Spen Valley Magazine Spen Valley Magazine (draft) | Page 16

Education
in the Spen Valley
National School, Halifax Road, Liversedge
Poor children worked long
hours 6 days per week until
1870, when the law made
part-time school compulsory
from age 5-12. In 1880 the
leaving age increased to 13
years but half-time school
and work continued in Spen
Valley until the early 1920’s.
The first day schools involved
competition between Anglican and Non-Conformist churches:
Anglicans ran “National” schools whilst Non-Conformists ran “British”
schools. The first National School in the country opened in 1818 on
Halifax Rd Liversedge, funded by Hammond Roberson, vicar and
builder of Liversedge Church. You can still see this building, now
converted into apartments. It was followed by Oakenshaw (1822)
and Scholes (1837). Classes had 50 children taught by the “monitor”
system: older children taught the younger ones, overseen by one
teacher.
They funded Whitcliffe Mount
Gomersal Public Hall
School by donations from local
residents and Cleckheaton council
funds, making it unique as the
only state secondary school not
established by an Education
Authority. The Foundation Building
was designed by renowned Leeds
architect William Henry Thorp
F.I.R.B.A. and opened in 1910.
Sadly this magnificent building was unnecessarily demolished
in 2018.
Until the 1800’s, formal education was only for the rich.
There were private schools (eg. Hartshead Manor and
Healds Hall for boys, or Roe Head (now Hollybank
Special School) for girls. Charlotte Brontë attended
Roe Head as a pupil 1831-1832 and later as a teacher
1835-1838, using her wages to pay for her sister Anne’s
education there. Tutors or governesses such as Charlotte
and Anne Brontë also taught well-to-do children at home.
The only alternatives were through church Sunday
schools or charity-run schools. The Moravians opened
a girls’ school in Gomersal as early as 1758. Sunday
School was where a poor child could learn to read
and write, in order to study the Bible and take part
in worship. In the 1860’s, Providence Place Chapel in
Cleckheaton (now the Aakash restaurant) had 712
scholars and 161 teachers! A charity Town School
operated in Heckmondwike from 1809 -1875. You
can still see a cottage where Nanny Wood ran a tiny
school at Ladywell Lane Hartshead.
Littletown School
Mechanics Institutes are important parts of our
educational heritage. George Anderton founded
Cleckheaton’s in 1838 and inspired Heckmondwike’s
(1841) and Gomersal’s (1852, now the Public Hall).
They educated adult men in technical subjects,
qualifying them to succeed in industry and business.
They were accessible to working class people, who
became members and had access to their libraries
and reading rooms. As such they were the fore-
runners of polytechnics and public libraries.
After 1870 local School Boards built state elementary schools in similar designs – stone,
with tall windows and steeply pitched slate roofs, with separate entrances for boys and
girls. Most of these buildings still exist: look at Littletown; Hightown; Norristhorpe,
Roberttown, Heckmondwike and Millbridge, which are all still functioning as primary
schools.

Secondary education began in 1898 with Heckmondwike’s Grammar School. The original
building is surrounded by later extensions. Cleckheaton was denied a secondary school
by the education authority (the West Riding County Council), but Cleckheaton rebelled.
Five men, dubbed the “Cleckheaton Conspirators”, were instrumental in pushing forwards
plans for a school. They were John G Mowat, George Whiteley, J Walter Wadsworth,
Reginald M Grylls and Will H Clough. These people’s families have played significant roles in Cleckheaton’s history. For
example, the Mowat family later built Cleckheaton Library in 1930 and donated it to the people of Cleckheaton. Walter
Wadsworth’s son Edward became an internationally famous Vorticistartist. Reginald Grylls maintained his interest in local
education and a middle school at Hightown (now demolished) was named after him.
Whitcliffe Mount School