Collection SCH28 - Coulsdon (CofE) Primary School

By 1834 there was a school held in a cottage and supported entirely by the Rector, the Reverend William Wood of St. John the Evangelist in Old Coulsdon. He applied for a grant on 25 March in that year towards it becoming a National School. In 1845, Thomas Byron III, the Lord of the Manor, gave a parcel of land being part of a garden as a site for a school for poor persons and for the residence of Schoolmaster or Schoolmistress133and for no other purpose whatever. But the Mistress, Ann Webb, continued to live in a nearby cottage, the schoolhouse being occupied by William G. Shepard, a schoolmaster who was only 18 at the time of the 1851 census.

By 1846 there was a National School of 80 mixed pupils, with a master and mistress in two rooms. The school was described as a School of Industry and the master received 1d per week per boy and 3 hours gratuitous labour each afternoon on his land in return for instruction in the morning. It was the only school in the area, meaning that some of the children had to walk for miles to get there, even as far as Hooley and Kenly.

The building and site were privately owned and remained so until October 1923 when they were conveyed to the Rector by a Canon Dickson who had acquired them from the Lord of the Manor. This was probably not the same building or site as that of 1845, an exchange of site being affected by the Lord of the Manor in 1888 and a new building then being erected thereon.

On 19 September 1939 the school transferred to the Keston School buildings and remained there 7 January 1946 with the exception of the period 3 June to the 23 August 1940, when the school was briefly based at the Purley Girls School.