Looking back at schools in the Wapping area of Bradford

In the first half of the 19th century, there were two religious schools in the area, both in Stott Hill, behind the parish church (now the Cathedral).

These were the Roman Catholic school of St Mary’s, founded in 1839, and the Church of England Parish Church School, founded in 1841.

The former moved to its new building in East Parade in 1883, next to St Mary’s Church. It educated the children of the many Irish Catholic families who lived in Wapping, together with those of some Italians who had settled off lower Otley Road.

The Anglicans moved to a new building in Captain Street, opened in 1872. It finally closed in 1954.

Lily Rhodes was a pupil there in the 1920s and remembers that the teachers entered the school on Captain Street and the children from Pine and Cross Sun Streets. They played rounders, netball and football up in Peel Park.

Interior of the old parish school (Image: John Jackson)

Less fun perhaps was the Virol, a malt extract also including bone marrow, administered to the infants at break time as a nutritional supplement to combat ailments such as rickets.

In 1870, one of the Bradford MPs, WE Forster, piloted his famous Education Act through parliament, which let to the creation of non-denominational state board schools. A temporary school for the Wapping district was soon established in Cambridge Place.

A new school was then opened in Wapping Road in 1877, to cater for 215 in the mixed school and 139 infants. Owing to the steep ascent of the ground, clear in photographs, one third of the total cost was absorbed in walls hidden from view.

School sign above the entrance (Image: John Jackson)

It was added to in 1882 with a new building for the infants and again in 1896 with three further infant classrooms.

The school log books, which head teachers had to compile, document the poverty of the district. The head, Mr Sykes, noted in March 1886 that he had provided dinners for 30 children, observing that ‘there is great distress among the people’.

Similarly, Miss Pullen in the Infants, wrote in 1895 how there was ‘so little food and clothes’, the lack of which, including boots, kept children at home in bad weather. Throughout 1891, similarly, free dinners were provided, with further assistance from the Cinderella Club.

Bradford’s progressive policies are evident here, as legislation to permit local authorities to provide free school meals was not passed until 1906, with the support of Bradford’s first Labour MP, Fred Jowett.

Illness was another reason for frequent absences and sometimes complete closure of the school, including measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlet fever and ringworm. But there were happier times, as when in October 1889 many children were absent to see a ‘wild beast show’ being held near the school.

Children in the playground at Wapping School in 1994 (Image: Newsquest)

May Atack, who was at the school in the 1920s had many fond memories, including how good the teachers were.

She left at the age of 10 to go on to grammar school and herself became a teacher, latterly headmistress of Grove House First School off Bolton Road. For most of her contemporaries, however, school finished at fourteen for work.

Wapping School girls in the early 1920s. May Atack is second left, second row up. Pic: Paul Jennings, courtesy the late May Atack

But the most celebrated feature of the school was the swimming pool. When it opened in 1898, it was said to be the first municipal school bath in the country.

The driving force behind this was the educational reformer Margaret Macmillan, although the motivation was as much to do with cleanliness and health as teaching children to swim.

The school became the Wapping Road Council School following the Education Act of 1902, which abolished the school boards.

Wapping school in 1994

In 1925, a nursery class was set up at the school and Bradford’s leadership in this development was recognised when a deputation from the London County Council visited.

Testing the water at Wapping First School in 1997

In 1942 a holiday school was established for parents doing war work. In 1971, it became Wapping First School, catering for five-to-nine-year-olds.

It finally closed in 2000 as part of reorganisation plans and gradually fell into dereliction, in which sad state it remains today.

* I should like to thank John Jackson for information on Wapping School and in particular the members of that Captain Street local history class of the early 1980s, of whom I have many fond memories.