EDUCATION.
In 1706 Francis Courtney devised
two small cottages and a few acres of land in Heston
to educate the poor children of the parish of Norwood. (fn. 45) No school appears to have been built with
this endowment, although in 1784, when one of these
cottages near Norwood Green was sold to Sarah
Child, the money was to be paid by the churchwardens into the Courtney charity. (fn. 46) It seems probable that the charity was used mainly in cash
payments to poor scholars, and possibly in grants of
books and clothing. After 1909 exhibitions were
awarded alternately to a boy and a girl either for
tuition or entrance fees to a secondary school, or as
a yearly maintenance allowance of £10. Other payments were made towards travelling expenses, books
and other materials for children attending day or
evening classes. In 1955 the income amounted to
over £192, of which only £62 had been disbursed. (fn. 47)
The earliest school in Norwood was almost certainly that built in Tentelow Lane in 1767 by Elisha
Biscoe, (fn. 48) who had been steward to the Awsiter
family. (fn. 49) In 1772 he bequeathed £3,500 to pay
a master and mistress to educate 34 boys and 6 girls
from Heston, Hayes and Norwood. (fn. 50) The Biscoes
owned property in Hayes and Heston, (fn. 51) and in 1801
Elisha Biscoe the younger was the largest landowner
in and around Botwell. (fn. 52) By 1819 the school was said
to be falling into decay; most of the trustees had
died, the capital had not been invested properly, and
Elisha Biscoe, who now lived in Oxfordshire, was in
sole charge. (fn. 53) In 1825 an action in Chancery established that most of the income had been devoted to
the school but that no accounts had been kept. When
new trustees were appointed under a Scheme of 1827,
the school was attended by only 28 boys and 12
girls. (fn. 54) These figures were the same in 1833, (fn. 55) although children from Hayes soon ceased to attend,
perhaps because of the foundation of the National
School at Wood End Green. (fn. 56) Numbers were increased by 6 boys and 4 girls in 1858 (fn. 57) and some 60
pupils were receiving free instruction in 1863; (fn. 58) the
master eventually was allowed to take paying pupils
but after 1870 numbers were gradually reduced to
a maximum of 30 boys, 20 girls, and 10 children who
paid fees. By this date the school buildings were
apparently in urgent need of repair. (fn. 59) In 1909 the
Southall-Norwood U.D.C. declared that the income
from Biscoe's charity ought to be spent on higher
education, but the school continued under its board
of trustees, which pointed out that the charity also
concerned Heston. More paying pupils were taken
after the Second World War and the school was
finally closed in 1950. (fn. 60) After the parish had refused
to buy the building for use as a Sunday school, (fn. 61) it
was sold to the last schoolmaster as a private residence. (fn. 62) In 1961 it consisted of a small, brown brick,
two-story cottage with round-headed Gothic windows to the ground floor.
In 1819 there was an industrial school for 20 girls,
supported by a £20 endowment and annual subscriptions. (fn. 63) In 1833 there were 7 day schools,
excluding the Biscoe school, together educating 72
boys and 79 girls. Only one was endowed; the others
were either fee-paying or subscription schools. There
was also a Sunday school which had been started
in 1827. (fn. 64)
The St. John's parochial school, Southall Green,
was established in 1837-8 by Henry Dobbs. Boys,
girls, and infants shared a single room, although it
had dividing doors, and there was a room overhead
for the master and mistress. (fn. 65) In 1845 an ex-mistress
of the school, Ann Lawes, endowed it with £100
stock; (fn. 66) the endowment, however, was not settled in
trust until 1855, when the five patrons of the living
were selected as trustees. Numbers in the school were
said to fluctuate, the children being drawn chiefly
from brick-making families. In 1869, however, it
was attended by 94 boys and 98 girls, who paid
a weekly sum varying from 1d. to 3d. (fn. 67) The school
was closed in 1891. (fn. 68) In 1961 the building, a singlestory, yellow brick hall off King Street, was used for
general parochial purposes. (fn. 69)
In 1858 a large school was opened on the west side
of South Road (fn. 70) for poor children from the parish
of St. Marylebone. The building, which sometimes
held as many as 500 children, was used as a military
hospital in the First World War and afterwards
turned into a Roman Catholic girls' school. (fn. 71)
Norwood Bridge Church of England (National)
School was opened in 1862. It was attended by 120
boys, girls, and infants, but had only one master.
It was financed by a very small endowment and
from other sources, including church collections. (fn. 72)
The building remained the private property of the
rector, who in 1873 set up a trust. The school was
enlarged and reorganized in that year and a certificated master was appointed. He left in 1878, when
the two rooms occupied by the school were very
dilapidated, and was replaced by a master and mistress. (fn. 73) In the same year the school was leased to the
Norwood School Board for 30 years. (fn. 74) In 1897 it had
an average attendance of 217 children, (fn. 75) and it was
finally closed in 1903 or 1904. (fn. 76)
The Dudley Road School was opened by 1897,
when it was described as 'new'. There were at least
three women teachers who were in charge of 8
classrooms. (fn. 77) By 1908 it had an average attendance
of over 400 girls, (fn. 78) but this was halved after the
First World War. (fn. 79) The school was reorganized as
a junior mixed school in 1930; its separate existence
ceased in 1958 when the building became an annexe
to Southall Technical College. (fn. 80) The St. John's
Temporary Council School was opened in 1905. It
was closed in 1911 on the opening of the Western
Road School. The freehold belonged to the trustees
of St. John's church, who had leased it to the local
authorities in 1877. (fn. 81) The school was probably held
in the St. John's hall, the home of the former St.
John's parochial school. (fn. 82) The temporary St. John's
school was reopened in 1912 and finally closed in
1916. (fn. 83) The Hartington Road Temporary School
was opened for infants in 1910, drawing children
from the Featherstone Road Infants School. It was
closed in 1911 on the opening of the Western Road
School. (fn. 84)
A Roman Catholic school called St. Mary's was
functioning in 1912, (fn. 85) but it is not mentioned again.
The Roman Catholic school of St. Anselm was
opened in 1921, drawing children from all over
Southall and Norwood, and from Hanwell. (fn. 86) The
county council opened a technical college in
Beaconsfield Road in 1928 and greatly extended it in
1934, 1937, and after 1945. (fn. 87) The influx of Indians
and Pakistanis in the early 1960s created an acute
problem. In 1963 it was estimated that in the infants'
department at Beaconsfield Road the number of
immigrant children had risen in two years from
about 55 to 130, while the number of English pupils
had shrunk from 150 to 90. Plans were then made to
disperse the immigrants among other primary schools,
in order to avoid segregation. (fn. 88)
In September 1963 there were fifteen maintained
schools in Norwood with Southall. These are listed
below. The date of opening is given in brackets after
the name of the school, followed by the dates of any
extensions; the next figure is the number of children
on the roll at September 1963, and the final figure
denotes the age-group of the pupils: (fn. 89) North Road
Junior Mixed and Infants (1851, 1879, 1914). 443.
5-11; Featherstone Road Infants (1890, 1901, 1953,
1962). 250. 5-7; Featherstone Road Junior Mixed
(1901). 333. 7-11; Clifton Road Junior Mixed and
Infants (1904). 347. 5-11; Tudor Road Junior
Mixed and Infants (1907, 1925, 1930). 639. 5-11;
Southall County Grammar (1907, 1927, 1938, 1963).
834. 11-18; Western Road Girls Secondary (1910,
1926). 463. 11-16; Beaconsfield Road Junior Mixed
and Infants (1920). 540. 5-11; (fn. 90) Dormers Wells
Boys Secondary (1934, 1963). 452. 11-16; Dormers
Wells Girls Secondary (1934, 1947, 1959, 1963). 474.
11-16; Talbot Road Special (1936, 1957). 236. 8-
16; Lady Margaret Road Junior Mixed and Infants
(1938). 629. 5-11; George Tomlinson Junior Mixed
and Infants (1953). 313. 5-11; Dormers Wells
Junior Mixed and Infants (1954). 401. 5-11;
Featherstone Boys Secondary (1958). 664. 11-16.