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St Peter’s Schools, Hereford
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The
school, for boys and girls, was founded in 1837, the year
Victoria became queen. The Reverend John Venn laid the foundation
stone of the new school in front of a crowd of more than 2000
people. history
There was also an infants
school to the west of the main school, which is now a night
club.
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John
Venn, who became vicar of St Peter’s in 1833, was a
major force for improving the condition of the poor in Hereford
in the 19th century. One of his first acts was the establishment
of St Peter’s Literary Institution, which catered for
the intelligent working man. This was followed by the
founding of the Hereford Friendly Society, and in 1841, by
the Hereford Society for Aiding the Industrious. When Venn
arrived, education in Hereford was provided by a grammar school
(paying), the free Blue Coat School, a boys National School
in Bewell Street and a girls national School in Bye street,
the last two financed by a Church of England Society.
Each parish also had a school, and in addition there were
around 20 private establishments of various types. Venn found
the St Peter’s parish school inadequate and set about
building a new one. The land purchased, by John Venn
and six others, for this project was at the rear of a range
of buildings between the present numbers 21 and 26 Union Street.
The first property, purchased on 1st June 1837, had been owned
by a John Beach and comprised a cottage or tenement on the
street frontage and the garden to the rear. On 12th
June the purchase, from Samuel Davies, victualler
and Richard Pritchard, builder, of gardens to the east of
this was completed.
The
southern boundary of the site was then formed by the rear
of the gardens of houses fronting onto Gaol Street (at that
time Grope Lane). The northern boundary was the garden
behind the present number 21 Union Street and the eastern
boundary was on some gardens, which were shortly to be the
site of the new City Gaol. The western boundary was
the now-truncated rear of the gardens and yards of properties
fronting on to Union Street. Access was by means of
a wide passage from Union Street to the north of the present
number 22, this being the land formerly owned by John Beach,
the cottage which originally stood on the street on this property
having been demolished. The school, for boys and girls, was
founded in 1837. This was a momentous year. On
June 22nd ‘the Mayor, Aldermen and Counsellors
of this city, accompanied by a large body of their fellow
citizens and others, proclaimed in various parts of the city
and liberties, the demise of his late majesty, King William
IV, and the accession of the Princess Alexandrina Victoria.’
Less than four weeks later, on 19th July, the Reverend Venn
laid the foundation stone of the new school in front of a
crowd of more than 2000 people.
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A
model of St Peter’s School made by Aleks Duda |
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The
new building was a, brick-built structure with a seven bay,
Flemish bond facade with the central three bays under a pediment.
In order to raise funds part of the school was leased to the
National School for Boys. There was also an Infants
school to the west of the main school, behind the Anglers
public house. Education was not universally popular
in Herefordshire. In 1851 the average attendance rate
for elementary schools in the county stood at around 74%.
The figures improved during the rest of the century but still
stood at only 80% for the county and 83% for the city in the
1890s when Herefordshire was placed 44th out of 58 county
and divisions listed. This was a constant cause for
concern and in 1875 Reverend T. Littleton Wheeler, the Diocesan
Inspector of Schools, reported that ‘the unpunctuality
of children still forms a serious hindrance to Religious Teaching’.
St Peters’ performance appears to have been that of
a standard elementary school. In June 1872 the school
received a grant of £37 10s from the Hereford Diocesan Education
Board, the second highest awarded between 1851 and 1875 –
purpose, ‘special fund’. |
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Another
view of
Aleks' model |
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In
1877 George W Lewis passed in the Bible and Prayer Book Prize
Examination for Pupil Teachers and Paid Monitors for year
II. His achievement was matched by that of George H
Powell in year III. These ordinary passes were exceeded
by that of the girl’s school however where in year IV
Eliza M Bryant and Jane Horsenail achieved passes at class
II. St Peter’s School was modified several times during
its lifetime. A new infants’ school-room was built
in 1872, when their old room was converted into a classroom,
at a cost of £750. Another £600 was spent on structural
improvements to the boys’ and girls’ school in
1889. More alterations were made in 1896, including
separate entrances and playgrounds for boys and girls. |
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The
fireplace from the teacher’s accommodation |
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As
was the practice at the time, teachers' accommodation was
an integral part of the design of the original building.
The Scudamore schools, opened in 1852, also had accommodation
for the master and the mistress. At St Peters, apart
from the widowed Elizabeth King in the 1870s, all the mistresses
seem to have been unmarried, but this was not necessarily
the case elsewhere. At Scudamore girl school house,
the head of the household in 1871 was James Morrison, a bookbinder
and printer. His wife Annie was schoolmistress of the
girls' school. Similarly, in 1881 the tailor Horatio
Groves headed the household at the Blue School's girls' school
house, where his wife Mary was schoolmistress. The earliest
censuses do not usually identify properties individually (the
main exception being public houses) but a reasonable inference
must be that people listed as 'schoolmasters' and 'schoolmistresses'
in Union Street were the teachers at, and therefore the residences
in, the St Peter's parish schools. In 1841 Robert Carpenter,
aged 35, was recorded as such, and as head of household which
not only included his wife Mary, but six children between
the ages of two and fifteen. In contrast to Mr Carpenter,
Emma Dutton, schoolmistress aged 30, seems to have lived alone. |
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From
the south: the left bay was originally the teachers’
housing. |
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The
1851 census records only two 'schoolmistresses' (in two households)
in Union Street - no-one is entered as a male teacher.
One, Charlotte Dallow was 28 years old and unmarried - no
other person is recorded in her household, of which she is
head. The other 'schoolmistress' was 38-year-old unmarried,
Emma Dutton, who lived with her servant, Leah Davies, 16.
The 1861 census records three separate households at the school.
At St Peter’s Boys' school lived schoolmaster Henry
Yapp, aged 44, and his 40-year old wife, Mary. At the
girl’s school lived the Bates sisters, 29-year-year-old
Sarah, and Anne, aged 21 – both recorded as schoolmistresses
and both unmarried. The infants’ school was the
residence of the 23-year-old schoolmistress Anne Harding,
unmarried, and 15-year-old Louisa Taylor, a school assistant.
The 1871 census recorded that Henry Yapp, a 54-year-old schoolmaster
lived at the school with his wife Mary, and an 18-year-old
female assistant teacher. In 1881, the residents of
Union St Boys School were William Lawrence, a 33-year-old
'Certificated Elementary School Master' and his household.
This not only included his wife Mary and their four children,
aged 1 to 6, but also their 15-year-old servant girl, Hagar
Shepherd. Elizabeth King, ‘Certificated Schoolmistress’
and widow of 37 years of age, lived at the girls' school.
The infants' school was presumably no longer used as teacher's
accommodation as the sole resident, 74-year-old Elizabeth
Wells, was a sempstress. |
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The
west front of the building obscured by later structures.
The porch roof is visible; this was part of the Edwardian
re-building |
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In
1891, 32-year-old Louisa Ann Gripton, a ‘schoolmistress’,
was sharing two rooms with Nellie, her 16-year-old niece who
was a ‘pupil teacher’, and her nephew, 6-year
old Percy John. She was the mistress of the infants'
school and no other teachers are recorded as resident.
Expectations had changed and the master of the boys' school,
Thomas Adams, lived in a newly built house in the suburbs,
number 58 Ryelands Street. In 1901 Louisa Gripton and
Nellie were still in residence, but now their accommodation
had been increased to three rooms. The boys and girls schools
closed in 1904, the last year's attendance figure (from Kelly's
Directory of 1905) record 225 boys, 183 girls and 163 infants.
After considerable modification the school re-opened as the
St Peter’s Council School for Girls on Monday 2nd October
1905. These modifications were to the design of the
city surveyor and the cost of the project was £1,317.
The new internal arrangements of the school were five classrooms
around a small central hall. This design would have
been impractical in earlier years when each school had only
one room. As long as there was only one qualified teacher
per school (the standard arrangement) it was necessary that
he or she was able to simultaneously to supervise 'a number
of classes which were conducted by pupil teachers, monitors,
and other young and ill qualified teachers’. |
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The
steps to the cellar beneath the teachers’ accommodation.
There was no cellar beneath the school proper. |
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Miss
S L Walton, the last mistress of the old girls' school became
the headmistress of the new school. She had succeeded
Miss Lugsmill in 1904. This woman had followed Miss
E Bayliss, Mrs Halle and Miss Tiptin, all of whom had been
mistresses of the girls' school since Elizabeth King in the
1870s and 80s. The last master of the boys' school,
T Adams, transferred to St Owen's Council School for boys.
At this time the playground was leased from a Francis Jones
for 21 years. At the infants' school, two more schoolmistresses
were to follow Louisa Gripton - Miss Madeline Vennor and Miss
Thomas - before it closed in 1911 and the building was re-utilised
by the main school. St Peter's Girls school finally
closed in 1983. |
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The
beginning of demolition in 2002 |
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Reporting
This
site will be published in a volume of Archenfield Archaeology’s
Hereford City excavations to be published by Logaston
Press
unpublished report - St. Peter's School, Gaol Street, Hereford:
A Report on a Building Recording Survey’ an interim
building report - Jolyon Lovell &
Robert Williams, 2002
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