The text of the site has been mainly written by Tim Walder. It is apparent that although there is a wealth of primary sources and some secondary material (see the Bibliography page), there exists no definitive or comprehensive list (in electronic or any other form) of all the schools built.

 

The spine of this research has relied on two primary sources. The first was an October 1914 gazetteer produced by the LCC (for internal use) of all the elementary schools under its control, Education Particulars for the Year 1914-1915, a copy of which is available in the London Metropolitan Archive. This was selected to provide a comprehensive picture of all the schools in existence at the end of the period. The other was a map produced by the SBL in its 1904 valedictory publication, Final Report for the School for London 1870-1904, a copy of which is available in the London Metropolitan Archive which names and locates all the schools at the end of the SBL's existence.

 

Use was also made of three unpublished reports, all available at the National Monuments Record. All were written as part of repeated attempts over the years to get more of the schools the statutory protection of listed building status. The first, The Schools of the London School Board (1872-1904) and the London County Council Education Department (1904-1910) – Investigation for Preservation was mainly written by the late Susan Beattie for the Greater London Council’s Historic Buildings Board, (27th September 1972). The second, Report on Listing of London Board Schools, was the work of Elaine Harwood and Andrew Saint for English Heritage (1991). The third, Appendix to Report on Listing of London Board Schools, was again the work of Andrew Saint for English Heritage (1995).

Research took a leap forward with the work of James Hall. His work, The London Board Schools 1870-1904: Securing a Future for these Beacons of the Past (University of Bath, MSc dissertation, 2006-7) included a gazetteer of the schools in the form of a digital database. He found details of about 355 schools from a range of sources and spent the very warm August of 2007 cycling around London taking photographs of them.

 

There have been a number of methodological issues, some of which have taken time to untangle.

 

The first is that both the 1914 list and the 1904 map are records of institutions, not buildings. A “typical” three storey building would, in 1904 have contained an Infant School, a Girls’ School and a Boys’ School under three different head teachers. Thus three schools can amount to one building. By 1914 the picture was shifting with the creation of “Central” schools and “Junior Mixed and Infant” schools, a process which resulted in an apparent shrinking in the number of schools (two or three being merged) but not, in actuality, any decrease in the number of buildings.

 

The other issue is that schools which were built by the SBL and closed before 1904 may have been missed out: examples of this seem to be rare, but they did happen.

 

The next step, once a school had been found on the list or the map was to pinpoint its whereabouts on a contemporary map. For this purpose the Godfrey Edition reprints of the Ordnance Survey series of 1894 and 1914 were used. Schools are clearly marked on these maps and this provided confirmation of the location.

 

Checking the building’s survival involved a number of subsequent steps. The first was to pinpoint its location on a modern Geographers’ A to Z Map of London. This could be a challenge in itself. Roads rarely disappear completely, except in areas very heavily bombed in World War II or cleared in a modernist outburst. But roads in London do change names more often than you might think. The usual technique was to locate the four roads surrounding a school in the Victorian era and then find at least one of these roads on a modern map, if possible. If a school building was indicated on the A to Z on the same site, the internet was used to see if a modern primary or other school occupied the site (although not necessarily the same building). In this search use was made of modern local authority websites which give school contact details. If the site was still a school, there was a good chance that there would be something left. To some extent, time could be saved using tools such as Google Earth (for aerial views) or Google Streetview to see what was there.

 

In the final analysis, a site visit was often necessary. The excitement of turning the corner hoping for a Bailey palace or a piece of cosy Robson Queen Anne is hard to describe. Such situations were very much win or weep. Joyfully, sometimes a school thought lost had survived almost intact with a surprising new use. Occasionally a wonderful building was found in the most unpromising location. At other times a building known to be splendid and important had vanished so completely that it was as if it had never been.

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