A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1987.
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'Nuthurst: Education', in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town, (London, 1987) pp. 109. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt3/p109 [accessed 26 April 2024]
EDUCATION.
An unlicensed teacher was recorded in the parish in 1592, (fn. 1) and a schoolmaster in a private family in 1622. (fn. 2)
In 1818 there were a boys' school supported by subscriptions and a girls' school supported by the parish. (fn. 3) Nuthurst National school, later Nuthurst C.E. school, was opened in 1824. In 1833 it had 40 boys, while two other schools had 6 boys and 40 girls. (fn. 4) By 1846-7 there were both girls' and boys' National schools, each with a paid teacher, and with 79 pupils in all. (fn. 5) A new school building of brick and stone, comprising one mixed schoolroom and a teacher's house, was built in 1856. By 1859 a government grant was being received. The 76 pupils who then attended (fn. 6) presumably included some from other parishes, for average attendance in 1865 was only 40, and attendance on the return day in 1871 was 53. (fn. 7) In the mid 1860s some infants attended a school on the outskirts of the parish, and an evening school was run during the winter for 12 or 15 older children. (fn. 8)
Average attendance at the National school had risen by 1893 to 100, (fn. 9) but thereafter it fell. In 1914, including infants, it was 68 and in 1938 only 36. (fn. 10) In the 1950s the school was nearly closed, (fn. 11) but with the increase of population in the parish it was rebuilt and modernized in 1961, when nearly half the pupils came from Mannings Heath. (fn. 12) In 1977 there were 117 pupils. Up to 1954 the older children of the parish had attended the school, but thereafter they went to Horsham or Crawley. (fn. 13)
Mannings Heath C.E. school was built in 1883 on a site given by C. Scrase-Dickins of Coolhurst in Horsham. A government grant was received from the first. (fn. 14) Average attendance was 60 in 1893 (fn. 15) but thereafter fell steadily to 38 in 1914 and 21 in 1932. (fn. 16) The school was closed in 1946, (fn. 17) its site being afterwards built over.
A Wesleyan school was opened at Mannings Heath in 1832; (fn. 18) it was evidently held in the chapel and remained in the old building after the new chapel was opened in 1869. (fn. 19) In 1871 the building could accommodate 50, attendance on the return day being 34. (fn. 20) No government grant was being received in 1881, (fn. 21) and in 1896 the school was described as a Sunday school only. By 1909 the building had been demolished. (fn. 22)