Old Newspapers and Private Schools - The Bourne Hall Academy Example

Over the last few years the digitization of old newspapers on the British Newspaper Archive has made it far easier to investigate at least some of the private schools whose records do not exist.

In 2012 I was asked about Bourne Hall Academy, at Bushey and came up with an outline history based mainly on trade directories and census returns. About a week ago Cynthia contacted me to say that her relative Henry Hunt Sirkett had been at the school and he was recorded as having passed exams in the Herts Advertiser.

I decided that it would be interesting to use this school as a case study to assess how much extra information was available - particularly in the Herts Mercury (for the early years), the Herts Advertiser from 1855 and later from the Watford Observer. In fact I found so many references that there was no way I could find time to view them all, much less record all the names and events.

I decided to concentrate on the ownership and naming of the school as told in adverts. I discovered that H L Biggs took over Grove House boarding school in January 1844 and moved to Bourne Hall Academy by 1850. From then on there were regular reports in the papers of events such as prize-giving days and cricket matches, and details of students who passed external examinations. (Because to their number I selected three or four such items to examine in detail.) Things seem to have gone well until 1882 when H L Biggs handed over the school to his son H B Biggs, and it would seem that the new headmaster was not a success and in 1884 it appears that some boys who had prepared for some external examinations were not entered.Definitely the number of boys listed as passing external exams in 1888 was lower than one would have expected some ten years earlier. In addition it seems thatsome of the school buildings may have been used teach girls foreign languages.

The exact date that the school closed is uncertain but the furniture was sold off early in 1889, and the landlord put the property on the market a few months later. The bankruptcy hearings were revealling and demonstrate than the young headmaster had failed to learn good bookkeeping while a pupil at the school ...

For full details see Bourne Hall Academy

First World War casualties from Ludgrove School

The Military

Hilary is researching the musician George Jerrard Wilkinson whose First World War obituary says had been a music teacher at Ludgrave school, (then near Barnet) sometime between 1908 and 1914.  I am unable to confirm this (can you help?) but decided to see what I could find about the pupils (mostly from prominent families) from the school who had died or other wise contributed. 

I was interested to see that one of the teachers at the school, Henry Peter Hansell, became personal tutor to the sons of King Edward VII - especially as more recently both Prince William and Prince Harry went to the school in its "new" location in Berkshire.

The former pupils and teachers who I identified (I am sure there were many more) were: 

Nigel F. E. Anson

Victor Annesley Barrington-Kennett

Basil H. Barrington-Kennett

 Aubrey Hampden Barrington-Kennett

Wilfrid Stanley Bird

William Arthur Derrick Eley

Richard Hallwatt

James Collier Foster Harter

Albert Edward George Arnold Keppel

George Ronald Lane

William Archie Arbuthnot Middleton

W. L. O. Parker

George Harry Thornton Ross

Richard Sutton

More information about the school and its pupils.

Boro'gate, St Albans

"Boro'gate" was one of the large houses built around 1900 at the north end of St Peters Street, St Albans. It was on the south side of the Carlisle Road junction, and on the north side of the junction there was "The Hollies," occupied by Richard Gibbs (1834-1910), one time Mayor of St Albans, an alderman on the Herts County Council, joint founder with his father of the Herts Advertiser newspaper, and nephew of my ancestor, John Gibbs, of Aylesbury. Not far away, at the north end of St Peters Street was another, slightly smaller, house called "Calverton" which was built by my grandfather, Harry Finch Reynolds.

Barry's ancestor moved into the newly built house in 1906 and he has kindly provided a photograph and other information. In 1929 it became a boarding house for St Albans High School for Girls and in 1961 was sold. The site now holds the offices of the Trans-European Division of the Seventh-day Adventists.

Timeline 1905-1961

Pupils at the Rev Tucks School at Little Wymondley

Schools

The Wymondley House School is looking interesting. In 1841, when Tuck was at still at Welwyn,  one of the pupils was the Royal bastard George St George. Alison has found evidence that in 1851 one of the pupils at Wymondley House school was Hillier Gosselyn, who became mayor of Hertford on three occasions and also served as High Sherriff of Hertfordshire.  So did anyone else who attended the school under Rev. Tuck also become famous. I don't have time to check myself - but do any of you recognize any of the names of boys at the school in 1871 and 1881 - and what happened to them? 

Resident pupils in 1871: Eustace F Hill (13, London), Francis W Howe (12, London), Henry W Smith (12, Biddenham, Bedfordshire), Cecily E R Brise (12, Braintree, Essex), Valentine EdwardBeldam (11, Royston, Hertfordshire), James C Holloway (11, Stanhoe, Norfolk), Philip Bridges (11, China), Archibald Howe(10, London), Augustus S Orlaben (10, Willington, Bedfordshire), Eustace Guinness (10, Ireland), Lionel Herbert (10, East Indies), James Ward Beldam (9, Royston, Hertfordshire), Gordon H Paske (9, East Indies), Herbert A French (9, Shrandeston, Suffolk), Gerald S Guinness (9, Ireland) and Arthur H Gilbert (8, Hemsby, Norfolk).

Resident pupils in 1881: Oswald R. Mounsey (13. Sunbury, Middlesex), Arthur P. How (12, Sunbury, Middlesex), Francis C. French (12, Walingworth, Suffolk), Percy Clark (12, East Holthly, Sussex), George M. Graham (12, India), Charles G. Spencer (12, Wheatfield, Oxfordshire), Sydney How (11, Cobham. Surrey), Alexander C. Calvert (11, Maids Morton, Buckinghamshire), Herbert M.F. Rowe (10, London), Augustus F. Holman(10, East Hoathly, Sussex), Richard Noel Guinness (10, Ireland), William C. French (10, Worlingworth, Suffolk), Conwyn M. Jones (9, Beddington, Surrey), Randal H.W. Vickers (9, Cotham, Yorkshire) and Frederic L. Clarke (8, London).

The names and places of birth are taken from the census returns and there are certain to be some spelling and transcription errors. If you can identify anyone post your information as a comment.

Corran School, Langley Road, Watford

Corran, Watford, circa 1910

Schools

Watford

There were many private schools in and around Watford and I recently came across this post card of Corran, which was a girls boarding school in Langley Road Watford between 1890 and about 1935. Interestingly one of the first principals, Eleanor Frances Jourdain, went on to become the principal of of St Hugh's College, Oxford, as did one of the pupils, Evelyn Emma Stefanos Procter. In addition one of the teachers, May Leitch, was a leading woman golfer, although not as well known as her sister Cecil Leitch.

More Information

Any further information on staff or pupils will be welcome

More on New Birklands School, St Albans

Schools

Birklands School

St Albans

I recently posted some pictures of this school. I have now added further information (from the Dundee Courier!) about its move from London to St Albans in 1905, plus two extra photographs of the school after it had dropped the "New" from its name. 

MORE

Graham Greene - His Birthplace at Berkhamsted School

St John's House, Berkhamsted School

Schools

Graham Greene, (1904-1991), the writer, playwright and literary critic, was born in this house at Berkhamsted school. At the time his father was a teacher at the school, but later became headmaster. When Graham became thirteen he returned to St John's house as a boarder, living in a part of the building he had not known as a child.  He describes the horrors of the area reserved for the pupils in his biography A Sort of Life. 

Read On ...

Rosary Priory, Caldecote Towers, Aldenham

Schools

A Classroom, Rosary Priory, circa 1830

Caldecote Towers was a strange looking building built in the 1870s. In the late 1920's it became a school, called Rosary Priory, and I have added pictures of the dining room and a classroom. (Large images available on main page). I have also taken the opportunity to add a press cutting relating to the building being auctioned in 1878.

St Rohan's School, Hadley Wood - Buchanan PC

I have added details of St Ronan's School, Hadley Wood - The view of the School is yet another post card by P. A. Buchanan.

I have also added details of another Buchanan post card, of Christ's Hospital, Hertford. Thank to Anthony for the information.

Did the Artist's Daughter go to this School?

In April I mentioned an unusual house, Caldecote Towers, Aldenham, which became a girls boarding school - See This Crazy Looking House became a School.

Caldecote Towers - View over the Golf Course

I have now located two post cards, one showing the gardens in summer, the other showing the house in winter. Both are from paintings by Charles Essenhigh Corke. Charles was an artist who lived in Sevenoaks, Kent. He painted many views for the post card publishers, J. Salmon, but almost without exception these views were of Kent or other southern counties.

The choice of subject seems strange if all Charles was doing was to produce a number of views of Hertfordshire - and the subjects make more sense if you consider the cards as "Art cards" where the location is not very important.  Perhaps it is relevant that he had two daughters who could have been at the school at about the time the cards were published.  Of course this is speculation but it could explain his interest in the area.  

Better Access to Earlier Posts on this Newsletter

When I started this blog I didn't make use of the labels facility - which allows you to quickly look at other posts which use the same keyword as the post you are currently looking at. 

This is changing and I am now using labels on all new posts (except temporary topics -such as notification of meetings). Each new post will contain the relevant place names as a label, and also the more important surnames. There are also topic labels such as "Football", "Royalty", "Brickmaker" and "Medieval Fields".

I am currently scanning the old posts and have already labelled some 200 posts - with another 200 to go - hopefully by the end of the week.

To use the facility simply click on the desired keyword at the bottom of the post. For many posts you will then need to click through to the main web site to seen even more information.

Bourne Hall Academy, Bushey - c1845-c1885

Linda has discovered that Henri Lemenager, the Watford photographer, was related by marriage to Henry Lewis Biggs, who ran the Bourne Hall Academy in Bushey - where Henri worked for a time around 1861. She commented about the lack of information about the school and as a result I have drafted a history, as far as I could, with a picture of the building, map showing its location, and a list of the pupils I have identified from the census returns.

I have added brief information on the pupils who were born in Hertfordshire. Herbert Austin was a paper manufacturer of Solesbridge Mill, Chorleywood; George Capel was the son of a master upholsterer of Watford,; Edward Hampton, and his brothers, were sons of Edward Hampton, a local master baker who later had the Swan Inn, Rickmansworth; and Harry Finch Woollatt was the son on a farmer living at Samwells Farm, Sandridge.

Information on small schools such as this one is hard to find - so if you can add anything  - such as your ancestor went to this school, please let me know and I can add the information to the school history.

Did your ancestor go to a private boarding school?

I have just had an question about the school that Paul's ancestor George FitzGeorge went to in 1851. He is uncertain about George's father and ideally he would like to find school records relating to his admission. Unfortunately the school was typical of the large number of preparatory boys boarding schools where there are no surviving school records. If you have a similar problem to Paul have a look at Rev. TUCK's School, Welwyn, Little Wymondley & Northaw, c1840-c1930 to see the factors I considered in trying to find more.

It is important to realize that it is likely that many of the pupils who went to the school went there because of personal recommendation - and might be relatives of the headmaster, or linked in some way to his family. For this reason I investigated the headmaster's family (including search online local newspapers) and also investigated a bit of the social background of the other pupils at the school in case there are any obvious contacts. The history of the school could also be relevant - as key documents may have been been kept when/if the school changed location or management. In this case the school may have been a continuation of an earlier boarding school  that was at Welwyn in 1839. In 1851/2 it moved from Welwyn to Little Wymondley. The school continued under a new schoolmaster and then moved to Northaw and the management changed again.Unfortunately the paper trail that school records might have followed goes cold in about 1935.

This Crazy Looking House became a School (Aldenham/Bushey)

As a student, over 50 years ago, I went to see Flanders and Swan in "At a Drop of a Hat" and looking at Caldecote Towers very much reminds me of their song "Design for Living". In this song they describe how "We're terribly House and Garden At Number Seven B" by being ever so contemporary:

We planned an uninhibited interior decor, 
Curtains made of straw, 
We've wall-papered the floor! 
We don't know if we like it, but at least we can be sure 
There's no place like home sweet home.

Ending with the killer verse

Oh, we're terribly House and Garden 
As I think we said before, 
But though Seven B is madly gay -
It wouldn't do for every day -
We actually live in Seven A, 
In the house next door!

Captain William John Marjoribanks Loftus-Otway built  Caldecote Towers  in the 1870s but then seems to have abandoned it for his house in Grosvenor Square. Perhaps he found his jumbled pile unsuitable for everyday living!

The House became a girls boarding school in 1892 - then after 1926 it was a Roman Catholic convent - and most recently a Jewish co-educational school.

A Post Card with surprising Football and Princely Connections

Les is the webmaster of the Hadley Common web site and he sent me this post card of a house called Ludgrove in the Parish of Monken Hadley. He asked me if I could date it and I could have easily dismissed the request on the grounds that it was only in Hertfordshire for a period of 60 years during the early 20th century. However the immediate task was simple - The card was a KROMO card by the famous post card pioneers Blum & Degan. They published many views of Hertfordshire and the KROMO card series was started in 1905. Unfortunately for them, but helpfully for answering the question, they went bankrupt in 1908 - so the card can easily be dated to about 1906.

       My first reaction was that the house looked like many others that were springing into existence in Middlesex and South Hertfordshire a century or more ago and I really needed to say something more about it before posting details in this Newsletter, or writing a special page on the main web site. So I decided to dig for some background and the more I dug the more interesting the house became.

School Memories of the 1940 -Priory School, Kings Langley

Coombe Hill School (or Priory School as it was later known) was a pretty unconventional school in its attitudes to children. I am therefore delighted to being able to add Paul's memories of the school as it was over 50 years ago.