Education in the 19th century
South Shields was once "beset by much ignorance and many moral evils through the want of school accommodation". So said a government inspectors' report in 1853. Yet at that time, there were 10 public and 30 private schools in the Borough serving the "lower classes", and a further 18 private schools for the "middle classes". This was at a time when the population of South Shields lived mainly within half a mile of the river, as can be seen in the 1856 map to the right.

Schools were largely provided by the church, or by companies for their employees, and they charged anything from 1d to 6d a week (orphans, children of widows and from the Poorhouse, were sometimes able to receive a free education). This was a marked improvement on the area's education of about 120 years previous, when there were only two schools.

In 1871, under the provisions in the 1870 Education Act, South Shields was one of the first boroughs in the country to set up a School Board. Schools were acquired or built all over the borough. Ocean Road saw the building of one of the largest schools in the north-east, serving 1500 children, and a second big school, with 980 places, was built in Cone Street (near the Mill Dam, off Commercial Road). And plans were laid for many other schools in the following years, including the taking over of a number of company schools.

The Boys' High School is born
It was around this time that a South Shields man, Samuel Malcolm, pulled together a number of prominent local men with a common interest in making more liberal provision for higher education of the youth of the borough. The group made little progress until Malcolm discovered the Boys' Public Day School Company, a new company formed to help provide higher intermediate education throughout the country - its objectives seemed ideally suited to the town's needs, and in 1882 the Company was asked to provide copies of its prospectus,

Many quickly offered their financial support for the project by agreeing to buy shares in a school built under the Company's guidance. On January 19th, 1883, JC Stephenson MP presided over public meeting in the Marine School which resolved to enter into discussions with the Company. An appeal was made to the Company to select South Shields as a location for one its "branch schools", and a local committee was formed to enter into business relations.

On 28th April, 1883, the Company sent its Professor T Hayter Louis to South Shields to hold an inquiry. Initially they were looking at proposing a "standard" public school in South Shields, but after Louis met with Samuel Malcolm, Mason Moore (Town Clerk) and Alexander Scott (Head of Ocean Road schools), the recommendation was for something a little higher - a school whose pupils could go straight on to university. The go-ahead was given by the Company, provided that at least a thousand shares (at £2 each) be taken up.

A 4-acre site adjoining Mowbray Road was earmarked (the upper yellow area on the 1856 map above), and a sale agreed with the Ecclesiastical Commission for the sum of £1870. To speed up the process, the local local committee guaranteed this sum, and plans were quickly drawn up for a building intended initially for 200 boys.

The president of the Boys' Public Day School Company, Lord Aberdare, laid the foundation stone on May 29th, 1884. Just a year later, in May 1885, 37 boys were registered and took up their places in the new High School, under the headmastership of WH Phillips, and by the end of the year there were 67 boys attending.

The two-storey building cost £6000 to build, and had a separate block for the caretaker and dining hall. The map on the left, from 1895, shows the school and its extensive grounds, with Mowbray Road running along the south.

Ocean Road Boys' School
The other half of the story begins in January, 1887, when the Ocean Road Boys' School opened a new science and art section, under the headship of Alexander Scott. Three years later, this section was to transfer (along with Mr Scott) to a new site just south of the South Shields, Marsden and Whitburn Colliery railway, and just north of the High School - this site accommodated what were known as the Westoe Road School (or Westoe Road Board School)

Westoe Higher Grade and Westoe Secondary
The 2.5 acre site just north of the High School was acquired in 1888 and built by the School Board at a cost of £16,640. Designed to accommodate 2003 children (making the site the largest Board School in the country), they were opened in January, 1890. Building A was the Westoe Infants School, which still exists today, building C was the "elementary school" (for ages 7 to 11) and building E the Westoe Higher Grade School. The dividing lines on the map separate out the boys' playground at the south from the girls' playground.

Building B is a collection of outhouses linked together by a covered area - at the most northerly end is the caretaker's house. Similarly, building D is three buildings linked together by a covered area - at the northern end is the "cookery centre" and at the southern end the laboratory. There is also a small building in the centre, which may have been a toilet block.

Building E housed the Westoe Higher Grade School. It was formed as an "organised science school", and accommodated Alexander Scott and his pupils from the science and art section of the Ocean Road Boys' School.

In 1902, a new building was completed to the east of Westoe Road Schools, on the plot marked F, with Iolanthe Terrace running between them. This newer school took over as the Westoe Higher Grade School, and later became Westoe Secondary School, and later still, the Girls' Grammar School. The original building (E) was redesignated as Westoe Central School.

The Boys' High School develops
The first year of the Boys' High School (1885) saw the first edition of the school magazine, the Atom. According to a later edition (1907) its first editor had become Under Secretary of the Treasury - this was Walter Runciman. Runciman was a renowned Old Boy whose name was given to one of the school houses for a while. He was 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, and had the honour of being defeated as MP for Oldham by Winston Churchill. He was also head of a mission which, in 1938, went to Czechoslovakia and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Czechs to accept the claims of the Sudeten Germans.

The photo above/left shows the south view (from much later) across Mowbray Road. The picture on the right is much earlier, and shows the Rifle Club on the east side of the building.

WH Philips was the first head of the school. He was succeeded by GD Dakyns and then, in 1894, by GR Kirwan (after whom Kirwan House was named).

As the century drew to a close, a new wing was built at a cost of £1800. It contained art rooms and physics laboratories, and was opened on September 12th, 1899, by Runciman. But the school was slowly running into financial difficulties and in 1908 it was taken over by a local company. Later, it was to be taken over and run by the Local Education Authority.

In 1912, the Boys' High School had a new member of staff - WT Lucas - who had previously been at the Cone Street School. Lucas became Headmaster in 1920.

A new building is planned
In early 1930, the governors of the Boys' High School were struggling to provide sufficient accommodation to meet the growing demand. Their immediate solution was the use of folding screens in the hall to provide two additional classrooms, while they urged the council to consider the erection of a new Boys' High School.

At the same time, what was by now the Westoe Secondary School was also running into accommodation problems, and in a letter to the authority the school proposed that the existing school be replaced by separate secondary schools of "substantial size" for boys and girls.

Some ten years earlier, the education authority had bought a 13-acre plot of land in Harton for £4000 (Harton Farm, and the lower yellow-shaded area in the 1865 map above), with permission from the Board of Education to build an elementary school. However, plans were very slow in developing, and in the final recommendation for the resolution of the accommodation problem, it was proposed that permission be sought to change the use of the site and build a new High School for Boys.

But despite the very real accommodation crisis, the Board of Education refused permission saying, in April, 1932, that "the project is not sufficiently urgent to justify the contemplated expenditure in present circumstances". In the following 15 months several attempts were made to get the Board to change its mind, but every time the Board was "unable to modify [its] previous conclusion".

In July, 1933, the local MP (Harcourt Johnson) and Colonel Chapman, "interviewed" the Under-Secretary of the Board of Education regarding the provision of secondary and central education in the borough. As a result, just a week later, the School Board wrote that it was now willing to consider the proposals and in two months the Finance and Works Sub-Committee of the council appointed George R Smith as the architect for the new High School, with applications being made to the Ministry of Health for the sanctioning of the necessary loans to cover the building costs.

The final hurdle was the approval for the change of use of the site from elementary to secondary education, and this was given in July, 1935.

The new building
George R Smith, ARIBA, had been chosen as the architect several years earlier, as soon as the need for a new building was identified. Messrs Carruthers & Sons, of South Shields, were now appointed as builders, and work was soon underway. Of the 13 acres, 10 acres were to be devoted to playing fields and tennis courts, and at the time (before the buildings to the east of the site were constructed) the architect boasted of a magnificent view over the North Sea from the eastern side of the site.

The plan here is re-drawn from the original, drawn up by the architect.

The southern corridor was a full 445 feet long - at its east end were the metal- and wood-workshops, while at the west end was the gym and an open walkway to a small toilet block.

At the heart of the school was an oak-panelled assembly hall intended to seat 550 pupils. This hall, with its floor of American oak, had a fully-equipped stage and an organ paid for from funds raised by the High School Old Boys' Association. The stage ran along the north side of the hall, and the south corridor of the school was widened at that point to create a "crush" area.

The architect's drawing for the front elevation is shown on the right. At its centre is the "spacious entrance vestibule with a pediment doorway". Inside, the vestibule was oak-panelled with a York-stone pavement. Most of this north frontage contained "the principal administrative rooms, such as the Governors' room (with which is combined the School library), headmaster's room, secretary's room, prefects' room, staff rooms, a small dining room and junior library combined".

But great care was taken to ensure that the building could be expanded to cope with future needs. Although there was only a ground floor to the rear, it was designed to allow a second storey to be added if required.

Built at a total cost of £60,000 the school was opened in 1936 and called the South Shields High School for Boys. Its pupils were drawn from two schools - the original Boys' High School in Mowbray Road, and the boys from the Westoe Higher Grade School, in Iolanthe Terrace. The headmaster was WT Lucas (Head of the Mowbray Road school) and the Deputy Head was TE Newby (Head of Westoe Secondary School).

Several parts of the new boys' building, the laboratories in particular, were not fully furnished at the very start of this first school year. So the opening ceremony was delayed a few days until the 10th of September, 1936. It was a somewhat elite affair; with only the Vth and VIth forms being permitted to attend. The great-and-the-good in education came from all over South Shields, and the platform party, shown in the photo, included the Lord Bishop of Durham, Colonel Chapman, Councillor Hill (the Mayor), Chuter Ede MP, the Reverend PFA Walter, Alderman J Ranson, Mr GS McIntyre and the architect, Mr George Smith.

The headmaster, WT Lucas, lived in Sunderland Road, which runs close and parallel to the St Mary's Avenue side of the site and with the houses backing onto those in St Mary's Avenue. In fact, Bill Lucas's house backed onto the house owned by Mr Carruthers, the builder of the school. Lucas had a special agreement with Carruthers that allowed him to cut through to the school without walking all the way round.

The photo on the right shows the view of the school shortly before it opened. This is taken from the playing fields along St Mary's Avenue and shows the front of the school, with the gymnasium to the right. Also, keen-eyed boys who were at the school after the mid 50s will spot the fact that the upstairs at the back of the school is missing - the school was actually just a single storey along the back corridor, although there is a greenhouse just visible in the photo.

The school grows
Right from the beginning, the school was over-crowded. Designed to take 550 pupils, at its opening it was already accommodating 620 boys. However, it wasn't until the 50s that the lack of space was addressed.

1950 saw the start of a major expansion programme, which was to take over five years. The upstairs back corridor was added, with staircases at each end of the downstairs back corridor, and the school hall was expanded. To expand the hall, it was turned through 90 degrees and given a bigger stage, which took up most of the west quadrangle.

The "manual" rooms (woodwork and metalwork) were relocated to a new "Technical Block" built at the west-end of the playground, and a new gymnasium was built at right angles to the old, with new changing rooms built between it and the back corridor. Anyone who went to the school after 1955 might recognise the gym windows in the 1936 photo above - the gym corridor (linking the gym staff room, the changing rooms and the back corridor) was built along this wall, and the windows were simply left in place, making it possible to look into the small gym from the corridor.

Just after the rebuilding was completed, Mr Lucas retired, and was succeeded by W (Bill) Egner. Egner was a powerful figure, but with some quirky ways! However, he was also a very progressive headmaster and introduced many innovations to the school, which by now was called the South Shields Grammar-Technical School for Boys.

In 1964, a new Arts Block was opened which included a music room, to replace the one located at the end of the Technical Block. In 1965, a swimming pool was opened, and the photo to the left show the site (from almost the same viewpoint as the 1936 photo above) in 1969.

During the 60s, Russian was added to the syllabus, the prefects system was abolished, a coffee vending machine was installed for pupils and, for many of us the highlight of the 60s, in 1966 the school was given a computer.

The computer was a Ferranti Pegasus. As can be seen from the photo on the right, it took up a whole classroom (room 2), with a caretaker's cupboard opposite housing an alternator. For those of us able to get our hands on this beast, usually under the tutelage of Miss Avril Emsley (on the left in the picture), these were very exciting times.

A handful of us spent much of our spare time in that computer room. It was nursed by Fred Palin, one-time electrician at Binns, who had the job of replacing broken valves on a nearly daily basis. There was no direct input (other than a few switches on the front panel), nor any direct output (apart from a few flickering dots on an oscilloscope screen), but between us we managed to get it to do everything from play noughts and crosses to playing tunes.

Bill Egner had the grand idea of producing the school timetable on the computer - but the Pegasus itself was old technology, and not really up to the job. He did go to Norway to get the school timetable produced there, and I'm still trying to determine exactly when the school first produced its timetable on a computer (there are conflicting reports in various references) - although I know that Egner worked on it in the late 60s.

In the early 70s, there was a great deal of change in education. In 1973 came the Raising Of the School Leaving Age, ROSLA, from 15 to 16 - but the effect on SSGTSFB was minimal. Here, the minimum leaving age was already 16, and had been for a long time. Boys in the 4th forms, who once may have looked upon their contemporaries in other schools with a degree of envy in their ability to leave and get a job, now had equal leaving status. But the greatest change introduced was that the 6th form was opened up to all-comers, with 5th-formers from all schools in the area being afforded the opportunity to join..

In 1974, education underwent some major changes with the decision of the Department of Education and Science giving approval for the "comprehensivisation" scheme - and with these came big changes for the Boys' High School. On 1st September 1974, the name of the school was changed to Harton Comprehensive School, and the first year intake of 180 boys was no longer based on selection but was simply from the school's catchment area.

It was unusual for a comprehensive to be single-sex, and this changed in five years later when it went co-educational (although the arrival of the girls was delayed, as the girls' toilets were not completed in time for the start of the term!)

When I have more history, I'll include it here (and anything you may have would be welcomed!)