A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 6, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes). Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1992.
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'Wembdon: Education', in A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 6, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes), (London, 1992) pp. 334. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol6/p334a [accessed 25 April 2024]
EDUCATION.
From 1814 the parish clerk was paid by the churchwardens to teach children. (fn. 1) In 1819 he was paid £5 a year by the vicar to teach up to 30. (fn. 2) In 1825 a day and Sunday school for 24 children was supported by voluntary contributions and weekly payments by parents. (fn. 3) The number had fallen to 15 by 1835, when the vicar paid part of the cost. (fn. 4) In 1846 a Sunday school for 15 boys and 35 girls was held in church, its master being paid by subscriptions, and a dame school taught 7 children. (fn. 5) The Sunday school probably became the parochial school mentioned in 1861, (fn. 6) the buildings of which were used by the congregation after the church was damaged in 1868. (fn. 7) A new school on the site of the former vicarage house was opened in 1871 and housed 153 pupils. (fn. 8) In 1902 there were 192 children with 5 teachers. (fn. 9) From the 1920s there were fewer children but in 1955, when the school accepted Voluntary Controlled status and took pupils between 5 and 15 years, there were 201 on the books. From 1957 only infants and juniors were taught, but in 1971 there were 220 pupils. In that year St. George's Voluntary Controlled junior school was opened in Brentwood Road, leaving the older buildings to house a county infants school. In 1988 there were 126 children at the infants school and 142 at the junior school. (fn. 10)
Christchurch Unitarian church, Bridgwater, established a school for c. 130 infants in Provident Place in 1850; it remained there until 1862. (fn. 11) In 1861 there was a boarding school for boys at Oakfield House, and also a school for girls elsewhere in the parish. (fn. 12) Grove House school, a girls' boarding and day school, had been established by the 1930s and was still operating c. 1954. (fn. 13) Down Hall preparatory school was in existence c. 1939, (fn. 14) and in the later 1950s there was a private co-educational boarding and day school known as Wembdon High School. (fn. 15) Part of St. Margaret's school, Bridgwater, was housed in Wembdon Road by c. 1967, and survived until 1987. (fn. 16)