Westbury Museum Column: Back to school

As September approaches and schools reopen for a new term, we thought it would be a good time to look back at how education has developed in Westbury. 

Before 1870 education was not compulsory. Despite this, the 1871 census recorded a higher percentage of children than the national average attending school in Westbury. At that time, Sunday Schools provided basic instruction, and some children also attended day schools. National schools were run by the Church of England and British schools were non-denominational. 

 

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Various schoolrooms were scattered around the town and other buildings, for example parts of Westbury House (now the library), were also used at different times. The earliest purpose-built school is still in use today as part of Matravers School. The building on Leigh Road was built in 1844 as a British school for girls and infants. It was partly funded by John Matravers’ bequest of £1,000 in 1814 to educate boys and girls. By 1856, the inspector of charities reported that 60 boys were learning in a rented room and 60 girls in Leigh Road. 

In the mid-1840s the local vicar, the Rev Stafford Brown, started a school in a rented room. By 1847, a new school had been built at the bottom of Newtown, the Church of England Day School. A few years later it became a boys only school and remained like that until the early part of the twentieth century. Girls and infants were taught elsewhere until 1873 when Rev Brown’s widow paid for a school in Church Lane for them. 

When the Laverton Institute was completed, the boys from the British school moved into part of the building. Then, just down the road, the new infant school opened in 1885; a gift to the town from mill owner Abraham Laverton. So, by the end of the nineteenth century, Westbury was fairly well served for schools. 

The town even had a secondary school. In 1897 the technical school moved into new premises in Church Street. It continued to educate boys and girls there for about 10 years but was eventually forced to close in 1907 because the Board of Education and the recently formed Wiltshire County Council withdrew its grant. Around the same time the weekly fees that schools had charged were gradually being phased out.   

In 1899 the school leaving age rose to 12 and in 1918 it rose again to 14 and fees were finally abolished. Schools were gradually being taken over by the local authority, although this was not completed until 1928. The increase in the number of pupils led to the creation of Westbury Senior School, based around the old building in Leigh Road, in 1925 and the gradual transfer of older pupils. Other changes happening at this time meant that the school in Bratton Road became the town’s infant school and the juniors moved to the building in Church Lane.   

The influx of evacuees during the Second World War and the growth of the town started to put a strain on school accommodation in the middle of the twentieth century. The infant school expanded into the old building on Newtown and other buildings took in some junior classes. Finally a new junior school was opened in Oldfield Park in 1958 and the older infants moved to Church Lane. Westbury Senior School had become Westbury Secondary Modern in 1946 and with the leaving age raised to 15 was also running out of space. The Newtown school came back into use until the early 1960s when a school hall, gym and more classrooms were built. 

Across the years, Westbury has also been home to some private day and boarding schools. In Edward Street, The Vineyards (now demolished) housed a school for young ladies on and off from as early as the 1820s. Miss Olivia Vine appears to have been its first owner. Taken over by Miss Ann Jutson, and then briefly by Mrs Selina Dowding, Miss Harriet Preece took charge in 1854 and remained until the late 1890s. Victoria College, a boarding school for boys, moved from Bath to Leighton House in the spring of 1928 and remained until 1936 when the owner went bankrupt. And in Warminster Road Bella Vista School was run by Mrs Jefferies for about 10 years from 1923. 

If you have memories of your schooldays in Westbury, we would love to hear them. Pop into the museum in Westbury Library or contact us at www.westburyheritagesociety.org.uk