SCHOOLS.
The history of the grammar school
from 1535 to 1867 has been outlined in an earlier
volume. (fn. 1) In addition, it is to be noted that at least
one of the three schoolmasters recorded in Tewkesbury in 1572 (fn. 2) may be presumed to have taught the
free school; that a new school-house was built in
1576, (fn. 3) and its repair undertaken by the churchwardens in 1600; (fn. 4) that towards the end of the 16th
century the governors of the free school were using
a round seal, 2½ in. in diameter, with a device of a
schoolmaster and his pupil and the legend sigillum gubern atorum
revencionis libre schole
in teukesburie
in roman capitals; (fn. 5) that of the schoolmasters whose
appointments are recorded in the late 17th century
and early 18th, when the school was described as the
free school, the public school, or the public grammar
school of Tewkesbury, John Matthews, appointed
in 1685, (fn. 6) had objections under seven heads drawn
up against him; (fn. 7) that under William Prosser, master
1802–45, (fn. 8) whose severity was excessive, the number
of pupils was reduced far below the 16 allowed on
the foundation, (fn. 9) and in 1828 was down to one; (fn. 10) and
that in 1849 the school was said not to have been
held for several years. (fn. 11) In 1868 additional places at
£5 a year each were provided for eight boys. The
head master had moved the school from his house
in High Street (fn. 12) to one in Church Street by 1889. (fn. 13)
In 1903 the county council took over the grammar
school and combined it with a private boarding
school which it then bought from Joseph E.
Priestley, who had held his school in the Abbey
House since 1870 or earlier (fn. 14) and remained as head
master of the grammar school until 1917. (fn. 15) Science
and art classes, held in the Oldbury in the nineties,
were also merged with the grammar school. (fn. 16) A new
grammar school was built in 1906, (fn. 17) a two-story
building of red brick and stone opposite the abbey
church. A new constitution was drawn up in 1909, (fn. 18)
and the school was recognized in 1910 by the Board
of Education as a public secondary school. In 1939
there were c. 120 boys. (fn. 19) The school moved to the
house called Southwick Park, (fn. 20) a mile south of the
town, in 1952; (fn. 21) the former grammar school building
became the local branch library and registrar's
office.
In 1910 the grammar school was put under the
same board of governors as Tewkesbury High School
for Girls. That school had been founded in 1882 by
the vicar, Hemming Robeson, as a Church of
England day and boarding school. In 1910 it became
an undenominational, 'voluntary controlled' school,
for day-girls. In 1953 there were 170 girls. (fn. 22) In 1964
the school remained in its original building (to which
additions had been made), a three-story house of
brick with a parapeted roof.
The nonconformist academy of Samuel Jones did
not stay long in Tewkesbury, but won a reputation
for the oriental learning of its tutor and the distinction of its pupils in later life. Jones, who had been
ejected in 1662, (fn. 23) moved his school in 1712 from
Gloucester to the house in High Street called Tudor
House in the 20th century, (fn. 24) where he succeeded a
Presbyterian, James Werner (fn. 25) or Warner, who had
kept a small school there. Jones was probably an
Independent, (fn. 26) but his sympathies appear to have
been wide: in 1718 some of his pupils, 'very solid
and sober in their behaviour,' were noticed at the
Friends' meeting. (fn. 27) His pupils at Tewkesbury
included Thomas Secker, later Archbishop of
Canterbury, who wrote in a letter an account of the
school when it was still at Gloucester, and Samuel
Butler, later Bishop of Durham, as well as several
who achieved eminence as nonconformists, among
them Samuel Chandler, Andrew Gifford, Jeremiah
Jones, and Daniel Scott. (fn. 28) In 1714 Jones's house
was the object of attacks by the mob. On his death
in 1719 the school moved to Nailsworth. (fn. 29)
Dorothy Capell (d. 1721), widow of Henry, Lord
Capell, (fn. 30) gave by her will an estate in Kent, from
the proceeds of which one-twelfth share was for the
charity school at Tewkesbury. (fn. 31) That was presumably the school recorded in 1712 as being supported
by subscription and having 40 boys most of whom
were entirely, and all partly, clothed at the expense
of the M.P.s for the borough. (fn. 32) It was called the
Blue Coat school, and to it Elizabeth Dowdeswell
(d. 1723) by will gave £40, which was perhaps never
paid, and Thomas Merrit by will dated 1724 gave
an annuity of 50s. (fn. 33) In 1818 the endowments paid for
a master to teach four boys; (fn. 34) later the endowments
were said to be for 20 boys, (fn. 35) but by 1828, and
probably earlier, the Blue Coat school had become
amalgamated with the National school, though the
boys benefiting from the Blue Coat endowment
were distinguished, probably by clothing, from the
rest. (fn. 36) The distinction may have disappeared soon
afterwards, for later reference to it has not been
found.
The National day school was founded in 1813,
and its new building, on the site of the former
borough gaol, was finished in 1817. By 1830 it had
been united with the Church Sunday school, (fn. 37) begun
in 1788 and held in a gallery in the north transept
of the abbey church; (fn. 38) in 1833 there were 138 boys
and 62 girls, with another 23 children who went on
Sundays only. (fn. 39) The building, originally a singlestory building of ashlar with a large Gothic doorway
and tall windows with mullions, transoms, and dripmoulds, was enlarged in 1842–3 by the addition of a
second story (fn. 40) with a hipped roof behind a parapet
with cornice and gargoyles. By 1847, however, the
number of children was down to 170, (fn. 41) presumably
the result of the opening of the Trinity Infants'
School. The National school was divided into boys'
and girls' departments by 1850; the income then was
mainly from local subscriptions and collections. (fn. 42)
By 1885, when it was called the Abbey National
School to distinguish it from the Trinity National
School, it had mixed and infants' departments with
a combined attendance of 292, but by 1897 was in
three departments with a slightly higher attendance. (fn. 43) A new building for the boys' department was
opened in 1911 in Oldbury Road, (fn. 44) a single-story
brick building. The building was later enlarged and
the school reorganized by amalgamation with the
Trinity National School in 1919: (fn. 45) the old National
school by the abbey church ceased to be used as a
school, all the junior boys and girls went to the
former boys' department, and all the infants to the
former Trinity National School. In 1964, as the
Church of England Junior School, the school had a
combined attendance of 309, in junior mixed and
infants' departments. (fn. 46)
In the early 19th century the Baptists, Independents, and Methodists each had a Sunday school; (fn. 47)
the Baptist school was opened in 1809, (fn. 48) and the
Methodist school was opened in 1815 and moved to
a new room in 1839. (fn. 49) In 1833 the three school had
respectively 200, 135, and 230 pupils, and the first
two owned lending libraries. (fn. 50) A British school was
built in 1812 (fn. 51) and opened in 1813 on a site at the far
end of Barton Street, on the north side, given by a
Quaker; in it a Quaker Sunday school was held. (fn. 52)
In 1833 there were 190 pupils, (fn. 53) and although
enlarged in 1825 or soon after the building, one
story and of brick, still comprised only one room in
1848, when the school's income came from subscriptions, school pence, and endowments. (fn. 54) The school
had an attendance of 100 in 1885, (fn. 55) which had
increased to 215 by 1897 when there was also a
separate infants' British school, a single-story brick
building of 1889 on the opposite side of Barton
Street, with 115 children. (fn. 56)
The British schools became council schools under
the Act of 1902, and the buildings were conveyed
to the county council in 1907. (fn. 57) The Tewkesbury
Junior Council School retained the distinction
between the junior mixed department, with an
attendance of 196, and the infants' department with
an attendance of 133. (fn. 58) By 1937 the total attendance
was respectively 121 and 158. (fn. 59) In 1964 the Tewkesbury Junior County Primary School had an attendance of 116 boys and girls. (fn. 60)
In 1906 the county council opened a new mixed
senior school in Chance Street, (fn. 61) which had an
attendance of 170 in 1910, (fn. 62) and 162 in 1937. (fn. 63) In
1961 the girls, numbering c. 250, were moved to
new buildings, the Elmbury County Secondary
School for Girls, on the Ashchurch road just outside
the borough boundary. (fn. 64) The Tewkesbury Secondary
School for Boys, which it was intended should also
be moved to new buildings near the girls' school,
was left with c. 300 boys (fn. 65) in the old buildings in
Chance Street, a single-story brick building with
temporary buildings behind.
The Trinity Infants' School was built in 1839. It
included a Sunday school for older children but was
large enough only for the girls, and the boys who
attended on Sundays were taught in the former
theatre until a new schoolroom was built in 1843. (fn. 66)
By 1846 the school was divided into three: an
infants' day school, in union with the National
Society, with 170 children, a Sunday school with
120 boys, and a Sunday school with 170 girls. (fn. 67) By
1885 it was a mixed school, called Trinity National
School, with 325 children. (fn. 68) In 1896 the two-story
brick building near Holy Trinity church, on the
north side of Trinity School Walk, was augmented
by a single-story brick building on the south side of
the walk. (fn. 69) In 1906 there was a mixed department
with an attendance of 186, and an infants' department with an attendance of 136. (fn. 70) The school, which
was reorganized in two departments, girls' and
infants', in 1918, (fn. 71) became in 1919 the infants'
department of the Church of England school that
was formed by amalgamation with the Abbey
National School, as described above.
Tewkesbury Queen Margaret County Primary
School, a one-story brick and timber building in
Prior's Park, was opened in 1956 and had an
attendance of 250 in 1964. (fn. 72)
In the 19th century there were several private
schools in the town. In 1833 two boarding schools
and 12 private day schools were recorded; of the
day schools, which averaged 20 children each, five
had started since 1818. (fn. 73) In 1852 there were 10
private schools, of which four took boarders, (fn. 74) and
in 1870 there were five. (fn. 75)