inner–london schools 1918–44 a thematic study - English Heritage

(St Clement Danes’ Grammar School,opened 1928, L B Hammersmith andFulham), assistance in finding andsecuring a new site (ArchbishopTenison’s Grammar School, opened1928, L B Lambeth) and using theservices of the LCC Architect toprovide a design (St Martin’s in theFields High School, opened 1928, L BLambeth). 32These three cases were praised byLord Eustace Percy, President ofthe Board of Education, as proving‘that the old conflict between publiccontrolled and voluntary schoolswas not an insoluble one, but thatboth partners could work togethersmoothly and flexibly’. 33 Yet, all threewere ancient foundations which wereable to contribute funds from theirendowments, as well as the moneyraised from the sale of their city-centresites.The Catholic authorities providedthe largest number of new schoolsFig. 64: St Mary and St Michael's Catholic School, Stepney(John Sterrett, 1933), destroyed by bombing in 1945.(Reproduced from Maynard 2007, 274, courtesy of JeanMaynard).premises during the inter-war years, particularly in the East End, the South East and onLCC estates in outer London. The schools tended to be located beside the local Catholicchurch whose dedication they generally shared. As far as is known, the architects were allRoman Catholics who specialised in the design of both churches and church schools.While the LCC was sometimes praised for its funding of Catholic schools, financialconstraints strongly influenced their architectural appearance, as the Catholic Church inEngland and Wales, re-established with bishops in 1850, lacked historic endowments. 34They were generally plain brick buildings, with mere hints at historical styles, such asstripped Gothic revival, neo-Tudor or neo-Georgian. In some schools of the 1930s thearchitects dispensed with historicist details and treated the brick façades in a moremodernist idiom with vaguely Dudokian overtones (for example, St Thomas MoreCatholic School, 1929-1934, L B Greenwich).A more radically modern example was St Mary and St Michael’s Catholic School onLucas Street (later Lukin Street), Stepney (1933, destroyed by bombing in 1945), designedby John Sterrett and built at a cost of £10,059 10s. Lettering in the parapet and stylisedangel figures at the corners – both modelled in brick – were the only details relievingthe starkly functional appearance of the building. The school, which was the 100 thCatholic school to be opened in London since the establishment of the LCC in 1889,© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 0967