innerâlondon schools 1918â44 a thematic study - English Heritage

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The funding of schoolsA weak national economy and political anxiety about state expenditure on educationput a repeated brake on the development of school buildings between the wars. Onthe outbreak of peace in 1918, the local authority backlog of public works was put inabeyance due to restrictions on capital expenditure, skilled labour and materials. Thepurchase of new sites was restricted by the housing shortage, so existing schools wereinstead remodelled or rebuilt. The day continuation schools required by the Fisher Actwere procured from a variety of old school buildings and hired premises. In Deptford,the Methodists’ Church Hall of 1903 was pressed into service. 28 Pressure was alleviatedby use of temporary or non-purpose built structures such as army huts , from which theLCC Bow Road Open-air school, L B Tower Hamlets was constructed in 1921-22. 29 Theresult was essentially the same piecemeal, improvisatory approach that had prevailed inwartime; neither was the shift in population from the centre to the periphery addressed.This was a marked divergence from the house-building programme initiated by the 1919Housing Act. 30The tone of retrenchment was set by the reports of the Geddes Committee on NationalExpenditure in 1922 (popularly known as the ‘Geddes axe’), which recommended a halton all educational development, an increase in class sizes and the exclusion of childrenunder six from school. The Board of Education, under continual pressure from theTreasury, urged restraint and economy. Such conservative policies encouraged neitherthe extension of educational provision nor innovation in the building of schools. EdmundPhipps, the deputy secretary of the Board of Education, admitted in 1921 to a group ofarchitects, ‘I and my colleagues spend much time preventing you and your colleagues indoing your work in building schools’. 31 In 1925, the Baines Committee recommendedFig. 9: Bow Road Open-air School, L B Tower Hamlets (LCC AD, 1921-22). The boskysetting conceals reused army huts (L M A : SC /PHL /02/0428 -14; City of London, LondonMetropolitan Archives).© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 0917
single-storey brick buildings, reducing corridors and halls in size and setting roofs at alower pitch. Less money was to be ‘unnecessarily lavished on [the] internal finish’ ofthe assembly hall, and there was pressure to build fewer specialist rooms. 32 In 1931, theBoard of Education stated that stone facings were ‘needlessly expensive’ in secondaryschools. 33During recurrent periods of national economic crisis in the inter-war years, programmesof building were postponed or cancelled—a reversal of the Board of Education’s1914 policy of promoting public works programmes as a means to stimulate the localeconomy and to alleviate unemployment. 34 Construction already in hand was suspendedor prolonged. In response to this uncertainty, the Board encouraged local educationalauthorities to spread the outlay of school building over a number of years by phasedconstruction, which required forward planning for future expansion. Early experiments incheap and lightweight school building were encouraged on the same grounds, continuinga strand of policy that had existed since at least 1911 (see page 32).The recovery of the national economy in the mid-1930s lead to a short burst of progressin school building in the period 1936-39. The 1936 Education Act provided for 50-70%grants for denominational schools to provide additional secondary places, in exchangefor the transfer of management powers to the local education authorities. The schoolleaving age was to be raised to 15 on 1 September 1939. There followed a ‘mini-boom’ ofthe building of schools and particularly secondary schools, mostly in the suburbs. Therewas a corresponding increase in quality, as architects at last engaged with schools andcaught up with medical research and pedagogical advances. There was much coverage ofschools in the architectural press, such as a series of articles in the Architects’ Journal, laterrepublished in book form. A competition held by the News Chronicle in 1937 was alsowell publicised and influential. The same year the Royal Institute of British Architects heldan exhibition on school architecture. All this activity was curtailed in late 1938 by thereallocation by the Treasury of resources to rearmament and the following year by war. 35© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 0918
Page 2 and 3: Research Department Report Series 4
Page 11 and 12: The final part of the report proper
Page 13 and 14: would best be considered within the
Page 15 and 16: © ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 09
Page 17 and 18: IntroductionThe provision of school
Page 19 and 20: The augmentation of state nursery p
Page 21 and 22: central schools, either newly built
Page 23: Fig 8: Model of Impington, possibly
Page 27 and 28: 33 Board of Education 1931a, 58.34
Page 29 and 30: IntroductionFrom 1870 until 1990, t
Page 31 and 32: Fig. 12: SBL datestone from the Wes
Page 33 and 34: Fig. 14: The classroom pavilions at
Page 35 and 36: Fig. 18: Granton Road School, L B L
Page 37 and 38: considered no less important. Londo
Page 39 and 40: Fig. 22: Infants' Department of Ath
Page 41 and 42: module. 41 Stillman’s schools wer
Page 43 and 44: a spacious playground with retained
Page 45 and 46: collegiate air of a preparatory sch
Page 47 and 48: Fig 32: Junior school classrooms at
Page 49 and 50: emain a “book-learnt” conceptio
Page 51 and 52: Fig 36: Herbert Francis Thomas Coop
Page 53 and 54: contemporaries, with their widely s
Page 55 and 56: Endnotes1 On the abolition of the L
Page 57 and 58: 60 Board of Education 1938.61 Saler
Page 59 and 60: The nursery schoolCase studies:•
Page 61 and 62: designs, the second of 1937 with Ma
Page 63 and 64: Fig. 52: Webb Street School elevati
Page 65 and 66: Fig. 55: North Hammersmith Central
Page 67 and 68: The secondary schoolCase studies:
Page 69 and 70: Fig 59: Maze Hill elevation to the
Page 71 and 72: admired ‘more than any other arch
Page 73 and 74: grants in the form of building subs
Page 75 and 76:
accommodated 440 junior children in
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The open-air schoolCase studies:•
Page 79 and 80:
three open-air schools opened by th
Page 81 and 82:
Fig 71: The buildings of the Geere
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As Frederick Rose predicted in 1908
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L B Wandsworth, by providing ‘roo
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LAN ANCE SURVEY PLANwithout mainten
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Endnotes1 LCC minutes 17.7.1928, p.
Page 91 and 92:
44 Catholic Hall, Appleton Road, El
Page 93 and 94:
© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 098
Page 95 and 96:
Board of Education 1923 The differe
Page 97 and 98:
English Heritage 1993 General princ
Page 99 and 100:
Morrison, K. 1999 The workhouse: a
Page 101 and 102:
Whitbread N. 1972 The evolution of
Page 103 and 104:
Appendix 1: Gazetteer of extant pur
Page 105 and 106:
Original name Present Name & Addres
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Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
The S towag e pl anPeckham Park, 18
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The en d hall pl anUpper North Stre
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The b u t ter fly pl anAthelney Str
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• Separate-block planning refers
Page 119 and 120:
Appendix 5: Glossary of school type
Page 121 and 122:
increasing popular after the 1926 a
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innerâlondon schools 1918â44 a thematic study - English Heritage