Old Pictures: Fitzmaurice Grammar School

Posted on Oct 5, 2012 in Education, Old Photographs, Social History |

Originally founded as the County Technical School with funds from the County Council and local donors, notably Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, the school was built in Junction Road in Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Year 1897. The architects were Silcock & Reay of Bath; Thomas Ball Silcock jr (1854-1924) was born in Bradford. The illustration shows the neo-baroque design and plans which show the classrooms were to be for practical subjects: physics, chemistry, domestic science.

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Click on the thumbnail pictures for a bigger view

This etching by John Harrison in the mid-20th century shows the school with further additions behind the main building. The school by this time had become the Fitzmaurice Grammar School, named after its major benefactor.

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The school library in 1908.

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Boys of Fitzmaurice Grammar School at lunchtime. An older boy is positioned at the end of each table, presumably to keep order; the girls must have been on separate tables, or at a different sitting.

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For many years an annual collective photograph was taken of all the members of Fitzmaurice Grammar School, staff and pupils. These were two or three feet long. This is the central part of one of these photographs, taken in 1926, showing the staff and a few of the pupils. The headmaster is front centre, with Julia Blake on his right, Dorothy Burgoine on her right and Arthur Baker on his left.

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A girls hockey team in about 1952.

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A Fitzmaurice Grammar School cricket team, from before 1939. Eric Truman is seated on the far right and Dan Windo is holding the cup -can anyone identify any of the others?

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A Fitzmaurice School swimming competition in the early 1960s. The school did not have its own pool, so swimming took place at the town’s Memorial Baths in Bridge Street. The photo was taken not long before the baths were demolished.

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