Schools in Brighton's North Laine: a taster

This is an excerpt from the chapter I wrote for 'The North Laine Book', published by Brighton Town Press in 2016. Although the book is currently out of print, copies can still be found and are well worth seeking out.

I share my contribution here, with a few omissions and additions, followed by a depressing update.  

By the middle of the 19th century there were so many schools in Brighton it was nicknamed “School Town”.  At one count there were 189 private schools and 29 public, including church, workhouse, asylum, ragged and charity schools. Several were located in North Laine.

With rapid population expansion, concerns were raised about moral decline amongst the working classes. Elementary school discipline was seen as crucial in preparing children for employment suited to their station, whilst rigorous Christian teaching protected them from vice.

The National Society for the Education of the Poor had been founded in 1811 with the intention of ensuring that religion should be the first thing taught to children. Schools founded by the organisation were called National Schools and there were two in North Laine: a school for Infants in Upper Gardner Street which opened in 1826, and the National Central School in Church Street (1830).

A wide range of schools had grown up in North Laine by the mid 19th century, including charity schools receiving government funding, and private schools such as the one run for young gentlemen by the Misses Ashby at 23 Gloucester Place. According to their advertisement in the Brighton Gazette, a fee of £30 - £40 per annum bought a pupil “board, washing, pew-rent, bathing, books and school requisites”.

There was also the British School in what was then North Lane (now North Road) and a school for training teachers in Kensington Gardens.

Established in 1818, the British and Foreign School Society aimed to offer education to the poor. Bible teaching was compulsory. However, unlike the National Schools, which were rooted in the Anglican faith, religious education in the British Schools was non-denominational.

The Swan Downer School for girls aged six to 12 years was at 12 Gardner Street. It was funded privately under the will of Mr Swan Downer, specifying that “the children of such parents as do not receive parish relief are to be the first objects of the charity”. The school instructed its 50 pupils in “needlework, reading and writing” and each girl had “two suits of clothes when first elected and a cloak as often as the Trustees shall think fit”.

St Nicholas Memorial School for respectable poor girls was also funded privately.  Opened in 1851 in Gloucester Lane (now Gloucester Road) at the corner with Vine Street, it was  endowed by Mrs Rose as a memorial to her adopted daughter who had died in childhood.

The school's co-founder, Revd Douglass, described the area at that time as largely “a desolate waste of poor habitations” with  Frederick Place – where the school moved in 1854 – standing “opposite broad open gardens and a row of workmen’s dwellings”.

By the 1890s though, the government inspector complained that the “towering structures” opposite were blocking light to the schoolroom; the schoolroom windows were also being regularly “invaded by all sorts of missiles by the street boys”.

St Nicholas Memorial School was designed by acclaimed High Church architect, Richard Cromwell Carpenter (1812–1855). Carpenter had been the first architect to be involved with Lancing College from its foundation in 1848.  In Brighton, he also designed St Paul’s, West Street (1848), All Saints, Compton Avenue (1853, demolished 1957) and was responsible for extensive refurbishment of St Nicholas Parish Church (1854).  `

The Female Orphan Asylum stood in Gloucester Street and its “neat garden” lay where the road now opens into Sydney Street.

The Asylum for the Blind was at No 75 Jubilee Street. The master was William Moon of Kensington Place, who taught blind children to read using a system of embossed lettering. Folthorp’s Directory for 1852 refers to the children being “trained in the habits of industry, and assiduous attention is given to their religious exercises, thus in the midst of darkness opening the eyes of their understanding to the prospects of a better and brighter inheritance”. Both school and asylum were open for public inspection for several hours each week.

Several schools continued well into the 20th century: the Central National School for boys and girls in Church Street, the Central Infants School in Upper Gardner Street, the infants and senior girls schools in Pelham Street, the schools at York Place and the St Nicholas Memorial School in Frederick Place.

Pelham Street School was originally established in the 1850s as a day school attached to the London Road Chapel in Belmont Street. It was taken over by the Brighton School Board and in 1876 the children moved to a new building on the corner of Pelham Street and Cheapside. On 12th July around 2 - 3,000 local

children were treated to cake in the North Steine Enclosure (the northern part of Victoria Gardens) to celebrate the opening of Pelham Street Board Schools. The Lord Mayor of London, guest of honour at the ceremony, gave 6d to each child enrolled at Pelham Street as a souvenir of his visit.

The 1870 Education Act was vital to rapidly growing towns such as Brighton, requiring every school district to have sufficient public elementary schools, funded by ratepayers, which taught reading, writing and arithmetic plus non-sectarian religious instruction.

The Brighton School Board was particularly energetic, making elementary schooling compulsory (at least part-time) as early as 1871, nine years before government legislation forced this issue. Nationally, the school leaving age was set at 10 in 1880, raised to 11 in 1893 and 12 in 1899. Most parents contributed a small sum towards their children’s education until 1891.

The 1902 Education Act transferred powers from school boards to local education authorities, tentatively endorsing the concept of a universal secondary education which had already begun to evolve out of the board school system. By this time, too, the curriculum had broadened beyond the 3 Rs and religion, making state schools more attractive to the middle classes 

The Pelham Street building was demolished and rebuilt in 1938, avoiding demolition again in 2009 when government funding for a further rebuilding scheme by City College, its current owners, was unexpectedly withdrawn. The rebuilt building was home to infants and senior girls until the 1960s, after which City College took it over. 

The Central National School, which had opened in 1830, eventually closed in March 1967 and, shamefully, was demolished in 1971.  This imposing Regency Gothic building had been constructed on the extended site of the former National School for girls. Children who attended the school over the years could not fail to be overawed by its wonderful architecture.

Today City College, with its 7,000 students, and St Bartholomew’s Primary School are the only educational establishments in or next to North Laine. There are wall plaques and inscriptions which show the original location of a few of the schools. Some have been demolished while others, like the St Nicholas Memorial School, have been developed or converted into flats or shops.

Update 2025

In recent years, all but one of the historic school buildings on the York Place campus, including Pelham Street, have been demolished and replaced with apartment blocks. In 2024, Bright Start Nursery was moved from Barrack Yard in North Road to the Tarner Family Hub in Ivory Place and St Bartholomew's Primary School, established in 1871, closed in December the same year. Other than a commercial school providing jewellery and silversmithing courses, this leaves Brighton MET - formerly known City College - as the only institution in the North Laine primarily dedicated to teaching and learning.