St George's School Photo's

A few photographs of St George's school activities around 1953. Unfortunately none of the children or staff names are known. I'm sure someone out there will come up with some names, if so let us know.

 

Request For Our Help

We get many emails asking for help like this but normally we don't have the time to do much more than point folk to Tameside Archive Centre... This one however came at just the right time where it found me stuck in the house as I was not up to getting out. I thought I'd give this one a go and see what we can come up with. Here's the request.

     "My Gran grew up in and around Hyde. Originally called 'Nessie' Turner she married a Rupert Lawler and lived in Hyde. I believe there is a 1901 entry in the census which finds her living in the big house by Captain Clark's Bridge. My mum told me that they had lived (in the 30's,40's,50's?) opposite the cricket ground on Werneth Low. Her name was Margaret Lawler and she had a brother Peter and sister Barbara. Apparently I was conceived behind the cricket pavilion in August 1953! and was born in Hyde Hospital. Mum, Gran and I moved down to Worthing in 1956 when Gran retired from her teaching post at St George's School. I visited the area once with Mum in about 1959 but don't remember anything about it other than the densely packed streets.

As my son is now considering Manchester University, I brought him up for a tour of it and after we came to try to retrace my roots. I found Captain Clark's bridge but couldn't really see much of the house as it was obscured by trees and bushes. We came up to Werneth Low (which, incidentally, was the name of my Gran's bungalow in Worthing) and visited the cricket ground. A kind gentleman, who I believe works there, showed me into the new pavilion but couldn't locate a photo of the original one.

I have just spent several hours going backwards through your fascinating blog and have arrived at November 2011.

Does anyone have any recollections or pictures of Mrs Lawler/Turner as a teacher at St George's?

Does anyone remember Margaret ( my Mum), Peter or Barbara Lawler or their father Rupert?

Could it be that they lived in one of the cottages at the top of Werneth Low?

Does anyone have any photos of the old cricket pavilion?

Are there any photos of St. George's classes from the 40's when Mum was there?

Mum said she went to a Convent school, was it in or near Hyde? Does anyone have any information about it?

I started reading your blog imagining I would be here for a few minutes, that was five hours ago! Thank you for starting to fill in some gaps in my family history.

Thank you Mike"

I think it is safe to say the convent school is Harrytown in Romiley, hopefully we have readers who recall the family.. I do hope we can help with this.

St Georges early 1970's

Here are two great photos lent to us by Ruth Dawson .

St Georges Junior School Nativity Play in 1972.
Ruth is far right on the middle row.
Some other names include...

• Linda Baker, Crispin Trueman, Colleen Ellis Jones, the Titterington Twins, Gillian Taylor, Geoffrey Lloyd, Ivan Freeman, Neil Thorpe, Fiona Cook, Gaynor Green, Jackie Stewart....

  If anyone recognises anyone else please let us know !

St Georges Whit Walks . Walking up Market Street.
Ruth is far right and Susan Blackshaw is next to her .

(I used to call the jewellers shop British Rail jewellers because of the initials ) :)

Many Thanks, Ruth.
The photos brought back some familiar faces and great memories :)

St Georges addition

This photo was sent to us via email  by John T.
It shows the present  St Georges school being built prior to the demolition of the old school building.




The new building was built in 1978.

Many thanks, John ! :)

St George's School

In June this year we showed some drawings and photographs of the old St George's School. When I was at St George's during the National Heritage Weekend in September there was a souvenir booklet on display about a reunion of scholars on 15 September 1906.

I photographed a couple of pages in this booklet which show two more photographs of the school and expand the information I gave in the previous post.

St George's School

This is a photo from 1952 (July of that year if the calendar at the back has been kept up-to-date) of part of the class of Yvonne Rowbottom (nee Bann).

Beryl (first on the left on the front row) says that the names of the pupils are as follows:

Back row: Roger Scott, Frank Brierley, Alex Dunlop, ?, Noel Senior, John Harrison.

Middle row: Janet Smith, Valerie Hall, Michael Garner, Geoffrey Woods, Harold ?.

Front row: Beryl Dilkes, Rita Carradice, Hilary Shaw, Jacqueline Capper, Philip Ashley, Bobby Cullen.

St George's School

The following information is from a photocopy Beryl has of the history of the building of the original Day School at St George's. I don't know the source of the document, but it's entitled 'Our School Heritage' and is signed at the end 'A Proctor, School Trustee'.

"The foundation of what came to be known as the 'Old School', in Church Street, was laid in 1835 by Mrs Thomas Howard. the building was opened for Sunday School purposes on Whit Sunday, 22nd May 1836 and as a day school on the 26th. It was a handsome two storey building; the upper room was for boys and the lower room for girls. The cost was £1,300 and this amount was raised by three means.

First of all a subscription list in the form of a broadsheet two feet long and containing 120 names with the amount subscribed. This totalled £619. 13s. 0d.

From the start to the present time St George's people have given freely to the furtherance of the Christian faith. It is evident from the list of names that many who had given towards the erection of the Church were to the forefront in aiding the school.

Secondly a Grand Bazaar was organised in 1835. It received the patronage of her Majesty Queen Adelaide - Consort of William IV - who sent nine specimens of needlework she had made. These raised over £100. In all the bazaar realised £369. 15s. 0d.

The third means of acquiring the necessary capital came in the form of a Government grant of £300.

At the special service held in the Church to celebrate the opening of the school £46. 3s. 9d was collected. This sum topped the required amount.

The original school building

The 'New School'

By 1870 the population of Hyde had greatly increased and the Old School was far too small to accommodate the children of our growing town. The Education Act of that year made it compulsory for all children to receive an elementary education and so the necessity for a larger building was apparent.

So the 'New School' was erected in Henry Street and Tower Street; the foundation stone being laid by Mr John Sidebottom, J.P. of Kingston House on 3rd September, 1870. When opened this building was used as the boys school and the older building as the girls school. The cost of this building was £1,400.

The first extension

At this stage, there was an open area between the two buildings, used as a play ground. In 1895 at a cost of £700 a new wing was added to the older portion of the building. Finally in 1913 the open area was closed by a further extension, costing £2,000. So in four stages over a period of eighty years, the school building was erected and remained until 1978.

It is an interesting fact that the total cost of the four buildings which constituted the school was £5,400 which was approximately the total cost of St George's Church.

In 1836 when the school opened there were 50 day scholars, but by the end of the century this number had risen to 750. The Sunday School at this time numbered almost 1,000 scholars. In 1908, when Leigh St School was opened, about two thirds of the day scholars were transferred there.

celebration tea-parties for the School were held every 10 years from the 50th anniversary in 1886. In 1906 on the 70th anniversary 750 sat down to tea, in three sittings. There were a few original scholars present at this party. The centenary was celebrated in 1936 with a party of 350 people."

A photograph of the original school from, I would guess, the early 1960s

Here the first extension can be seen at the far end with the two subsequent extensions between that and the original building which faces onto Church Street.

A recent photograph showing how that corner of Church Street and Henry Street looks now

A recent photograph showing where the first extension was. You can still see the bottom part of the four buttresses and the protruding part in the middle where the entrance door was.

Gerald England did a post about Queen Adelaide's Tapestry in May 2011, which you can see here.