Four centuries of school spirit
10:53am Thursday 28th August 2008
While young girls and boys prepare to begin at a newly-built school in Walthamstow, we look at the schools of yesteryear to see how they have evolved.
THE state-of-the-art £20million building of the new Frederick Bremer School in Fulbourne Road is a far cry from the beginnings of education in the area in the 16th century, when Walthamstow was a village with a tiny population of about 450 people.
However, the ethos of many of the schools appears to have remained the same.
Frederick Bremer School, which is bringing together pupils from Aveling Park and Warwick Boys, has created the motto, “Aspire, Believe, Create”.
And creating positive aspirations for youngsters was a driving force for a wealthy local man who founded the first school for the poor in Walthamstow.
Sir George Monoux, an alderman of London, instructed that land belonging to him in St Mary’s Churchyard in the village, be used to build almshouses and a school.
At that time, the schooling of children was completely reliant upon the generous donations of wealthy people who were prepared to invest in education.
The Monoux School remained for more than 300 years, before moving to West Avenue then to High Street and finally to Chingford Road in 1927.
After 1527, the school underwent many reforms until finally becoming a comprehensive school in 1968.
The 1800s saw the biggest changes in education in Walthamstow when the introduction of the Education Act in 1876 made it compulsory for children aged five to 14 to attend school.
Prior to this, in 1880, the Walthamstow School Board had been formed, which put the education of the village’s children into the hands of a committee which oversaw the education of 2,175 pupils in elementary schools and 370 private school pupils.
In 1890 the first ever secondary school for girls was established, which later became Walthamstow County High School for girls. And 12 years later the 1902 Education Act came into force, dividing responsibility between the county, which looked after secondary schools, and Walthamstow Urban District Council running elementary.
After the London Borough of Waltham Forest was established in 1965, comprehensive education was introduced.
From 1968 to 1986 George Monoux School was a comprehensive, becoming a sixth form college until 1993 when it became an incorporated college, which is how it remains today.