The city of Stoke-on-Trent: Schools

SCHOOLS (fn. 1)

Endowed Schools and Grammar Schools

The first schools in the area seem to have been those set up in the early 17th century by John Weston, Rector of Stoke (d. 1617). One of these was at Stoke, where 40 boys were taught reading, writing, and the catechism. The other was at Shelton, 'near the head of Snape Marsh, at the Row where the Rector did at some time dwell', and here girls were taught to read, spin, knit, and sew. (fn. 2) The subsequent history of these schools is unknown, but it may have been the former of the two at which William Adey was licensed in 1732 to teach. (fn. 3)

Thomas Allen, Rector of Stoke 1699–1732, (fn. 4) founded a school at Meir Lane (fn. 5) which continued as a charity school until some date in the mid-18th century. The income then lapsed because the Allen family, genuinely doubting whether the trust was binding, discontinued payment. (fn. 6) The endowment was retrieved, however, and in 1832 the school was reopened. In 1835 it was educating about 30 boys, some of them fee-payers. (fn. 7) It had closed again by 1840, (fn. 8) but was again in existence by 1870 when the Fenton Improvement Commissioners allowed the use of the courthouse as a day and Sunday school for a few weeks. (fn. 9) The further history of this charity school is not known.

In 1760 John Bourne, who also founded the churches of Longton and Hanley, (fn. 10) endowed a small school and house at Longton (fn. 11) where about 30 of the poorest children of Lane End were to be taught. (fn. 12) Land for a school-house was settled in trust in 1763 and a school-house erected on it. (fn. 13) By 1825 the schoolmaster received a salary of £15 a year and 18 boys were being taught in the school-house by the master and 20 girls in the master's house by his wife. The trustees were then proposing to transfer the endowments to the new St. John's National School. (fn. 14) This was apparently done and the school ceased to have a separate existence. (fn. 15) The National School closed at some date between 1859 and 1872. (fn. 16) By 1873 the Bourne endowment was again applied to a separate school regulated in that year as a secondary school by a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners. (fn. 17) At the same time much of the revenue of Dilhorne Free School was applied to Longton School, half of the exhibitions at Longton School going to children from the public elementary schools at Dilhorne. (fn. 18) Longton School continued on this basis as a secondary grammar school until 1900. The number of pupils at the school gradually decreased, however, and in January 1900 there were only 36. (fn. 19) By 1900, too, the liabilities of the school considerably exceeded its assets. The Charity Commissioners recommended that the school be taken over by the Longton Borough Council and conducted as a mixed boys' and girls' school. Pending a decision by the council the school was closed in July 1900. (fn. 20) The council agreed to administer the school in conjunction with the Sutherland Technical Institute, situated close to it in the Stone road and under the same head master. Extensive alterations were made to the High School, as it was by then called; in particular, science laboratories were built and the Upper School was recognized as a school of science by the Board of Education. (fn. 21) The school was also opened to girls at this date, and in the formation of the curriculum special attention was given to the needs of the local industries of pottery and metallurgy. (fn. 22) The close relationship with the Technical Institute continued at least until 1905, the teaching staff being common to both institutions. (fn. 23) In 1947 the school, called Longton Grammar School, moved into new buildings in London Road, Meir. The girls had been transferred in 1938 to Thistley Hough School for Girls in Newcastle Lane, Penkhull, opened in that year to provide separate grammar-school education for girls in the south of the Potteries. (fn. 24)

At the end of the 17th century there is mention of a school at Hanley noviter erecta at which John Strettell literatus was licensed in 1698 to teach. (fn. 25) This may have been the same school which in 1825 was occupied by Peter Tock, aged 80, who had been in possession of the school since about 1790 and was said to have kept a school there for some time but to have given it up in recent years. Before he acquired the tenancy a man named Gill had kept a school in the house and Tock paid him £15 to give up possession. When Tock first began his school he received £6 a year from the Adams family of Newcastle to educate 10 children free. The last payment was made about 1807 (fn. 26) and there is no evidence that the school was in existence after that date.

Burslem Free School was started by subscription in 1740, (fn. 27) one of the principal contributors being John Bourne of Newcastle, founder of Longton School. The school was to be an English school, not a grammar school, and it was open to all religious denominations, the only stipulation being that pupils whose parents belonged to the Church of England should attend church regularly on Sundays. In 1825 the school premises consisted of a school room and a master's house. By 1823 the buildings had fallen into disrepair, the school master was very old and incompetent, there were no trustees, and no children were admitted free. Some of the inhabitants of Burslem took matters in hand and in 1823 new trustees and a new master were appointed, and the school buildings repaired. The master was to be allowed to teach 30 boys and his wife 20 girls in addition to the free scholars. The trustees, however, in 1825 felt that the funds of the school would be better applied to the National School, (fn. 28) but the proposal was not carried out. In 1832 the old school in Liverpool Road was sold and a new school built in Moorland Road. About 1849, however, this became unusable because of mining subsidence and in 1851 the school was being held in a room of the former school building rented from the owner. It was a grammar school by this date with 2 masters and 25 pupils, of whom 14 were taught English free under the terms of the endowment. (fn. 29) In 1859 it was said to have been closed for two years (fn. 30) but by 1861 was again in use. (fn. 31) It had closed by 1868. (fn. 32)

Cobridge Free School for 120 children (paying 2d. to 6d. a week each) was built in 1766 by subscription; it was situated at what is now the junction of Sneyd Street, Elder Road, and Leek New Road, and consisted of a school and two dwelling-rooms below. The premises, which were repaired in 1821, were stated to have been conveyed to trustees who, however, were all dead by 1860. The school ceased to be used c. 1850. It was demolished in 1897, (fn. 33) but it is still commemorated by an inscribed plinth.

Tunstall Endowed School originated outside the city in an endowment by Dr. Robert Hulme of Oddrode (Ches.) by will dated 1708. In 1825 the school was at Newchapel, (fn. 34) the head master being appointed by the Child family of Tunstall. (fn. 35) Between 1876 and 1880 it was transferred to Tunstall. (fn. 36) It closed between 1884 and 1892. (fn. 37)

There was only one endowed school in the area added to the county borough in 1922. (fn. 38) This was Bucknall School founded under the will (dated 1719) of William Shallcross of Uttoxeter, by which the testator gave £5 yearly to a school master to teach 12 poor children, provided the freeholders of Bucknall and Eaves built a school-house. (fn. 39) The endowment was charged on Blakeloe farm by 1825, the property of John Tomlinson of Cliffville in Stoke. (fn. 40) This school subsequently became a National School. (fn. 41) Thus out of these old educational foundations in the Potteries only one grammar school, that at Longton, remains at the present time.

A Higher Grade Elementary school was opened by Hanley School Board in 1893. (fn. 42) The junior and middle schools followed an advanced elementary course and the boys in the higher school were taught all the normal subjects of a grammar school including Latin and Greek (fn. 43) and the girls a more limited course which, however, included Latin. (fn. 44) Since the courses in the upper part of the school were those of a grammar school the Board of Education was reluctant to recognize it as an elementary school but eventually did so; it continued as such until 1905 when it was officially closed and reopened as Hanley High School. (fn. 45) It remained as a mixed grammar school until 1938 when the girls were transferred to Thistley Hough School for Girls. (fn. 46) Hanley High School buildings were condemned in 1940 because of mining subsidence and the school was moved into the new buildings intended for Chell Senior School. From 1948 to 1953 it was run as a bilateral school with Chell Secondary Modern School and in the latter year moved into new buildings in Corneville Road, Bucknall. (fn. 47)

Two Roman Catholic grammar schools have been established in the present century. The first, a girls' school, developed out of a school opened by the nuns at the Dominican Convent at Hartshill. (fn. 48) A house called Cliffville near the convent was bought in 1922 and the senior part of the school moved there; the junior part followed in 1929. (fn. 49) The school acquired aided status under the 1944 Education Act as a girls' grammar school. (fn. 50) The second, a boys' school, was established at Trent Vale by the Irish Christian Brothers in 1932. (fn. 51)

Elementary Education before 1870

During the earlier 19th century the educational facilities offered by the endowed schools began to be supplemented by schools founded by the various churches and the two schools' societies, the National Society and the British and Foreign Schools Society. The first such school to be founded was the Wesleyan Day School in Burslem in 1814, followed there by a National School in 1817 in connexion with St. John's Church. National Schools were founded in Stoke in 1815 and in Hanley in 1816. In Hanley the National School was quickly followed by a nonconformist school, the British School in Pall Mall, founded by the Ridgway family, who were leaders of the Methodist New Connexion in the area. Longton (St. John's) National School was founded in 1822 and St. James's National School in 1836, but Tunstall and Fenton National Schools were not founded until 1839. By 1850 thirteen National Schools had been established in the various Pottery towns and there was a parish school at Bucknall. In Stoke itself the Church of England was particularly active in this matter. Apart from the main National School, attached to St. Peter's Church, schools had by 1850 been founded at Hartshill, Trent Vale, and Penkhull. There were also two Wesleyan schools, one unsectarian school, one British school, and two Roman Catholic schools in the Potteries area by 1851. Many of these schools owed their existence, not to the churches, but to particular individuals who promoted them and to a great extent maintained them. Such were the British School for boys at Hanley (founded 1819) supported by the Ridgway family, the unsectarian school at Etruria (founded 1846) maintained by the Wedgwood family, particularly Francis Wedgwood, (fn. 52) and the National Schools in Stoke, Longton, and Hanley which benefited by a bequest of £3,000 by J. C. Woodhouse, Dean of Lichfield and formerly Rector of Stoke. (fn. 53)

During the period 1851–70 a notable feature of education in the Potteries was the great increase in the number of National Schools. Many were built in the small villages or hamlets which developed under the influence of the six towns, such as the infants' school at Line Houses near Tunstall and the school at Sneyd near Burslem. Many more were established as branch schools of the main National School in each town to serve some small, densely populated area of working-class houses. Such were the second National School at Tunstall (St. Mary's School), Cobridge National School in Burslem, St. Paul's National School in Burslem serving the Dale Hall area, Eastwood Vale National School, Hanley, Wellington National School, Hanley, Northwood National School, Hanley, Trinity National School serving the Hope Street area of Hanley, China Street National School, Fenton, Mount Pleasant National School, Fenton, St. John's Branch School at Park Hall Street, Longton, and Mount Pleasant National School, Longton.

Another development of the period was the growth of the Ragged Schools. These schools for very poor children were sometimes a private and sometimes a church enterprise. Two were established in Hanley in 1852, one an evening school (known as the Ragged School from 1856) and the other Bryan Street Ragged School in a building known as the Workmen's Refuge. (fn. 54) Another was opened at Ashley Street, Hanley, in 1856 (fn. 55) and all three were managed by the same master. In 1861 they were amalgamated as the Borough Ragged Schools. (fn. 56) In 1861, too, one was opened in Longton (fn. 57) and by that year there was one at Burslem. (fn. 58)

Private philanthropy also played some part in the provision of elementary education in this period, illustrated not only by the interest of Francis Wedgwood in the British School at Etruria (fn. 59) but also by the school built by Lord Granville for his iron and steel workers. (fn. 60) By 1870 there were in the Potteries 28 National Schools, 5 Wesleyan schools, 4 other nonconformist, including British, schools, 6 Roman Catholic schools, and 2 non-sectarian schools, Granville School and Etruria Unsectarian School.

Elementary Education 1870–1910

This period covers the establishment of a state system of education in the Pottery district under the various school boards and, after the 1902 Education Act, by the Education Committees of the various borough and urban district councils and by the Staffordshire County Council.

Under the guidance of its first chairman, Sir Lovelace Stamer, Rector of Stoke, who was also chairman of the National Schools Board in Stoke, (fn. 61) the Stoke School Board co-operated with the latter to provide new church schools and new board schools. (fn. 62) The school board district covered a wide area, some of it outside the present city. It extended from Butterton near Whitmore to Stanley Pool near Endon station, the townships included being Seabridge, Clayton, Penkhull-cum-Boothen, Fenton Culvert, Fenton Vivian, Botteslow, Bucknall, and Bagnall. (fn. 63) In 1871 the total number of children at school in the district was just over 3,600, most of them in National Schools which educated children of both churchmen and others. (fn. 64) It was then estimated that 1,300 more places in schools were needed. The deficiency was met partly by the opening by the board of a number of temporary schools, some in nonconformist Sunday schools. (fn. 65) By 1876 there were 6 schools under the Stoke School Board: Mount Tabor, Cross Street, Harpfield, Penkhull, Bagnall, and Clayton. (fn. 66) On the formation of Stoke and Fenton Education Committees in 1903 there were 3 board schools in Stoke itself and 3 in Fenton. (fn. 67) There was no notable development in elementary education made by either of these two committees between 1903 and 1910. A novel experiment, however, was made in Stoke in 1905, when the senior boys of St. Peter's School and of Boothen School were transferred to a new school, Stoke Central National School.

Longton School Board encountered the difficulty of having too few children in its first school and so it took over the part-time pupils of a private school occupying the former St. John's National School. (fn. 68) Later the board proceeded to establish other permanent schools, namely, Cooke Street Schools (1891), High Street Schools (1879), and the Central School (1898), now Queensberry Schools. This board was more enterprising than the Stoke School Board and in 1898 established a Higher Elementary School at Queensberry Road to provide semi-technical and more advanced education. (fn. 69) After its formation Longton Education Committee maintained the emphasis on technical education, instanced by its taking over of the High School and the Technical College, which were managed as a joint institution from 1900 by the Technical Education Committee of the borough in conjunction with the county. (fn. 70)

Of the other school boards in the area Hanley, which had the largest population, probably faced the most difficult task. In view of its heavy financial obligations in the educational sphere it was officially recognized as a 'necessitous school board' under the Act of 1897. This greatly benefited the board which was already receiving extra grants under Section 97 of the Act of 1870. (fn. 71) The work of the board was chiefly directed towards meeting the scholastic needs of the rapidly increasing school population particularly in the late 1880's and in the 1890's. For example, Cauldon Road Schools, erected in 1891 for boys', girls', and infants' departments to serve part of Shelton, were already overcrowded by 1896 because of the rapid growth of the district. The board, therefore, erected a senior mixed school there in that year with accommodation for 620. (fn. 72) In 1896 Wharf Lane Schools also had to be extended and in the following year York Street Schools. (fn. 73) A similar policy was followed by the Hanley Education Committee after its formation in 1903. (fn. 74) In 1906 Broom Street Schools, Wellington Schools, and the Central Board Schools (Glass Street) in Hanley were reorganized into infants', junior, and senior schools, the Central Schools taking the senior boys and Broom Street Schools the senior girls. (fn. 75) Thus some of the recommendations of the Hadow Report were put into effect 20 years before its publication.

Hanley School Board, despite financial difficulties, nevertheless made some provision for secondary and adult education. The Higher Elementary School, which later became Hanley High School, has been described above. (fn. 76) By the 1890's a number of evening schools existed, administered at first by the board and later by Hanley Education Committee. (fn. 77) The curriculum of the evening classes started at the High School in 1894 included theoretical and practical chemistry, mathematics, physics, geometry, geology, botany, and drawing. All these subjects had some relevance to industry, (fn. 78) a practice general throughout the Potteries wherever further education was pursued.

Burslem School Board established in 1874 started somewhat later than the other Potteries boards. (fn. 79) It was faced with much the same problems as Hanley, a large child population, with resultant overcrowding in its schools. (fn. 80) The number of full-time pupils steadily rose until the number in its schools in 1896 was nearly 10,000. It appears to have been a more conservative board than that of Hanley, and, although it made provision for evening continuation classes on an adequate scale, the subjects taught were less advanced. (fn. 81) It made no attempt to run a Higher Elementary School and Burslem Education Committee after its formation in 1903 pursued this same policy of adequate elementary education but without attempting what may be termed advanced education, except in the field of art. (fn. 82) It should be noted, however, that in the early part of the present century many children from the Potteries area were attending the Orme Schools in Newcastle.

Tunstall came under Wolstanton School Board which has been treated elsewhere. (fn. 83) This board established only one school in Tunstall, Forster Street School, in 1875. In 1890, however, it took over the Wesleyan School and built the new High Street Schools to replace it in 1894. The problems of overcrowding and a large child population were not so great here as in Burslem, Hanley, or Longton, and with the numerous schools already in the area, the demand for board schools was not so imperative. (fn. 84) After the Act of 1902 Tunstall had its own education committee which inter alia administered Tunstall Technical College, founded in 1890. (fn. 85)

Some educational enterprises affecting the whole area were the result of joint action by the various education committees. The Blind and Deaf School at the Mount in Stoke, opened in 1897, (fn. 86) falls into this category. In the first decade of the present century all the education authorities adopted the School Meals Act (fn. 87) which eventually led to the present system of subsidized school dinners. (fn. 88) Tunstall was the last to do so, in 1910; in 1909 the North Staffs. Federation of the Independent Labour Party petitioned the Education Committee to adopt the Act as there were 5,000 unemployed in Tunstall. (fn. 89)

1911 to the Present Day

In 1911 Stoke-on-Trent Education Committee was formed. Stoke as a county borough was responsible for education generally in the area, including further education, much of which had previously been the responsibility of the county. The task of welding all the component elements into a comprehensive educational system was undertaken by R. P. G. Williamson, formerly Education Officer for Burslem. In the sphere of higher education the new authority controlled various technical colleges, evening continuation classes, and two grammar schools. In elementary education the most important change came in the late 1920's and early 1930's when the Education Committee decided to follow the principles laid down in the Hadow Report. An over-all plan was drawn up for the establishment of senior schools, involving frequently the separation of boys and girls. (fn. 90) The plan was not put into effect in its entirety, the eventual reorganization being carried out in stages and on an empirical basis by the Director of Education and by H.M. Inspectors of Schools. (fn. 91) The reorganization was carried out separately in each of the six towns, Tunstall being dealt with in 1929, Burslem and Longton in 1931, Hanley and Stoke in 1931–2, and Fenton in 1932. The schools of Tunstall were divided into two groups, those of Burslem into three, and those of Hanley and Stoke into four each; there was no such division in Longton and Fenton. The changes are shown in Table XI. In some cases the Church of England schools were grouped with local authority schools and in others reorganized in their own groups. The Roman Catholic schools did not join in the scheme. Some were reorganized later on the same lines, but many were still all-age schools at the end of the Second World War. (fn. 92)

The Education Act of 1944 made necessary a second reorganization involving the conversion of senior schools generally into secondary modern schools. The growth in the population of the area, the extension of the school-leaving age, and the inadequacy by modern standards of many of the old school buildings necessitated the erection of many new schools after the war. (fn. 93)

Table IX - Schools in the Six Towns (fn. 94)

Abbreviations: C. = County, C.S. = County Secondary, C.E. = Church of England, R.C. = Roman Catholic, B = Boys, G = Girls, J = Junior, I = Infants, SB = Senior Boys, SG = Senior Girls, JB = Junior Boys, JG = Junior Girls, M = Mixed, SM = Senior Mixed, / = Separate departments

Table X - Schools in Area Added to County Borough in 1922 (fn. 278)

For abbreviations see Table IX

Table XI - Reorganization of Schools, 1929–1932

For abbreviations see Table IX