chiswick U.D. became an autonomous part III authority, responsible for elementary education, under the Education Act of 1902. The school board accordingly was replaced in 1903 by the U.D.C.'s education committee, which was rebuked by the Board of Education for the lack of places. (fn. 12) Alleviation started with the opening of Belmont school in 1905 and was such that there was little overcrowding in the period between the World Wars, except briefly at the new Hogarth and Beverley Road infants' schools in the 1920s, before their extension. Between 1921 and 1931 the committee (from 1927 for Brentford and Chiswick) reorganized the boys' and girls' departments at Belmont, Hogarth, and Strand-onthe-Green schools into senior and junior mixed schools, on the lines of the Hadow Report. The area's first county secondary school was opened in 1916 and followed by Brentford and Chiswick's own central schools, in Staveley Road, in 1927. (fn. 13)

Under the Act of 1944 Brentford and Chiswick became an 'excepted district', responsible for both primary and secondary education. After primary schools for new estates had been opened in 1952, the Chiswick part of the borough in 1957 contained 10 primary schools: 2 junior mixed schools (Belmont and Strand-on-the-Green), 1 junior boys' and 1 junior girls' school (Hogarth), 2 junior mixed and infants' (the new Grove Park and Cavendish), and 4 infants' (Belmont, Beverley Road, Hogarth, and Strand-on-theGreen). There were also 5 secondary schools: a mixed secondary modern (Hogarth), boys' and girls' secondary moderns (Staveley Road), and boys' and girls' grammar schools (Chiswick County). (fn. 14) By 1964 Hogarth junior schools had been united, Hogarth senior school had closed, and the transfer of St. Mary's R.C. school from Acton had brought Chiswick its sole voluntary aided school, although there were four such schools in Brentford. (fn. 15)

Hounslow L.B. succeeded as the education authority in 1965 and adopted a comprehensive scheme which in 1968 led to the amalgamation of the secondary modern and grammar schools. (fn. 16) In 1979, in addition to the comprehensive Chiswick school, there were 8 primary schools, 4 of them for juniors and infants, 2 for juniors alone, and 2 for infants alone. (fn. 17)

Public schools. (fn. 18)

The general sources are those indicated above, p. 44, and the same abbreviations are used.

Belmont Primary, Belmont Rd. Opened 1905 as council schs. for BGI to replace Turnham Green Nat. 1919 accn. 354 B, 354 G, 396 I, a.a. 327 B, 325 G, 322 I. Also served as central sch. bef. opening of Staveley Rd. (q.v.) 1927. Reorg. 1931 for SM, JM, I. 1938 accn. 320 SM, 394 JM, 350 I, a.a. 159 SM, 245 JM, 183 I. SB, SG moved 1948 to Staveley Rd. JM and I amalg. 1969. Roll 1979: 159 and nursery class.

Beverley Rd. I. Opened 1926 on site of All Saints' ch. (fn. 19) as council sch. for 400 I. 1938 accn. 450, a.a. 262. Amalg. 1978 with Hogarth I (q.v.).

Cavendish Primary, Edensor Rd. Opened 1952 for JMI. Roll 1979: 190.

Chiswick British, Chiswick Lane. Opened by ? 1833 as Lancasterian sch. with 155 BG. (fn. 20) New bldg. 1836, blt. with parl. grant and vol. contributions, financed 1845 by vol. contributions and school pence (2d.). (fn. 21) Closed between 1852 and 1862.

Chiswick County, Burlington Lane. Opened as county grammar schs. 1916 SG, 1926 SB. Coed. grammar sch. 1966. Amalg. 1968 with Staveley Rd. schs. as Chiswick sch. (q.v.).

Chiswick Nat. Opened 1707 (fn. 22) in churchyard as charity sch. for 25 B and 10 (later 25) G. (fn. 23) Trustees, first headed by Sir Stephen Fox and Sir John Chardin, (fn. 24) from 1717 inc. all subscribers of 40s. or more a year. (fn. 25) Financed by subscriptions, inc. from dukes of Devonshire from 1762, (fn. 26) sermons, and legacies: rent charge of £37 10s. in 1819 under will (pr. 1721) of Dorothy, Lady Capel, sums left by various donors recorded in 1785 but not thereafter, and interest on £100 from Robert Horley by will dated 1800 and £100 from Mrs. Elizabeth Blackshaw by will dated 1805. B in vestry room 1795 and G in schoolroom blt. c. 1792. (fn. 27) B moved to new schoolroom with master's ho. at Turnham Green on land given by duke of Devonshire 1813, when sch. of industry and Sunday sch. attached and G sch. repaired. (fn. 28) Union with Nat. Soc. (fn. 29) and Dr. Bell's system adopted by 1819: 130 B, inc. 25 clothed; 90 G, inc. 35 clothed. (fn. 30) Sch. for I established bef. 1848 by J. C. Sharpe. (fn. 31) B sch. enlarged 1836, G sch. rebuilt 1838. (fn. 32) Further bequests 1826, 1849; parl. grant for G 1857, (fn. 33) for B 1860. (fn. 34) a.a. 1866: 276 BGI. Called Chiswick Nat. char. schs. to 1852, (fn. 35) bd. sch. from 1872; GI replaced by (Chiswick) Glebe 1877, B by Hogarth J 1884. (fn. 36) Bldg. in churchyard repaired c. 1923, demol. 1951. (fn. 37)

Chiswick Sch., Burlington Lane. Opened 1968 as SM comprehensive formed by amalg. of Chiswick County (see above) with Staveley Rd. sec. mod. (q.v.). 1979 lower sch. in Staveley Rd., upper sch. in Burlington Lane. Roll 1979: 1,650 BG.

Glebe, Glebe Street. Opened 1877 as Chiswick Glebe bd. sch. for 625 GI. G moved 1884 to Hogarth Rd. (fn. 38) By 1898 accn. 702, a.a. 620; 1919 accn. 651, a.a. 505. Closed 1926.

Grove Park Primary, Nightingale Close. Opened 1952 for JMI. Roll 1979: 210.

Hogarth J, Duke Rd. Opened 1884 as Hogarth Rd. bd. schs. to replace Chiswick B Nat. and take G from Glebe. (fn. 39) By 1898 accn. 824 B, a.a. 843; 948 G, a.a. 639. Called Hogarth schs. by 1919. Reorg. for SB, JB 1921, SG, JG 1927/32. 1927 accn. 872 B, a.a. 740; 948 G, a.a. 748; 1938 accn. 776 B, a.a. 447; 800 G, a.a. 425. Reorg. as JM in new bldg. next to Hogarth I sch. 1958, old blgs. becoming a youth centre and St. Mary's R.C. sch. Roll 1979: 213 JM.

Hogarth I, Devonshire Street. Opened 1920 in Hogarth Lane. 1927 accn. 200, a.a. 194; 1938 accn. 250, a.a. 164. New bldg. 1956, old one being demol. for rd. widening. Amalg. with Beverley Rd. I 1978. Roll 1979: 196 I and nursery class.

St. Mary Magdalene Nat. Established by deed 1859. Nothing further known. (fn. 40)

St. Mary's R.C. primary, Duke Rd. JI moved 1964 from Acton Lane (Acton) (fn. 41) to former Hogarth J sch. Roll 1979: 275.

Staveley Rd. Opened 1927 as central schs. (fn. 42) 1938 accn. 320 SB, 320 SG, a.a. 146 SB, 183 SG. Later sec. mod. schs. for 400 SB, 400 SG. Amalg. 1968 with Chiswick County grammar sch. as Chiswick sch. (q.v.). (fn. 43)

Strand-On-The-Green British. Opened ? 1829, with 80 BG 1833. (fn. 44) New bldg. 1833, used also as Cong. chapel 1851. (fn. 45) Closed by ? 1857, bldg. thereafter housing Strand-on-the-Green (Nat.) J and I (q.v.).

Strand-On-The-Green J and I, Thames Rd. Opened 1857 in yard of Ship inn as Nat. sch. for GI. (fn. 46) Bd. sch.; also B, from 1872. Moved 1874. 1880 accn. 211, a.a. 100; 1894 accn. 447, a.a. 278; 1906 accn. 629, a.a. 671. New bldg. for B 1912. (fn. 47) 1919 accn. 420 B, 396 G, 357 I, a.a. 348 B, 317 G, 281 I. Reorg. 1930 for SM, JM, I. 1938 accn. 280 SM, 350 JM, 338 I, a.a. 131 SM, 274 JM, 230 I. SM moved to Staveley Rd. 1946, 1947. (fn. 48) Rolls 1979: 165 J; 160 I and nursery class.

Turnham Green Nat. Opened before 1845 by Fred. Gibson (fn. 49) for 100 I in hired bldg. New schoolroom and ho. 1848 on waste land north side Chiswick High Rd. erected with parl. grant and financed by subscriptions, sermons, and school pence. (fn. 50) B and I schs. by 1860. 1866 a.a. 57 B, 105 I. Sch. for G south side Chiswick High Rd. by 1867. (fn. 51) Bd. schs. from 1872. 1880 accn. 125 B, 375 GI, a.a. 92B, 148 GI; 1894 accn. 125 B, 522 GI, a.a. 102 B, 520 GI. B closed 1897, GI c. 1905.

Turnham Green R.C., Windmill Place. Opened by 1848, (fn. 52) reopened 1853 for BGI in bldg. of 1850 with 3 schoolrooms and ho. for teacher. Managed by priest of Turnham Green R.C. mission. Financed 1864 by vol. contributions and school pence, (fn. 53) by 1866 parl. grant. 1866 a.a. 105. 1882 accn. 328, a.a. 127. Closed by 1894.

Adult and technical education.

Evening classes were held at Chiswick National school in 1869. (fn. 54) They apparently ceased on the establishment of a school board but were resumed in 1891 and were attended by 79 in 1892. Under the Technical Instruction Act, 1889, day and evening classes within a scheme drawn up by Middlesex C.C. were offered in 1895 at Chiswick School of Art, which had opened in Bath Road, Bedford Park, in 1881, in a building designed by Maurice B. Adams. (fn. 55) Subjects included laundry work, carpentry, and plumbing in 1897, when there was a Chiswick technical committee, presumably appointed by the U.D.C. (fn. 56)

Acton and Chiswick Polytechnic was formed in 1899, when Middlesex C.C. took over the school of art. After more rooms had been added in 1908 it was the largest polytechnic in Middlesex, supported also by the two U.D.C.s and attended in 1909 by 2,282 students, including 571 at branch classes in Acton and Chiswick. (fn. 57) The buildings were further extended in 1953-4 and formed part of Hounslow Borough College from 1965. Some 300 full-time and 150 part-time students attended in 1979. (fn. 58)

Private schools. (fn. 59)

Several large houses served in the 18th and 19th centuries as private schools, where c. 450-500 were educated in 1819. (fn. 60) There were 22 fee-paying boarding schools in 1835 (fn. 61) and roughly the same number of private schools throughout the century, although by 1890 many were for day pupils.

An expensive boarding academy was that of Maurice Margarot, which c. 1780 contained a French chapel and where young nobles and gentlemen were taught French, classics, and geography, with Portuguese and several fashionable accomplishments as extra subjects. Described as at Turnham Green, 'near Lord Egmont's', (fn. 62) it may possibly have been a forerunner of Afton college, said to have been founded in 1748 and with 75 boys in 1872, when its previous history was not recorded. (fn. 63)

Dr. William Rose (1719-86), translator of Sallust, kept a successful academy at Chiswick from 1758 until his death. A friend of Dr. Johnson, who disapproved of his leniency, Rose was assisted in his last years by his son-in-law Dr. Charles Burney (1757-1817), the classical critic, who moved to Hammersmith in 1786. Rose's pupils included his son Samuel (1767-1804), the friend of Cowper, Irwin Eyles (1751 ?-1817), oriental traveller, Henry Angelo (1760-1839?), fencing master, and probably Samuel Shepherd (1760-1840), lawyer, and Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840), author and publisher. (fn. 64) Rose's academy was probably the later Bradmore House in Chiswick Lane, still a school under Edmund Brasier in 1832 and 1851 (fn. 65) and under William John Stafford in 1890 but demolished by 1904. (fn. 66)

At Manor Farm House in Chiswick Lane a boarding academy was kept from c. 1786 by the Revd. Thomas Horne (1737-1824), (fn. 67) who taught 82 boys in 1801. (fn. 68) Pupils included his son William (1774-1860), later Sir William, the attorneygeneral, John Copley (1772-1863), later Lord Chancellor as Lord Lyndhurst, who thought Horne a good classical scholar, and the philanthropist Anthony Ashley Cooper (1801-85), later earl of Shaftesbury, (fn. 69) who remembered a large and brutal school which had given him an early horror of oppression. (fn. 70) Horne's son Thomas was master from 1824 until 1835 but by 1845 the school had been turned into an asylum. (fn. 71)

College House, no longer used by Westminster school, was a boarding school under Mary Solieux, with 56 inmates in 1801, before its acquisition for the Chiswick Press. (fn. 72) At Walpole House, also in Chiswick Mall, a school was kept by the Revd. John Turner and attended by his wife's great nephew William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) from 1818. (fn. 73) It was probably the original of Miss Pinkerton's academy in Vanity Fair, which Thackeray placed in Chiswick Mall, although his illustration, (fn. 74) showing massive gate piers and another house opposite, gave some support to a claim that he had been describing Boston House. (fn. 75)

Sutton Court, advertised as in 9 a. and convenient for London, (fn. 76) was a boarding school under Frederick Tappenden by 1845. It had a resident French teacher and 17 boys in 1851, (fn. 77) apparently had expanded by 1872, when younger boys were prepared for public school and elder ones for the professions, (fn. 78) and was an expensive preparatory school by 1879. (fn. 79) Frederick Tappenden had left Sutton Court by 1886 and Charles Tappenden, probably his son, was principal of the purpose-built Gunnersbury college in 1890. (fn. 80)

Many well established boys' schools closed in the 19th century. Belmont House, Turnham Green, was kept in 1832 by the Revd. Thomas Crabb, in 1845 by Benjamin Clements, and in the 1870s by J. Russell Cloutte, who prepared boys for the services and professions. Walpole House, in 1872 under John Wilson Allen and in 1879 under Thomas Corfield Allen, was said to have been founded in 1845, although J. W. Allen had a school in Chiswick Mall by 1832. Bolton House, in the high road under T. G. Dyne in 1845 and 1861, was still the name of a boys' preparatory school, in Grove Park Terrace, in 1890. Chiswick Collegiate school, for boarders and day boys like Walpole House, existed from 1847 until 1879 or later. (fn. 81) Ivy House, Turnham Green, was kept in 1861 by the Revd. John Bonus, a Roman Catholic, and advertised for foreigners. Longer lived girls' schools included Boston House, under Mrs. Nethercliff in 1845 and 1861 and offering a refined education to university entrance for boarders and day pupils in 1884. (fn. 82) St. Agnes's orphanage in 1878 briefly opened a Church of England school for c. 60 girls by renting the old charity school building in the churchyard. (fn. 83)

There were still c. 20 private schools in 1908, several of them founded for the new suburbs. Grove Park in 1890 was served by a girls' school in Spencer Road, perhaps one which survived under Miss I. Eley in 1926, and by boys' and kindergarten schools in Grove Park Terrace. Bedford Park school, an early mixed school with no religious instruction, and the more conventional Bedford Park high school both opened in 1884. (fn. 84) In addition to professors of music and languages, Bedford Park in 1890 had Chiswick high school at Sydney House and Bedford Park high school near by in Priory Road, Acton. The first, a mixed secondary school under Miss Alice Woods, (fn. 85) was presumably the former Bedford Park school and unconnected with Chiswick high school for girls or Chiswick girls' school, both of which existed by 1926. It amalgamated in 1895 with Bedford Park high school to form Chiswick and Bedford Park high school, (fn. 86) at no. 9 Queen Anne's Gardens in 1908 and at Priory House, Priory Avenue, in 1909. A girls' school at Priory House, called Bedford Park college, was bought c. 1932 by Mme Fellowes, who transferred pupils there from Haslemere school in the Avenue. Her new school, renamed Chiswick and Bedford Park high, later preparatory, school, was managed by her daughters in 1979, when it contained 200 boys and girls to the age of eleven. (fn. 87)

No other private schools survived in 1979. A ladies' school under Miss M. C. Martin at no. 26 Oxford Road by 1890 may have been the later Oxford college, at no. 367 High Road from 1916; the school had 70-80 pupils aged 3 to 16 and was said to be over 100 years old on its closure in 1973, which was followed by the building's conversion into the headquarters of Brentford and Isleworth Labour party. (fn. 88) Gunnersbury preparatory school for boys, in Burnaby Gardens by 1900, was later claimed to date from 1820 (fn. 89) and survived c. 1952, when it was one of Chiswick's three best known independent schools. The others were St. Margaret's, opened in 1932 in Sutton Court Road and in 1957 containing over 100 girls, many with well known parents, and the adjoining Compton House, for boys. (fn. 90) Both schools, in Sutton Court Road, closed in 1962. (fn. 91) Arlington Park college, Sutton Lane, opened in 1890, prepared boys for university, and survived until the Second World War, as did Sutton girls' school, with a boys' preparatory department, in Sutton Lane from 1903 and later in Marlborough Road. (fn. 92)