Old and New Shoreham: Education

EDUCATION.

A schoolmaster of New Shoreham was recorded in 1302. (fn. 1) From 1714 to 1721 a school at New Shoreham called a charity school was taught by the vicar. (fn. 2) The bequest in the will of John Gray (d. 1751), rector of Southwick, towards a charity school for Old Shoreham and Southwick never took effect; (fn. 3) that Gray made no bequest for New Shoreham may suggest that the school there continued, and c. 1798 New Shoreham had both a schoolmaster and a schoolmistress. (fn. 4) A schoolmaster was recorded there c. 1805, (fn. 5) and there was a National school by 1818, (fn. 6) held in its early years in the south transept of the parish church. (fn. 7) By 1833 it was held in a neat building beside the churchyard in East Street, (fn. 8) and had on its books 115 children each paying 2d. a week. (fn. 9) The boys' and girls' National day and Sunday schools and the infants' day and Sunday school recorded in 1847 as in New and Old Shoreham, for a total of 204 children, were presumably all in New Shoreham. (fn. 10) A school board for New Shoreham parish was formed voluntarily in 1872; (fn. 11) it took over the National school buildings but replaced them with a new school opened in 1875 in Ham Road for an estimated attendance of 240. From c. 1876 the school included a Ragged school. (fn. 12) By 1904 attendance was 557, in three departments, (fn. 13) to which a junior mixed department was added in 1913. The school was reorganized, in partly new buildings, in 1915, the older children going to Victoria Upper Council school, (fn. 14) and was closed in 1938, when there was an attendance of 551 in junior mixed and infant departments, to be replaced by schools in Victoria Road. (fn. 15)

In 1818 there were said to be several common day schools and a school supported by dissenters. (fn. 16) In 1833, when there were seven day schools with a total of 157 children educated at their parents' expense and with no expressed denominational connexion, the Wesleyans and Independents each had a Sunday school. (fn. 17) The Independent school may have been one of two unspecified dissenting schools that existed in 1871, (fn. 18) when the Wesleyan school, founded in 1829 and enlarged in 1866, had an attendance of 68. (fn. 19) It is likely that the denominational schools were closed on or soon after the formation of the school board in 1872.

At Old Shoreham a Sunday school supported by the vicar was started in 1828, but in 1833 the children went to day schools at New Shoreham, (fn. 20) as apparently in 1847. (fn. 21) A Church school for Old Shoreham was built on the glebe before 1871, when it had an attendance of 23. (fn. 22) The buildings were enlarged in or after 1879, and attendance had risen to 95 by 1906. The school moved into new buildings in 1914, (fn. 23) and in 1938, after a period of overcrowding, had an attendance of 78 in junior mixed and infant departments. (fn. 24) The school, called St. Nicolas's, closed in 1971, being replaced by St. Nicolas and St. Mary C. of E. school in Eastern Avenue, which in 1976 had nearly 300 boys and girls aged from five to twelve. (fn. 25)

St. Peter's Roman Catholic school at New Shoreham, which had been held at least as a Sunday school from 1870, was established in new buildings in West Street in 1876, with a certificated teacher and an average attendance of 26. (fn. 26) By 1893 the school had been enlarged and had an attendance of 88. (fn. 27) The school was divided between mixed and infant departments by 1903, (fn. 28) and in the twenties and thirties had an attendance of a little over 100. (fn. 29) It moved to new buildings in Sullington Way, Kingston, in 1962.

The Victoria Upper Council school, on the site of the Swiss Gardens in Victoria Road, was opened in 1915, and had an average attendance of 200 in 1919. (fn. 30) In 1937 the senior boys were transferred to the Shoreham and Southwick Senior Boys' Council school in Middle Road, Kingston by Sea, and the senior girls to the sister school in Southwick, (fn. 31) the three parishes forming a single area for educational purposes. The buildings in Victoria Road were extended and became the Shoreham County Junior and Shoreham County Infant schools in 1938. The junior school was closed in 1974 and the children were transferred to the enlarged Buckingham County Junior (later Middle) school in Buckingham Road, originally opened in 1958. The infant school survived in 1976 as Shoreham County First school, occupying the whole of the Victoria Road buildings. (fn. 32)

The history of the Woodard schools in Sussex has been given elsewhere; the three schools all began, in 1847, 1849, and 1858, at Shoreham, where Nathaniel Woodard was curate, and were moved respectively to Lancing (in 1857), Hurstpierpoint (in 1850), and Ardingly (in 1870). (fn. 33) The first school was originally started for the sons of ships' captains. (fn. 34) A private school called the Protestant Grammar School was founded in 1842 (fn. 35) and moved from its buildings in North Street (fn. 36) to Worthing in 1965, moving afterwards to Kingston by Sea in 1968. (fn. 37) Other private schools in Shoreham, which numbered two in 1867 and five in 1938, included one in High Street run by the Sisters of Mercy from 1922 or earlier until 1938 or later. (fn. 38)