Website produced and maintained for the Hungerford Historical Association
by Hugh Pihlens

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As a small rural market town, Hungerford illustrates well the variety of different types of schools across the past 400 years. This article traces the changes in education through the course of time and shows how these changes affected Hungerford specifically.

Quick Summary of the changes in Schools and Education
in Hungerford over 400 years

The next group of schools to discuss is the Proprietary Schools. They were founded by joint stock companies to operate like a business and make a profit. They gave education to the children of the middle and upper classes whose parents could afford the school fees. Most were established during the mid 19th century. As examples, Cheltenham College was  founded in 1841, and our nearest public school, Marlborough College in 1843.

Although  Hungerford  did  not have one of the large proprietary schools, it did have many of the small Private Schools or Academies and the Dame Schools. In the early 19th century there was a new demand for education and to meet this demand many small private schools sprang up all over the country over the next hundred years.

These small private schools shared certain characteristics. They were often run by clergymen (see advert for Westfield House run by the Rev. Coleman, who was the Curate of Hungerford. Westfield House was later run by another Curate of Hungerford, the Rev. Denning. Many clergymen ran schools to supplement their income as did widows of clergymen or academics. Dame Schools, which were similar to the academies but less expensive, were called "Dame" schools because they were run by elderly ladies. Both academies and Dame schools were small, often having only 6 to 12 children. They were intensely competitive and often just lasted the life time of the proprietor. There were at least ten in Hungerford. Follow this link for more on Dame schools in Hungerford.

Sunday Schools and Voluntary Schools: So far, we have described education for the privileged children - Grammar Schools, large and small private schools, and Dame schools. What education was available for the vast majority of children from the working classes?

Mass illiteracy did not end until Robert Raikes introduced Sunday Schools in 1780. The first was in Gloucester, but they soon spread across the country.

In 1818 Brougham's Royal Commission reported that only 25% of English children received education and half of all adults could not sign their name. Within 30 years, however, three-quarters of children were attending Sunday school.

Follow this for more on Sunday Schools.

Follow this link for more on Voluntary Schools including those in Hungerford.

Hungerford's  National School, 42 High Street was built in 1814, only three years after the founding of The National Society. So Hungerford  had an early start for this provision of education. It ran as a National Church of England School for nearly one hundred years but closed in 1910. Follow this link for more on the National School.

Hungerford  had  a British and Foreign Society School somewhere in the High Street. It is listed in directories as being in the High Street in the 1840s and 1850s with names of the masters and mistresses who taught there. The exact position is unclear at present, as are its opening and closing dates. Follow this link for more on the British School.

However, Hungerford did have a Wesleyan School in Church Street. This building had been built in 1807 as the Wesleyan Chapel but when the new Wesleyan Chapel was built in 1869 in Charnham Street, the former chapel became available for the Wesleyan Day and Sunday School. This it did for 41 years until it closed in 1910. Follow this link for more on the Wesleyan School.

Hungerford also had an Infant National School at 6 Oxford Street, Eddington, next to Buckland House. As the boarding school moved from Buckland House in 1867, the Infant National School opened in 1869. The directories say it was for one hundred children, but  average attendance ranged from 26 to 47. When children became six years old, they moved up to the National School in the High Street. Follow this link for more on the Infant National School.

In 1833, the first step by the government towards managing education was taken when Lord Althorp's Factory Act was passed. This made it illegal for under-9 year olds to work in the textile mills, and also enforced any older children at work to have two hours teaching per day.

There were increasing Pressures on the government to provide better education. In 1868 the working man gained the right to vote - and needed to be literate; Britain's industrial supremacy was being lost to Germany and USA - and could only be corrected by better education of children – the future work force. Britain's population was expanding rapidly, and the  Voluntary Schools were not able to provide enough places. In 1861 only 1 in 8 poor children received weekday education.

In 1870 William Edward Forster's Education Act introduced compulsory education for all children aged 5-13 years. It was not free - children still had to pay their weekly pence, according to their parent's income. He devised the "Dual System" - Voluntary schools were to continue,  with an increase to their grants, but if there was no Voluntary School, the government set up "Board Schools". Hungerford did not need a Board School - it was well provided with its flourishing Voluntary Schools. Six "standards" were established, in reading, writing and arithmetic.

A crop of further education acts were passed, including:
- 1876 Sandon's (Con) Elementary Education Act:
   >Duty of parents to ensure their children received elementary instruction
   >Created school attendance committees, which could compel attendance
- 1880 Mundella's (Con) Elementary Education Act:
   >Compulsory attendance for children aged 5-10 years
- 1891 (Con) Elementary Education Act:
   >Grants to all schools meant free basic elementary education. 
- 1899 (Con) Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act (1893) Amendment Act:
   >Raised school leaving age to 12 years

In 1902 Balfour's Education Act raised the school-leaving age to 14 years. School Boards, which were run on a parochial basis were replaced by a more county based Local Education Authorities. This allowed for better communication between the L.E.A.s and with London. The Board Schools were renamed Council Schools and the Voluntary Schools were renamed Non-Provided Schools, although they continued to receive aid from the rates and were supervised by the LEAs.

In Hungerford, the old voluntary schools were closed in 1910 and replaced by a single new All-Age Council School. The old National School was used during the 1st World War as a convalescent hospital for the war wounded. Thereafter it was used for educational purposes until it was sold by the church in 1973.  Follow this link for more on the All-Age Council School.

In 1944 it was at long last recognised by the government that  separate  provision  for secondary education was necessary. Butler's Education Act of 1944 called these schools Secondary Modern schools. Despite numbers growing in Hungerford's All Age Council School, it was not for a further 19 years before Lambourn and Hungerford, the last in Berkshire, received their new Secondary Modern School. After the 2nd World War, priority for building the secondary modern  schools  was given to the large towns first. Hungerford's council school must have bulged at the seams when it peaked at 626 on its roll in the late 1950s. So it must have been with great relief that the then headmaster of the council school, Mr. John Davies, transferred 290 senior children to the new secondary school, the John O' Gaunt School in Priory Road when it opened in January 1963. Follow this link for more on the John O'Gaunt School.

This left the Council School for the junior and infants only, and it was renamed the Hungerford County Primary School. It was much extended in 1992.

Finally we must mention the Church Croft Nursery School. This was originally a pre-fab building built in 1942 as a war-time nursery for the children whose mothers worked at Vickers munitions factory in the town. The nursery was open daily from 7am until 7pm, with the children attending daily and the staff living-in! It closed for a short time after the war, but has been open ever since as a nursery school. Hungerford is very fortunate to have a nursery school. Nursery education is still non-statutory, and Berkshire has a total of only 18 nursery schools. Hungerford's school provides three terms of nursery education for the children before they go to the primary school. The town was even more fortunate when funds were made available to provide a completely new Nursery School which opened in January 2005. Follow this link for more on the Nursery School.

See also:
- Chronological list of all Hungerford Schools
- Early Schools and Schooling in Hungerford, Norman Hidden, 2005.
- Hungerford and Camburn Educational Trust

Updated: 13.7.2010

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