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Authority record

Selsdon Central School

  • CB107
  • Corporate body
  • 1931

Opened 31 August 1931. Later known as Selsdon County Secondary School. Closed August 1965.

Selhurst High School for Girls

  • CB108
  • Corporate body
  • 1904

Opened in September 1904 as The Borough Secondary School for Girls in the premises of the South Norwood branch of Croydon Polytechnic. The school moved to The Crescent, Selhurst in 1910, but returned to its earlier location during Wold War One, while the new school building was in use as a hospital. Renamed Selhurst Grammar School for Girls in 1922. In 1939, the school was evacuated to Hove, moved to Virginia Water in 1940 and later to The Beeches at Guildford. The school became an age 14+ comprehensive from 1971, becoming known as Selhurst High School for Girls. It closed, because of falling rolls and reorganisation, in 1988.

Beaumont Primary School

  • CB109
  • Corporate body
  • 1920

The school originated in 1858 as part of the Asylum for Fatherless Children. From 1904 it was known as Reedham Orphanage and by 1917 there were 310 pupils on the roll.

Shortage of funds after World War 1 caused the school to be taken over by the LEA on 1 September 1920, the then Headmaster H.E. Clarke remaining in post.

Pupils were evacuated to Aspley, Nottingham, 18 July 1944 to 18 June 1945.

By 1950 numbers had dropped to approximately 200 and the school was opened to local children who increasingly outnumbered those from Reedham Orphanage.

The school transferred to a new building and opened as Beaumont Primary School on 1 September 1968. The school was finally closed and demolished in 1980.

Selhurst High School for Boys

  • CB110
  • Corporate body
  • 1904

Opened in September 1904 as The Borough Secondary School for Boys in the Scarbrook Road premises occupied in the evenings by Croydon Polytechnic. The school moved to The Crescent, Selhurst in 1913, but returned to Scarbrook Road between 1915 and 1918 or 1919, while the school building was in use as a hospital. Renamed Selhurst Grammar School for Boys in 1922. The school became an age 14+ comprehensive from 1971, becoming known as Selhurst High School for Boys. It closed, because of falling rolls and reorganisation, in 1988.

St Saviours School

  • CB111
  • Corporate body
  • 1874

St Saviours Infants and All-Age Girls School existed by 1874. St Saviours Post-Infants Boys School existed by 1884. In 1891 the infants separated from the post-infants girls school to form St Saviours Post-Infant Girls School and St Saviours Infants School, but the two schools were reunited in 1915. The post-infants boys school closed on 27 March 1923 to enable it to absorb 150 pupils from Christ Church School. It reopened on 1 May 1923. In 1930, the senior boys and girls were sent elsewhere and the remaining children formed St Saviours Junior Mixed and Infants School. The school was evacuated to Brighton in September 1939 and reopened in Croydon on 15 April 1940. The school closed in 1948 as it possesed insufficient funds to enlarge the playground or rebuild the school.

St Michaels School

  • CB113
  • Corporate body
  • 1877

The school was a Church of England School throughout its history. Existed before 1877 probably as Good Shepherd Junior Girls and Infants School. A separate infants school, Good Shepherd Infants School was opened on 24 October 1884. Also on 24 October 1884, it seems that junior boys joined the junior girls to form Good Shepherd Junior Mixed School. On 30 September 1896, the infants and junior schools were reunited to form Good Shepherd Primary School. On 24 August 1908 the school was reorganised for girls, juniors and infants in new buildings in St Jamess Road and the name of the school was changed to form St Michaels Girls and Mixed Primary School. On 3 October 1927, the school was reorganised for senior girls only and became St Michaels Senior Girls School. On 1 September 1930, the school became St Michaels Girls Central School, in a further reorganisation. The school was evacuated to Whitehawk School, Brighton, Sussex on 4 September 1939 and closed circa January 1944, at which time it was located in three different Croydon school buildings. In 1948 the school was revived as St Michaels Infant School and on 3 November 1948 it received the staff, children and records of the closed Tavistock Infants School in Grenaby Road. The school closed in July 1976, because of low numbers and the inadequacy of the site.

St Marys RC Junior School

  • CB114
  • Corporate body
  • 1863 - 2007

St. Marys School was started at 8 Broad Green (the old Presbytery) in 1851, the first Chatelaine of the school arriving from the Convent of the Faithful Virgin (Virgo Fidelis), Norwood, on a cart drawn by a donkey. In the first week it had eight pupils. Shortly, it moved into an adjoining cottage.

The school was entirely voluntary until 1862, in which year it received State recognition; the following year it also received its first State aid.

On 3 July 1864 the school transferred to its present site and from January 1888 passed into the care of the Sisters of Mercy. From 1904, there was a separate Infants Department, perhaps until 1936. In 1939, the school was evacuated to Latcham, Sussex and then after Dunkirk, to Addlestone, Surrey, and later to Withiel, Cornwall. In 1955 pupils over the age of 11 were transferred to a new and separate Secondary School which became ST MARYS (RC) HIGH SCHOOL).

In 1968, the Primary children moved into a new building, separate Infants and Junior Schools being created at that point.

St Luke's School

  • CB115
  • Corporate body
  • 1930

Opened June 1930 at Thornton Heath Polytechnic, as a special school for myopic and partially blind children. Moved to Winterborne schools on 9 January 1933 and opened in its own building on that site on 3 September 1937. Evacuated to the Open Air School, Beechy Avenue, Eastbourne, 4 September 1939 and closed 14 June 1940, when invasion seemed imminent. Reopened 29 March 1946 at Fairchildes and returned to Winterbourne in 1954. Closed in July 1981, the pupils being transferred to Oval Junior and Infants School.

Atwood Primary School

  • CB116
  • Corporate body
  • 1960

Atwood Primary School opened on 13 June 1960. On 31 August 1994 the school became Grant Maintained and ceased to have a Local Authority responsibility until 1999 when it became a Foundation School.

When the foundations for the School were being dug in 1960, the site was examined by archaeologists. The Sanderstead Archaeological Group, under the leadership of Roger Little, investigated the area and discovered Iron Age and Romano British occupation material, 500 BC to 200AD. Subsequent excavations by Gillian Batchelor, when the school was extended in the late 1980s, revealed an extensive early Roman area of occupation and resulted in the recovery of over 5000 pieces of 1st and 2nd century pottery.

St Johns Church of England Primary School

  • CB117
  • Corporate body
  • 1834

In 1834 a dame school came into existence in a cottage that was later altered and enlarged to become the present sextons cottage, on the corner of Spring Park and Shurley Church Roads. The school was held on weekdays; on Sundahys a curate from Croydon Parish Church conducted a service there. A Cof E Chapel of Ease was built there in 1836.

The first Dame recorded is Mrs Eliza Pestell. She was married to the coachman of the Revd. Matthew Farrer, who became Perpetual Curate of Shirley in 1841. The Pestells were already living in Shirley, however, in 1838 when their second daughter Anne was buried while still an infant (two later daughters would also die before reaching majority). The Farrers were connected with the Earl of Eldon whose house stood where the grounds of Trinity School are now, so Thomas Pestell, Elizas husband, may earlier have been in the Earls service.

In 1854 the school room was enlarged and on 10 January of that year the Pestells eldest daughter, by then 21, took charge of the Girls and infants, and, apparently, her mother continued to be responsible for the Boys. These met in the Reading Room (presumably the Chapel) but in 1869 moved to a new building between the cottages and the churchyard gate in Spring Park Road. Meanwhile in 1856, the chapel had been replaced with the present church; the new Boys School was adjacent to its graveyard. There is a painting of the first Boys School by W.H.Mills, a former pupil.

Both the previous schools were replaced by a further new building, erected in only three months, which was opened by the Vicar, the Revd W. Wilks on 17 September 1885. This also stood on the Spring Park frontage.

On 09 January 1903 the schools were reorganised and combined under the Headmaster of the Boys School with effect, apparently, from 01 November 1904.

On 09 January 1933 the school was again reorganised. This was to implement the 1931 Education Act but also because numbers had suddenly become unmanageable because of the vast number of houses being built locally. All Seniors were transferred to Davidson Senior Boys and Girls Schools and travelled there by Corporation bus. It was at this time that the name St.Johns School was first used.

At 2.30pm on Wednesday 26 July 1944 a V1 flying bomb fell in the Infant playground and the blast destroyed the school buildings. Twenty four children and three teachers were in a shelter in the playground and, although the shelter filled with fumes and the doors were shattered, no one was injured. The children were evacuated safely to another shelter in the nearby recreation ground until the all clear was sounded.

For the next ten years the school was lodged at nearby Benson Primary School until the current pemises were opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 03 June 1954.

St Giles School

  • CB118
  • Corporate body
  • 1925

The school was opened in January 1925 at Winterbourne Roas as a school for Physically Defective Children. About 1928 the school took the name St Giles and on 09 January 1933 was transferred to Featherbed Lane in Addington where an extension for delicate children was opened on 18 Oct 1937.

During WWII the children were evacuated and the building housed New Addington Senior School.

Although a new block was opened in 1952, the rest of the buildings became very dilapidated, was condemned by the Inspectorate and was replaced by new purpose built premises in Pampisford Road in 1977 where it remains open as St Giles Special School, a school for children with physical disabilities from the age of 3 -16. Its catchment area extends beyond the London Borough of Croydon to include neighbouring London Boroughs. The Featherbed Lane buildings are now occupied by the Jehovahs Witnesses.

St Andrews High School

  • CB119
  • Corporate body
  • 1862

A church school had been established at St Andrews Church by 1861, possibly in Southbridge Road. On 5 December 1861, the managers of the school applied for aid in building new premises. (Source: Library of the National Society). This explains why St Andrews Mixed Infants and Girls School (opening log book entry 29 December 1862) and St Andrews Post-Infant Boys School (opening log book entry 5 January 1863), in Southbridge Road, are both described as having reopened. In 1866, the latter school closed and the former was split to form St Andrews Girls School [Upper] and St Andrews Mixed Infants School [Lower].

There is a reference also in 1861 to the existence of a small, dirty, ragged school in Old Town, Croydon. On 26 August 1872, an all-age Ragged School had opened there. From 1 February 1893 to 1903, there was a separate infants department. From 1907, the school was known as St Andrews Old Town School. From August 1913, the senior pupils were sent elsewhere and the school became a combined infants and junior school.

In 1894 St Andrews Boys School [Upper] had opened in a new building.

On 31 March 1921, the schools were reorganised. Senior children from St Andrews Old Town School were transferred to St Andrews Girls School [Upper, Senior and Junior] and St Andrews Boys School [Upper, Senior and Junior]. The infants from the main school (St Andrews Mixed Infants School [Lower]), were transferred to the Old Town school, which became St Andrews Old Town Infants School.

On 27 August 1927, the boys and girls schools were amalgamated to form St Andrews Mixed School [Senior and Junior]. On 1 September 1930, the Old Town infants school was merged with the main school and the senior pupils (age 11 and above) were transferred to other schools, which resulted in the formation of St Andrews Junior Mixed and Infants School. On 8 September 1933, senior pupils were readmitted and the school became St Andrews All Age School. On 1 September 1951, the infants and juniors were sent elsewhere and the school became a Secondary Modern, and in 1971, a comprehensive. It remains a Church of England school.

Croydon School Board

  • CB120
  • Corporate body
  • 1871

Croydon School Board was first elected on 1 March 1871, following Forsters Elementary Education Act of 1870, which instituted school boards to provide schools. Prior to this Act, education had been the responsibility of the parish council. The boards first meeting was held on 16 March 1871 and elections to the Board were subsequently usually held triennially.

The schools in existence in Croydon at the date of the foundation of the board were endowed schools, a ragged school, industrial schools, parochial schools, National Schools (Church of England), British Schools (Nonconformist), private schools and dame schools. It was the responsibility of the board to supervise the running of all schools, bringing existing schools up to the standard set by the Board of Education and building new schools as required.

By the Education Act of 1902, the School Board was abolished and an Education Committee was set up in its place.

Croydon Local Board of Health

  • CB121
  • Corporate body
  • 1848

Under the Public Health Act of 1848, any area could form a Local Board of Health by a process involving a local petition, an enquiry and the election of a local board. Local Boards had to appoint a surveyor and an inspector of nuisances, and were given powers to deal with sewers, drains, water supply, street-cleansing, nuisances, slaughter houses, lodging houses and cellar dwellings.

The population of the parish of Croydon in 1841 was 16,712, rising by 1851 to over 20,000. Although a board of Improvement Commissioners had been appointed in 1829, charged with lighting, watching and improving the Town of Croydon, by 1848 the population still had no piped water supply, drainage or sewerage. A questionnaire on the sanitary state of Croydon in 1848 described it as the worst of any district in the country, exclusive of the Metropolitan Districts. Hundreds of privies overhung the tributary streams of the river Wandle, using them as open sewers, and the towns two large ponds, Lauds and Scarbrook, served as cesspools. As late as 1861, the ponds were found to be choked with black, evil-smelling mud to a depth of five feet.

Early in 1849 two local reformers, Dr. Edward Westall and Cuthbert William Johnson, secured a petition signed by ratepayers to have the Public Health Act applied to Croydon. A preliminary commission of inquiry was held in March 1849, which noted the relatively high level of mortality in Croydon. One in seven people died in infancy, compared to one in eight for the rest of Surrey; average life expectancy was only 30 years and one month, compared to 36 for the rest of Surrey. The inquiry also took place in the midst of a cholera epidemic, which killed 53 people in Croydon in 1849.

As a result of the enquiry, it was resolved to create a local board by Provisional Order of the General Board of Health. The Order was published on 14 July 1849, and Croydon Local Board of Health came into being on 1 August, one of the first to be created under the 1848 Act. Twelve members were declared elected on 29 August, and the first meeting of the Board was held on 3 September. Its responsibilities included providing a pure water supply, drainage and sewers, collecting rates, town planning and building regulations, roads, street lighting, law and order and the fire service. In 1861 it was constituted a Burial Board, and opened the Queens Road Cemetery. In 1883 the Boards activities were taken over by the newly incorporated Borough of Croydon.

Croydon Borough Council

  • CB122
  • Corporate body
  • 1883

Croydon was incorporated as a Borough by Royal Charter on 14th February 1883, earlier petitions for incorporation in 1691 and 1707 having been unsuccessful. The first election under the charter was held on June 1st 1883, and first meeting of the Borough Council took place on June 9th 1883. It consisted of 49 members representing 6 wards. Croydon was granted arms, bearing the motto Sanitate crenescamus (Let us increase in health), in 1886. In 1889, under the Local Government Act of 1888, it was the only town in Surrey to be granted the status of a County Borough, retaining control of, among others, its own highways, education and public health services. Under the 1963 London Government Act Croydon became a London Borough, absorbing the Urban District of Coulsdon and Purley. It lost control of its fire brigade, ambulance service, vehicle licensing, refuse and sewage disposal, and strategic planning. Elections were held on 7th May 1964, and the first meeting of the London Borough Council of Croydon took place on 20th May 1964. Its powers came into force on 1st April 1965.

Croydon Court

  • CB123
  • Corporate body
  • 1532

The Archbishop of Canterbury was lord of the Manor of Croydon throughout the period of this roll, although the 1532 court was held during the vacancy following the death of Archbishop William Warham. The 1533 court is described as the first court of Archbishop Thomas [Cranmer].

Thomas Weller

  • P010
  • Person
  • 1810

Thomas Weller (c1810-1867) practised as a watch and clock maker, silversmith and jeweller, at 2 High Street, Croydon. He also carried out small-scale printing (mainly of stationery). He took over the business from his father, also Thomas Weller, who was active from at least 1810, and died c1833. They were presumably related to Richard Weller (c1762-1833), of Butchers Row, another watch and clock maker.

Ernest Wimble

  • P014
  • Person
  • 1887

Ernest W Wimble (1887-1979) served at various times as Hon. Secretary of South Norwood Labour Representative Committee, Editor of The Highway (journal of the Workers Educational Association), Financial Secretary of the WEA, and General Secretary of the Workers Travel Association. He stood for election to Croydon Corporation as Labour candidate in West Ward in 1920, and in Woodside Ward in 1922 and 1923: on the last occasion he was successful. His main later work was for the Workers Travel Association (a tourist organisation), and he travelled through much of Europe and Russia on its behalf. He was eventually awarded the CBE and made a Chevalier de lOrdre Leopold II of Belgium, for his work on international travel.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows

  • CB134
  • Corporate body
  • 1875

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows was a self-governed, benevolent, friendly society operating under the Lodge system with degrees of rank. The Order began in England in the eighteenth century as the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows. In 1875 the Manchester Unity, one of the two largest working class organisations, had approximately one half a million members with branches all over the country.

Croydon Rectory Court

  • CB135
  • Corporate body
  • 1550

The manor of Croydon Rectory gained its name from the fact that it was attached to the rectory of Croydon. The rectory was held by Bermondsey Abbey from 1390/1 until 1538, and so the manor also became known as Bermondsey, Barmondsey, or Barnsby Hold. After the dissolution of Bermondsey Abbey in 1538, Croydon rectory and its manor came into the Kings hands; and in 1550 were granted by Edward VI to Thomas Walsingham (son and heir of Sir Edmund Walsingham of Chislehurst). The Walsingham family retained them until the mid-eighteenth century, and therefore for the period of both of these rolls. Sir Thomas (as he became) died in 1584, and was succeeded first by his elder son, Edward Walsingham (d1589); and then by a younger son, Sir Thomas Walsingham (d1630). The manor then passed to Sir Thomass son Thomas (d1669); to Thomass son Francis; to Francis younger brother Thomas (d1691); and to Thomass son James (d1728). It was subsequently divided into three portions, but the three were eventually reunited in the hands of the Viscounts Montagu. In 1793, the Montagus sold the manor to Robert Harris (d1807); whose trustees sold it to Alexander Caldcleugh, in whose family it remained until the second half of the nineteenth century.

The lands of the manor lay in the area bounded by North End, London Road, Handcroft Road, Pitlake and Church Street: they therefore included Parsons Mead (the glebe land of the Rectory) and Broad Green common. For the later development of the estate, see RCW Cox, Urban Development and Redevelopment in Croydon 1835-1940 (Doctoral Thesis, University of Leicester, 1970),pp 22-93.

Jack T Jones

  • P016
  • Person
  • 1956

Jack Jones took up his appointment as Headmaster of Davidson School on 4 September 1956. He studied at Southampton University and began his teaching career in 1929 at Rectory Manor School Waddon . He went on to teach at Kingsley, John Ruskin, Stanley Technical College and Heath Clark where he was Geography master until he took up his final appointment at Davidson School. After a teaching career spent entirely in Croydon he retired from teaching on 31 August 1972. In August 1950 he visited Poland and the collection includes material from the visit. Throughout his career he was a very active member of the NUT, serving thirty years as secretary of the Croydon Teachers Association until 1968. During which time he was re-elected to the executive of the NUT in the extra-metroplitan area 1963. In 1970 he went on to be elected National Vice President and later won the Presidential elections in 1971. He died in September 1995.

Jane Roper

  • P017
  • Person
  • 1830

Mrs Roper seems to have been born around the 1830s, perhaps in North Walsham, Norfolk. [Both surmised from AR82/2, where she claims to have joined Gurneys Bank at North Walsham in c1859.] She was married to Captain Alfred Roper, who appears to have died in about 1886. She and her husband lived for a time in China. They moved to Brigstock Road in about 1884, and Mrs Roper remained in the house until about 1913.

Primrose League Grantham Dames

  • CB137
  • Corporate body
  • 1883

The Primrose League was founded in 1883, started by Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and ten friends at the Carlton Club, primarily to promote unity in a Conservative party at its lowest ebb. The League recognised that the party didnt consist of any one class in the community and aimed to promote unity between the classes. Lord Randolph Churchill was a leading light, and the organisation was seen by him as the way forward to enable the new Tory Demoncracy to regain power. Women members were known as Dames.

The Croydon branch of the Dames Primrose League, Grantham Habitation No 505, was founded in July 1885. Lady Randolph Churchill, and William Grantham MP and his wife Emma were present at the inaugural meeting. Mr Grantham was MP for E. Surrey from 1874 - 1885 and became Croydons first MP in November 1885 securing a majority over Mr Jabez Balfour. In one of its opening minutes of meeting the function of Habitation was outlined as discussing the ways in which ladies could help in counteracting the ignorance was erroneous principles among the people. Members included Dames (full women members), Honorary Members (men) and Absolute Members. Throughout the history of the Habitation, many charitable events were co ordinated, monies raised going to various good causes, especially during the First World War, eg. to homes for wounded soldiers. Juvenile branches were organised, awards for long service and successful recruiting were presented, and social events and speeches were often organised.

Dame Presidents

Mrs E. G. Man July 1885 - May 1886

Mrs M. E. Peard May 1886 - April 1887

Mrs E. A. Strong April 1887 - May 1888

Miss M. Etheridge May 1888 - April 1889

Mrs M. E. Peard April 1889 - April 1900

Mrs L. A. Walton April 1900 - April 1901

Mrs A. Crowley April 1901 - March 1910

Mrs A. Bouquet March 1910 - March 1913

Mrs A. Crowley March 1913 - ?

The Croydon Branch of the Historical Association

  • CB139
  • Corporate body
  • 1955

The Croydon Branch of the Historical Association was established in February 1955. It organised a programme of regular lectures and excursions for its members, and occasional purely social events. In the period covered by these minutes, some activities were carried out jointly with the Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society, and/or the Beckenham Branch of the Historical Association. As a result of poor attendances, the Branch was eventually wound up as from October 1994.

Mr L Woolnough

  • P018
  • Person
  • 1947

The visit to Arnhem was organised under the auspices of the Anglo Netherlands Sports Partnership. As well as the Mayor and Mayoress (Ald. and Mrs H.Regan, (who broke her wrist during the trip)), the party consisted of Ald and Mrs Lewin, Councillor Turner and other members of the Committee plus 17 table tennis players under Mrs C.A.Bourne and a football team managed Mr Mr S.A.Browne and captained by Fred Stevenson. Croydon played three football matches, winning the second and losing the first and third.

As well as various visits, including the Airborne Cemetery at Oosterbeck and the Arnhem Bridge, the Croydon party marched in procession through the streets of Wageningen on Easter Sunday. A report of the visit appears in the Croydon Times, 19 April 1947. L.Woolnough, of the Norbury team, was a member of the football team. (CT 12 April 1947) and was then resident at 28 Weybridge Avenue, Thornton Heath.

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