Kingsbury: Education

EDUCATION.

John Bishop, curate of Kingsbury, kept a school there c. 1530, (fn. 1) but there is no further evidence of schooling in the parish before the 19th century. In 1819 about 35 children were clothed and educated and a mistress was paid by annual subscriptions, (fn. 2) perhaps at the Sunday school to which George Worrall contributed £10. (fn. 3) A dayschool, opened in 1822, had 30 children in 1833. It was supported by subscriptions, collections, and school pence at the rate of 1d. a week for each child: (fn. 4) from 1827 the National Society made an annual grant of £20. (fn. 5) The school, which was situated on waste land near the junction of Roe Green and Kingsbury Road, was owned by the vicar. (fn. 6) In 1846-7 there was one mistress and one schoolroom, accommodating 17 boys, 14 girls, and 13 infants. (fn. 7) The school was still in use in 1872 but had closed by 1876. (fn. 8) The school-house, converted into a private dwelling, still stood in 1937. (fn. 9)

In 1846-7 it was stated that nearly all the children in Kingsbury attended some school. Some boys went to Hendon and 6 boys and 20 girls attended a dame's school at the Hyde, supported by school pence. (fn. 10) In 1851, however, there were some Irish Catholic children at the Hyde and 'no school in the district'. (fn. 11) In 1865 a Roman Catholic school was established in a schoolroom attached to the stable of the Revd. George Ballard at the Hyde, where it was attended by about 36 children. (fn. 12)

The dame school at the Hyde was apparently short-lived and in 1861 an infants' school was built north of the Congregational chapel in Edgware Road. (fn. 13) The infants' school was replaced in 1870 by a British school at the Hyde end of Kingsbury Road, where about 40 boys, girls, and infants were taught by a mistress. The school was financed by voluntary contributions, school pence, (fn. 14) and, from 1870, regular parliamentary grants. The schools' inspector was dissatisfied, apparently because of the cramped premises, and Kingsbury school board, formed in 1875, replaced it with a board school with accommodation for 120 children in 1876. (fn. 15)

The board school, after 1903 called Kingsbury council school, (fn. 16) became a senior mixed school after infants had been transferred to a new school in Kenton Lane in 1922. (fn. 17) When Kenton Lane council school at Kingsbury Green was opened as a senior school in 1928, its juniors and infants were transferred to the old board school where they remained until it was bombed in the Second World War. In 1948 Kenton Lane council school, renamed Kingsbury Green school, opened for juniors and infants. (fn. 18)

Among primary schools built between the World Wars were Fryent, opened in Church Lane in 1931, Roe Green, opened in Princes Avenue in 1932, and Oliver Goldsmith, opened at the corner of Kingsbury Road and Coniston Gardens in 1938. Glenwood primary school in south-east Kingsbury existed from 1954 until 1959. Blessed Robert Southwell Roman Catholic primary school was opened in Slough Lane in 1967 and Chalkhill infants' school was opened to serve the new Chalkhill estate in 1970. (fn. 19)

A mixed secondary school, Kingsbury county, was housed in a building once belonging to the Aircraft Manufacturing Co. and adapted to take 380 pupils from 1925 until 1931, when a new school was built in Princes Road. Extensions were made in 1954. (fn. 20) Building started on a second mixed secondary school at a site in Bacon Lane in 1939 but it was not until 1952 that Tyler's Croft county secondary schools, redesigned as separate boys' and girls' secondary modern schools, were opened. Under the comprehensive scheme for education, which was adopted by Brent L.B. in 1967, Kingsbury county and Tyler's Croft schools were amalgamated as Kingsbury high school. (fn. 21)

There were several private schools in Kingsbury, mostly in large private houses. In 1851 49 girls, some drawn from Bombay, Australia, and the West Indies, and seven mistresses, in addition to the proprietor and his wife, were boarded at Kingsbury House, where subjects included French, English, and music. (fn. 22) The school had closed by 1861 (fn. 23) but another ladies' seminary had been opened, at Redhill, by 1872. (fn. 24) At the turn of the century two members of the Wyand family ran schools, Halvergate preparatory school in Edgware Road and a boarding-school, (fn. 25) possibly the school in Kingsbury Lane mentioned by the medical officer of health in 1902. (fn. 26) There was a boys' preparatory school in Grove Park in the 1920s and 1930s and another preparatory school in Valley Drive in 1937. (fn. 27) Chalkhill House housed a girls' school in 1930 (fn. 28) and a mixed preparatory school from 1946 until 1961. The latter had started as Kingsgate school in Salmon Street in 1932. (fn. 29)

There were two special schools in 1969. Woodfield school for educationally sub-normal children was opened in 1959 in premises formerly occupied by Glenwood primary school. (fn. 30) A school for physically handicapped children was transferred from Harlesden to Grove Park in 1968. (fn. 31)

An annexe for Kilburn Polytechnic was opened in 1950 in the building in Edgware Road formerly occupied by Kingsbury county school. (fn. 32)