Hadley and Horton: Education

EDUCATION.

The Revd. Robert Roe (fn. 1) was keeping a school in Hadley manor house in the 1690s, (fn. 2) and between 1840, or earlier, and 1851 George Jones was keeping one in a former Baptist schoolroom at Hadley. (fn. 3) Mrs. Ann Jones kept a school c. 1870; it may have been the Hadley United School whose expansion was agreed upon by Anglicans and Wesleyans intent on preventing the formation of a school board; (fn. 4) the venture, however, seems to have been unsuccessful or brief (fn. 5) and Hadley was included in the area of the Wellington board in 1872. (fn. 6)

Hadley Board Schools, Station Road, were opened in 1874 with 232 places in mixed and infant departments; there was also a master's house. It was the first purpose-built board school in Shropshire. (fn. 7) A girls' department was opened in 1876. (fn. 8) Enlargement in 1884 produced places for 230 boys, 220 girls, and 210 infants; (fn. 9) a gymnasium was built in 1885. (fn. 10) Average attendance rose from 244 in 1885 to 650 in 1913. (fn. 11) Annual reports during the period were consistently good despite irregular attendance, (fn. 12) poverty and inability to pay fees during times of industrial depression, (fn. 13) and long closures during epidemics. (fn. 14) From 1875 the drawing reports for the boys' school were exceptionally good (fn. 15) and in the 1880s pupils were taking examinations in machine construction and physics. (fn. 16)

Reorganization for secondary education, considered in 1937, (fn. 17) was delayed for over twenty years. In 1936 and 1937, however, cookery and woodwork centres were built for senior pupils from Hadley and neighbouring schools. (fn. 18) The railway close by caused dirt and noise interrupting work. (fn. 19) Overcrowding in the 1940s (fn. 20) was relieved in 1951 when the infants transferred to a new school in Crescent Road. (fn. 21) Hadley County Boys' and Girls' schools, each with junior and senior pupils, continued until 1958 when the seniors transferred to a new secondary modern school in Crescent Road. The school reopened as Hadley County Junior School with 285 boys and girls. (fn. 22) In 1973 staff and pupils transferred to a replacement school in Crescent Road. (fn. 23)

Hadley County Infant School, Crescent Road, opened in 1951. (fn. 24) In 1970 the first purpose-built nursery unit to be attached to a Shropshire infant school was built under the government's urban aid programme, mainly because a quarter of the children were Asian or West Indian. (fn. 25) In 1982 there were 130 pupils. (fn. 26)

Hadley Secondary Modern School, Crescent Road, with 450 places, (fn. 27) opened in 1958 (fn. 28) to serve Hadley and Ketley. It was long overdue: the county council had accepted tenders for its erection in 1939. (fn. 29) It had been considerably extended by 1974 when, as the Manor School, it became a comprehensive school for pupils aged 11-16. (fn. 30) In 1982 there were 833 pupils. (fn. 31)

Hadley County Junior School, Crescent Road, opened in 1973 and pupils and staff transferred there from the old board school in Station Road. In 1982 there were 294 pupils, many of them Asian or West Indian. (fn. 32)

Leegomery County Primary School, Grainger Drive, opened, at first for juniors only, in 1978 on the new Leegomery housing estate; infants were admitted in 1979. There were 241 pupils in 1982. (fn. 33)

Leegomery County Infant School, Grainger Drive, opened in 1982 with 142 pupils. (fn. 34)