Cheadle Hulme School - History

History

In the early 1850s, life expectancy for those working in the inner-cities was extremely poor and Manchester was no exception. Many of these workers were worried about the fate of their children should they die. A school for the orphans of warehousemen and clerks, which later became the Royal Russell School, had already been set up in London in 1853, and on 20 September 1854, a representative from the London school met with the Manchester men (One of whom was "Ezekiel Browne) in the Albion Hotel to gather support for it. During the discussion, support for a local school became clear, and following this meeting a committee was formed to develop the idea. The school was to be called "The Manchester District Schools for Orphans and Necessitious Children of Warehousemen and Clerks", and it was to be open to all children, regardless of gender or religious background. The proposal was advertised to warehousemen and clerks across the north-west of England; the men were asked for one guinea or more per year, which would pay for their child's education and well-being, should the father die and the family left 'necessitous'. A set of rules was created, which outlined how the school should be run; these were adopted at the first meeting of the subscribers of 26 February 1855. These rules included the ages of admission (between seven and twelve years old), with boys being taught until the age of 14, and 15 for girls, and that the school was for orphans and necessitous children of warehousemen and clerks only. Proposals for a complementary day school were discussed extensively, but this idea was postponed until the orphan school had been successfully set up.

In July 1855, the committee sent out advertisements for the election of the first children to the school. The earliest scholars were elected by subscribers to the institution; the condition of their election depended on a few factors, including how long the child's father had subscribed and the family's circumstances. Subscribers had a number of votes depending on how much money they had subscribed. Fifteen applications had been received by September, and on 29 October 1855, commonly referred to as the school's founding date, six children were elected into the school at the Athenaeum in Manchester. At this time there were no premises or staff since the committee wished for more time to plan for their own premises and staff. The children were instead sent to an existing boarding school in Shaw Hall, Flixton. However, six years later they moved to Park Place, Ardwick, in the centre of Manchester. By this time it had already been decided that a new school should be built and the foundation stone of the main building in Cheadle Hulme was laid in 1867. The School moved to its present site two years later.

Since the beginning, the school had been a boarding school, originally for the orphans (fatherless children) (known as "foundationers") for whom it was established. As early as 1862, it started to accept fee paying boarders and an increasing number of day pupils to help to support the 'Foundation Scheme'. From 1921 the School had also decided to become part of the governments education programme, choosing in 1926 to become part of the Direct Grant system, with some of the day pupils funded by grants from the Board of Education. However, boarding remained the keystone of the school's objects and the cornerstone of its pastoral and sporting activity - even as late as the nineteen sixties, but the number of Foundationers was declining. In the 1950s the annual subscription to the Foundation Scheme was raised from one guinea to two guineas, but with the creation of the Welfare State joining the scheme became increasingly less popular.In 1955 there were 82 Foundationers and 44 paying Boarders. These figures had been reversed by seven years later.

During World War I, the school hospital was used by the Red Cross for treating over 1400 injured soldiers. During World War II, students from Manchester High School for Girls and Fairfield High School were evacuated to the school. 60 Old Waconians lost their lives in World War I, and 46 in World War II. An increasing number of day pupils were taken during the Second World War to help with the war effort as new schools in the areas could not be built.

By the 1950s and 1960s Cheadle Hulme School had become a renowned direct grant grammar school, deciding to become, again, Independent in 1976 when the Labour government abolished the Direct Grant Scheme.

During the 1970s and 1980s the School continued to thrive. With the expansion of the Junior School, the School roll topped 1000 pupils for the first time and an anonymous donation allowed for a refurbishment of the Boarding House, although the number of children choosing to board was steadily declining. By the beginning of the 1990s the number of boarders had dropped to only 77 so the difficult decision to close the Boarding House was made by the new Head Mr Donald Wilkinson. The old dorms have since been converted into classrooms. The rest of the School was growing, however, as a new Infants Department opened in 1998 taking children from the age of 4. New buildings sprang up in the 80s and 90s including specialist buildings such as for the ICT and MFL departments.

The new millennium saw the appointment of a new Head, Mr Paul Dixon (Head from 2001 to 2010) and the celebration of the School's 150th anniversary when over 1400 former pupils returned to the School for reunions. The anniversary also saw the launch of a new Bursary scheme, honouring the traditions of the founding fathers of the School.

A new chapter in the School's history began in 2010 with the appointment of the first female Head, Lucy Pearson.