Local historians,
Charles Tebbutt and Rosa Young, have published extensive research into St
Neots’ history. What follows has largely been gleaned from their work.
The first
school
It is said that
the monks at St Neots Priory supported schools for boys as early as
1260. Anglo-French would have the language they used as the monks were from
Normandy. Latin, Greek and Divinity would have been studied.
Richard, the Prior
at Bushmead, applied for a license to open a school but he died during the
Black Death in 1438. Many of his potential students likely perished too.
The first school
in St Neots opened in 1556. Classes were held in Jesus Chapel inside St
Mary’s parish church in St Neots. Revd. Faucet was the
priest and schoolmaster, living in the 15th century building on the
corner of Church Street. His pupils were the sons of the local gentry, wealthy
landowners, and the clergy. John and Francis White (1570 – 1615), sons of the
vicar of St Neots’ sons are recorded as attending St Neots Grammar School. John became Bishop of Ely and Francis became the
chaplain to James I.
In 1658, during
the Commonwealth, £20 of the church’s money was used to pay for a schoolmaster.
By the 18th
century people thought that education should be for all classes of society. In 1736
a Charity school for ’35 poor boys’ was opened in St Neots. Classes were
also held in the Jesus Chapel of St Mary’s Church, St Neots but after 1745 they
moved into another building, probably rooms in the vicarage.
In 1757 Loftus Hatley left £40 in his will to educate poor children who
were constant attenders at church. His son Richard,
who died in 1789, left £400 to help pay £10 a year for a schoolmaster and £10
12s. 6d for clothing for seven poor boys from St Neots and
three from Eynesbury.
In 1760 Alderman
Newton of Leicester left £26 a year for the St Neots school
‘for the clothing, schooling, and educating of 25 boys of indigent and
necessitous parents of the Established Church, between the ages of 7 and 14.’ Their
clothing had to be green jackets, breeches and waistcoats with brass buttons,
pale blue stockings and a green ‘Tam o’Shanter’ hat
with a red tassel. The school then became known as Green Coat School.
Between 1780 and
1803 one of Newton’s heirs claimed that the money should not be given to St
Neots School. He lost the case and, in 1860, the arrears, then worth £598, were
used to build a new schoolhouse on Church Walk.
The headmaster
lived in a medieval half-timbered house nearby and took in boarders. He was very strict, actually chaining boys to
desks as a punishment. There is a story of one smuggling in a file with which
he managed to escape.
At first it housed
pupils of both sexes but later it was only for boys. Another ‘Girls and
Infants School’ was started in premises in Huntingdon Street from 1840.
The ‘green linnets’ as the boys were sometimes called, were
made fun of as ‘charity boys’.
There was a school
in Eaton Socon in the late-18th century but where it was is not
certain. James Livett was described as the
schoolmaster.
In 1865 Walter
Cooper was the headmaster of ‘St Neots Charity and National School. At
an inspection in 1870 there were 140 boys aged between 7 and 15 taught by one
teacher, an assistant and three pupil teachers. The 85 girls had one teacher
and two pupil teachers. The 200 infants had one teacher, one assistant and
three pupil teachers.
It became the National
School in 1854.
There are no
references to a Charity school in Eynesbury. Boys had to walk into St Neots for classes. Reverend Palmer, the rector between 1808 and
1851, set up his own school for the poor. It was in a building at the south end
of Luke Street, facing the village green. An inscription over one of the
doorways read ‘Suffer little Children to Come unto Me’.
With more students
attending the school it became too small and in 1818 the children were moved to
the coach and stable-block in the rectory on Montagu Street.
The infants
attended classes in a ‘rod barn’, thought to be on Luke Street. The ‘Old
School Yard’ was converted into low-cost, two-room, terraced cottages. (These were pulled down in 1960.)
In 1854 James
Phillips was the headmaster of 90 pupils of both sexes, whose parents made a
weekly contribution to their children’s education.
It then moved to a
new building erected next to it in 1868 with 80 juniors and 75 infants. The
school bell still hangs in the bell-cote.
By 1884 one Eynesbury
Junior School teacher complained about having one class with over 80
pupils.
During the 19th
century those members of the Non-Conformist (Independent) churches (Quakers,
Wesleyans/Methodists and Presbyterians) were concerned about sending their
children to the Church of England school. They were being taught the catechism
which was the set beliefs of the established church. So they arranged
Sunday School classes for them in their chapels or, if
they could afford it, sent them to private schools.
In 1844 they
opened a school in the disused chapel behind 20 High Street beside the ‘New
Inn’.. This
‘British School’ was run by a committee of Independents, Baptists and
Wesleyans. With alternative non-conformist schools available, it closed down in
1862; the children were transferred to the Methodist School.
The Wesleyans had
became more well-known as the Methodists and in 1852 converted
the old golf club headquarters on Huntingdon Street into a chapel.
They already had Sunday School classes and started
their own Day School. It was run by Mr A. Arundal.
By 1858 they had
raised enough money to build a new school on land to the north of Priory
Road.
The cost of
maintaining the school was high and in 1926 it was taken over by
Huntingdonshire County Council becoming the town’s first ‘Council
School’. The former Wesleyan School continued in use as Priory Road School
until the 1960s when it sold and demolished. The students moved into a new
church school in Church Walk.
Eaton Socon’s National School was erected in 1832 to the east of the parish church.
It had 54 boys and 63 girls. By 1860 it was too small and a larger
building was constructed on the site.
Adults’ education
was not ignored. The Public Rooms were opened in 1855 next to the bridge
where meetings and concerts were held.
The Corn
Exchange was opened in 1863 on the corner of High Street and South Street.
It was designed as an indoor farmers market but also held concerts and
meetings. After 1887 it held the Victoria Museum which had mostly
stuffed animals.
In 1868 Eynesbury
had a Reading Room in the school.
In 1880 education
became compulsory for 5 – 14 year old children.
Eaton Socon had a Workmen’s
Club in 1880 which met at the
National School.
The Library and
Literary Institute was founded in 1881.
The Liberal
Club and the Conservative Club opened in 1895.
With the dramatic
400% population increase caused by London Overspill during the 1960s and 70s
there was a need for more schools.
New Infant and
Junior Schools were built at Crosshall, Bushmead, Pepys Road, Winhills and Middlefield.
Two new secondary
schools, Ernulf Community school in Eynesbury and Longsands Community School in St Neots, provided education
for 11 to 18 year olds as well as adult evening classes.
The Pavilion
Cinema closed down in 1968 but other clubs and societies provided leisure and
recreation facilities.
An open-air
swimming pool was built on Huntingdon Street and another pool and recreation
centre built at Ernulf.
St Neots Players
performed at Longsands school
and the Black Box Theatre Company at Ernulf. The Stablehands
performed Shakespeare plays in the yard of The King’s Head.
Musical
entertainment was supplied by the Choral Society and the Music Hall
Society.
(Young, R. (1996), 'St Neots Past', Phillimore,
pp.47,68,68,94,96-97,112,121-2; Tebbutt, C.F. (1978), St Neots – History of a
Huntingdonshire Town, Unwin Brothers, pp. 50-58)