Image: New Hall College c. 1895. Three of the boys who attended the school can be seen.
Reproduced with the permission of Sutton Coldfield Library
For working class and lower middle-class children in Sutton Coldfield there were, from 1826 onwards, a number of elementary schools, funded by the corporation from the sale of timber from Sutton Park. The pupils were taught reading, writing and arithmetic and there was a strong emphasis on religion: each day began with religious instruction and pupils were expected to attend church services on Sundays. The schools were initially free, but weekly fees were in due course introduced. When a government grants were awarded in the 1870s, fees were abolished. In 1880 legislation made it possible to enforce attendance.
Throughout the Victorian period private schools in Sutton, some short lived and others in existence for many years, recruited middle class boys and girls, catering for both day pupils and boarders. With the proximity of Sutton Park, the town was regarded as a healthy place for children to be sent for their schooling – though the boarders rarely came from very far. In High Street J.C. Cull, a prominent figure in the life of the town, ran a school for ‘young gentlemen’. This took pupils up to twelve – though one boy, provided with an arm chair, stayed until he eighteen, reading and periodically getting up to spit out of the window. At Maney House three unmarried sisters, Mary, Ellen and Aline Todd, had, in 1871, ten girls, aged between ten and fifteen, in residence at their school.
Allerton College in Lichfield Road was also run by unmarried sisters. These were Alice Benthnall and Sarah Benthnall. When the former retired, Sarah carried on as principal and Lucie Earle was brought in as headmistress. In 1891 there were three resident teachers and ten boarders. The girls studied not only mathematics, history, geography and languages, but, rather unusually, botany.
Matthew Wilson was an important figure in schooling in nineteenth century Sutton. From 1845 until 1853 he was the headmaster of Town School, run by the corporation, and then opened a private school at a gentleman’s house at Doe Bank in Four Oaks. The name of this establishment changed as it moved to new premises – for many years it was known as the Anchorage House Classical and Commercial School and in its final years was known as Ashfurlong Hall Classical and Commercial School. Wilson employed a small staff of residential and visiting masters and, in 1861, accommodated fifteen boarders. A long-serving master was Monsieur Alfred Gilmer, who taught dancing, fencing and calisthenics, a form of gymnastic exercise.
Basil M. Rowland opened a small boys school in Anchorage Road after Wilson had departed. This was called Avondale School. It provided a commercial education for boys who wished to go into business. Rowland also took in boarders: in 1891 there were three of them and a schoolmaster living with him and his family. The boys clearly had some prowess at football, demolishing a team of boys from Maney 12-1 in 1895.
In the delightful settings of New Hall a school for boys operated from the early 1880s until 1903. The first headmaster was Fred W.W. Howell, who went on to become a well-known traveller, visiting Iceland, in particular, where he studied the glaciers. His successor was a clergyman, T. Everard Healey. There were about ten resident masters and, in 1892, 60 boys. The school offered both a classical and a commercial education, ensuring that those who wanted to enter business were able to study book keeping and short hand rather than Latin and music. With 20 acres, the school put a great emphasis on sport – its annual athletics days included not just sprinting and jumping but also a sack race and an egg-an-spoon race.
Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School was a charitable foundation and therefore altogether different to the schools described here.
Stephen Roberts, May 2021