A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 10, Westbury and Whitstone Hundreds. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1972.
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'Wheatenhurst or Whitminster: Education', in A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 10, Westbury and Whitstone Hundreds, (London, 1972) pp. 298. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol10/p298a [accessed 20 April 2024]
EDUCATION.
A Sunday school that was active up to 1792 was then replaced by what was called a charity school, apparently a day-school with up to 10 children whose fees were paid by subscription. The school was still going in 1803. (fn. 1) In 1818 there was only a Sunday school, supplied by C. O. Cambridge, with 54 children; (fn. 2) by 1825 there was a day- and Sunday school with 35 day pupils, (fn. 3) and in 1833 there were 50 day pupils taught at Cambridge's expense in a school built by him. (fn. 4) By his will proved in 1847 Cambridge gave £1,040 stock in trust towards paying a teacher for Wheatenhurst, (fn. 5) which was used to endow a new National school built in 1849 (fn. 6) and later enlarged. (fn. 7) Attendance was 43 in 1869, 70 in 1904, and 54 in 1936. (fn. 8) In 1968, when the school was a controlled C. of E. school and the older children went to school in Stroud or Quedgeley, there were 44 children. (fn. 9) The brick single-story school building with teacher's house attached stands ¼ mile from the main road along School Lane.
Whitminster Secular School, 'the first Secular fortress ever reared in England', was opened in 1884 as a boarding school for 30 boys in a building given by Clegg Bullock. (fn. 10) The school appears to have been defunct by 1889; (fn. 11) the two-story brick building, known locally as Bullock's Folly, was used for a short time as a watch factory and then as a printing works, (fn. 12) and by 1910 had become a private house called Whitminster Court. (fn. 13)