Do you remember Knapp Road School?
Bill Hawkins emailed us to ask, if anyone remembered Knapp Road School.
A walk to Knapp Road told me that it is now called The Clara Grant Primary School, and a quick bit of research produced an absolute deluge of fascinating local history.
School Board for London
Visually it looks like one of the many sturdy School Board for London buildings which have lasted so well. High on the wall a plaque reads Devon’s Road School, 1905. The SBL (colloquially LSB) was setup following the 1870 Elementary Education Act. The SBL built 400 schools like this one between 1870 and 1904 – quite an achievement. Then responsibility passed to the London County Council, but there was obvious continuity. The board was elected democratically and from the off in 1870 all ratepayers, including women, could vote in a secret ballot for the board. That 1870 board had three women on it, including Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Many caring, influential and can-do people served on the School Board for London.
The aim of the SBL was to provide sufficient school places for London’s poorest children. By the late 1880s they were educating 350,000 pupils. The London board had passed a by-law in 1871 compelling all parents to have their children educated from the ages of 5 to13. That didn’t work too well as school attendance wasn’t free until 1891. Additionally poor children were working, either helping their mothers with outwork, such as making matchboxes on the kitchen table, or simply in employment.
Geezer Ted Lewis (1929 – 2017) told me how he came to leave school at 11 during WW2. He was evacuated to a village in Devon that had a church run school which only took infants and juniors. So Ted went to work on a farm, which he enjoyed. He’d previously spent all his boyhood summer holidays hop picking in Kent, and had gained some experience.
Clara Grant
Clara Grant was born in 1867 to a reasonably well-off family in Wiltshire. She trained to become a teacher at Salisbury Diocesan Training College, and her first post was at a small Wiltshire church school in 1888. Motivated by her Christian faith, she became the head of a school in Hoxton in 1890. She set out to help the most deprived children in London. Ten years later she became head of a tin school at Bow Common (All Hallows). When the splendid Devon’s Road School in my photos opened in 1905 she was headmistress of the infants.
Clara was up to speed with the latest ideas on child development. She was influenced by the work of Friedrich Froebel who invented the kindergarten. This considered the whole child – health, physical development, emotional well-being, the environment and other factors as important.
Fern Street Settlement
The Settlement Movement began with the 1884 founding of Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel. This socially reforming movement brought rich and poor together in one place. Wealthy volunteers brought donations, culture, education, and provide daycare, and healthcare to the struggling poor. Clara Grant worked at Toynbee Hall for a while, and this influenced what she did next. In 1907 she opened up her own terraced house in Fern Street, which backed onto Devon’s Road School, as a small settlement. By the 1939 PO Directory (below) you can see that it now occupied 3 houses.
Margaret MacMillan established the first school clinic in London in Devon’s Road School in 1908. Clara organised hot breakfasts for her young pupils, paying for porridge, milk, bread and butter. She also gave them proper clothes and boots. The Settlement provided healthcare, a dentist, a library, and organised a thrift club. Clara Grant is famous for the farthing bundles of toys which the children queued to get. From 1908 a worker and nurse would visit every baby born to families in the area once a month for a year who were connected to Devons Road School.
Clara Grant received an OBE in 1949, and died soon after aged 82.
Does anyone have any memories of going to school in Knapp Road to share with Bill?
Hi all,
I’m doing a bit of the old genealogy tracking at the moment and a vague conversation with my dad involved one of his aunts being married to a school keeper, somewhere in East London.
I’ve just found that my grandaunt’s husband, Stanley Chandler, was a school keeper there back in 1939 and they lived on site.
His name was Stanley Chandler but I doubt theres anyone out there who would remember him. But in saying that, at this stage I have no idea how long he worked there so I guess it’s not impossible that he could have been there through the 50’s.
He passed away in 1962.
Cheers everyone
Phil
Frances was a lovely girl. Saw her again once in my teens, but was too shy to say hi.
The football pitch at Glaucus st. Spent half my life over there.
Sometimes, after it got dark, us boys would climb over the fence and try the door to the light switch box
in the corner at the Violet rd end. If we were lucky we’d switch the lights on and play floodlit football.
Being good kids, we always switched them off afterwards. Those were the days.
Re The Hand stands.
I know. — I got a slap from my mum ‘cos someone told her I was looking
Hi Jim
Yes I remember Francis she was my cousin’s (Valerie Dowsett) friend. I remember she had her beautiful hair cut short and she hated it and frantically wanted it to grow back (which it eventually did) we all played lots of games in the flats and made the best of no green spaces. I remember our sports day from Knapp road school was always held in the football pitch in Glaucus street next to our house (it was the only space for games and races).
Linda Moncur (Ellis)
Does anyone remember a girl called Frances Adnams who lived in the flats opposite the Red Church.
I went to Devons Road school with her in the late fifties. She had long, dark curly hair.
While us boys were playing football at break time I remember the girls would do hand stands
up the wall. It was all the craze back then.
Hi Linda, Kitsons has fond memories as my best friend (Joanie Gabriel) lived with her grandad just round the corner as her mum died when she was little and she lived in a small block round the back of Kitsons. (Can’t think of the name of the flats but only 6 flats in the block very old). Remember going round to Kitsons and getting the grandad home safely. X
The green grocers Lovells was just round the corner from Glaucus street (where I lived) I think it was in Devon’s road. The other shops near the Tenderton Pub end was Paines the fish shop and I can remember Savilles the paper shop it was run by Harry and Eddie Saville. We later moved to a flat in Bramble House opposite the Red Church where my mum and dad were married. I can remember the shops under these flats there was a grocers shop called Mickey Lees, a green grocers a sweet shop and a laundry, I can’t remember their names but I remember Gibbons opposite and also the pub alongside the entrance to our flats called Kitsons where my Nan would buy her jug of Guinness. My 2 nans and 2 grandads all lived near us as did all my aunts and uncles and cousins, all good memories of my childhood.
Linda Moncur nee Ellis
Hi Rose. I’m still in contact with three life long friends that lived in Campbell Road. Mike and Janet Ellis and Hazel Mills. They all like to reminisc, and we keep these memories going.
Can you confirm if i’m right, but near the right hand corner of Violet Road I seem to remember a greegrocers next to another barbers shop . Were they called Lovell’s ? — And a bit further down were two grocers shops, almost next to one and other. Staceys was one, and the other was Barkers. Does that ring any bells with you ?
And wasn’t there a coffee shop next to Bartons the bakers ?
I’m stopping now, my head’s starting to ache..
OMG memory man, thank god for people like yourself, it’s all coming back.
Hi Derek, yeah, Georgie was one of my older brothers. I had 3, but alas now only 1.
Georgie and Johnny both gone. Now just me and Dave. We both live near Adelaide.
Talking about a few faces from the area, remember Georgie Pluck and Teddy Pendry, they lived opposite each other in Fairfoot, near the corner of Rounton.
Once, when I was with Jimmy Buss, we saw Georgie Pluck and another kid,they were counting a lot of brand new 5 pound notes. Of course, we never asked where they came from.
Also, not so much a face but still a character, that was Ricky, a dog that belonged to someone, but never found out who. He would go about biting people, anyone that came along. When we saw him we would hide until he went away.
Hi Rose Yes I remember Bailey’s the corn chandler. We used to buy food for our chickens there.
The bike shop was Cooks, and as you say they sold records and radios
. They also had a bike showroom up ay the other end of that block next to Minters , a grovery shop next to the pub.
And what about Gibbins, the tiny sweet shop near the corner of Violet Rosd. They had luxurious chocolates displayed on a rack in a glass fronted cabinet , and you could pick which ones you wanted.
Walklyn’s the bakers. Samson’s the ladies clothing shop and The “Oil Shop” , all on the row from Knapp Rd. up to Fern street.
Oh. and I nearly forgot Barratt’s the sweet shop opposite, Coles which was yet another sweet shop along by Cooks. —- God . No wonder all our teeth went rotten.
To Jim Cornish.
Hello Jim. I seem to remember that there was a George Cornish around at that time. Was he related ?.
I used to go in the Lord Campbell back in the days when I drank Mackeson and cider mixed.— Oh the folly of youth.
Hi Derek, do you also remember the shop round the corner actually on the corner I think the name was Bailey’s, old man and a very small doorway, dark dirty old shop sold everything, you used to be able to go and knock him up at any time if the shop was shut. Also the bike shop just around the corner from Baileys, used to go buy our records there.
Wally Tibbats was a real character. He raced pigeons and dealt in scrap metal on the side.
That means Wally was a naughty boy. When they knocked down the Lord Campbell pub at the corner of Campbell and Swaton rds, Wally was up in arms.
He said, ”Bloody cheek, they bulldozed the place before I could get the lead off the roof”
He was really ropable……….
On a Saturday night Wally could be seen bowling down the road dressed in a really smart suit on his way to the Bow Bells pub in Bow Road. Wally was a star of the Bow district.
“”Chopper” Knight went to school–Southern Grove- with my big brother Johnny Cornish.
My brother would tell me of one of Chopper’s activities after school. He would wait until the lorry came out of the pickled onion factory on St Paul’s Way, loaded with jars of onions. As it slowed at a corner, Chopper would climb on the back and throw jars of onions to his waiting cohorts on the pavement.
True story. Sometimes he’d get caught and get a clip round the ear, but it didn’t stop him.
The barbers name was georg Skinner , he use to cut out hair as kids for a tanner ,
Hello Rose. WOW the memories are really getting stirred up.
Yes I do remember Chopper Knight. His real name was Charlie. But I didn’t know he lived opposite the “Widdows”. ( Where my mother-in-law used to play the piano )
I had forgotten all about that horrible barber shop. I seem to remember that it was run by an unsavoury looking old man who looked like he could do with a good wash.
Another memory jogger for you — The junction of Rounton and Swaton roads used to have a shop on every corner. Harvey’s we know about , and the others were Harry Neal and his son known as Bunny had the greengrocers, and there was a small grocery shop on our side called Newell’s, run by an old lady that appeared to dislike children intensely. The Fourth one got bombed in the war and was never built on again.
Stay safe and well.
If i remember She came from the prefabs just past whitethorn street going towards st pauls way , Her brother was in my class i 1950
Does anyone remember that around 1947 0r 48 a very pretty little girl in my class from Devons Road school got knocked down by a bus in Devons Road, and was killed. Her name was Rosetta Anderson, and the school held a remembrance service for her.
Back in those days the number 86 bus service from Romford used to terminate in Limehouse. and its route came down Campbell Road , Devons Road, St Pauls Way and Burdett Road.
Hi again Derek, yes remember the Tibbets, Wally Tibbets had a flat back lorry and collected scrap I think, lived by a bit of wast ground where a house had been bombed I think..