EDUCATION.

There was a parish schoolmaster in 1723. (fn. 77) From 1767 Francis North, earl of Guilford, paid for the education of eight poor children. (fn. 78) That provision probably stopped after his death in 1790, and in 1818 there was apparently no school. (fn. 79) Classes had evidently been conducted in the south aisle of the church. (fn. 80) Dame schools taught up to 40 children in 1833 (fn. 81) and 94 in 1846. (fn. 82) A National school and master's house were built in flint with redbrick dressings and slate roofs on the east side of the Street in 1850, partly at the expense of the Kirtling estate. (fn. 83) The school was extended in 1872. (fn. 84) Attendance reached a peak of over 100 c. 1910 and had fallen to below 50 by 1938, (fn. 85) and c. 25 in 1950. (fn. 86) Senior pupils aged over 11 were removed to other schools in 1953, (fn. 87) and 9-11 year olds in 1974. (fn. 88) Kirtling joined the Cheveley federation in 1978 but closed in 1980. (fn. 89)

W. H. J. North established a Catholic girls' orphanage, run by nuns of the order of the Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the former almshouses c. 1871. The nuns left c. 1876 but the school continued until the mid 1880s. In 1877 the average attendance was 19 from a roll of 30. (fn. 90)

Footnotes