Education on Sure Foundations
Plan showing the design for the rebuilding of the old Free Grammar School in Gaol Square, 1803, signed by the builders and the mayor. The accompanying specifications show that this was to replace the existing school building, the writing school, the old school "lately used as a soup shop", and the fire engine shed. Original building materials were to be re-used as far as possible, with the exception of a maximum allowance for re-using the valuable lead.
© Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archive Service
In fact, this building had to be taken down and rebuilt on a slightly different site only ten years later. In 1813 an agreement specifies that the building should sit upon arches with well-secured foundations, and warehouses underneath the schoolrooms. The use to which these lower rooms were put was itself the subject of further complaint. In 1840 a memorial complains about multiple occupancy including use of the ground floor as a stable and pigsty. The school was moved again in 1862 to new buildings in Newport Road.
© Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archive Service
The school was a charitable foundation subject to Queen Elizabeth's Grant and had an endowment of "School Land" which generated income. Various leases of this land survive in the collection, as well as other documents about the charitable or educational aspects of the school, including papers for an investigation in 1859 following a long-running dispute with the schoolmaster about the teaching only of a "classical" education which was failing to attract pupils.
Staffordshire Record Office: D1323/S/2/1
Copyright reserved, Stafford Borough Council
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