CENTRAL LONDON SCHOOL DISTRICT

Minutes, administration and registers

The Central London School District was established by an order of the Poor Law Board on 6 Mar. 1849. It comprised the City of London Union and the parish of St. Saviour, Southwark, to which was added the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in 1853. The first step taken was to buy a private establishment at Weston Hill, Norwood, which was owned and run by a Mr. Ankin, and where poor children from 24 parishes and unions, including those from the City of London, were being educated by contract. Three years later the Board consented to the removal of the school to Hanwell in Middlesex, where a site had been bought at Hanwell Park Farm (previously Cuckoo Farm in the Manor of Hanwell). The buildings were started in 1856, in which year the children began to be transferred there, and were completed in 1861. The history of the school was marred by failure to deal with the recurrent problem of ophthalmia, which may in part have been owing to disagrement amongst the authorities of the District. By 1890, however, the Ophthalmic Institution was completed and also made available to the other London unions and parishes. In the same year, structural alterations to the original building were carried out, and in the following year the new school-house was finished. By 1897 there were 1,033 children at the school. This number sank to 746 when the L.C.C. assumed responsibility for its administration in 1930. Two years later the accommodation was for 650 children. On the recommendation of the Education Committee, Hanwell Residential School was scheduled for closure because of obsolescent buildings - this closure being finally carried out on 30 June 1933.