Before it was a School

Above: a very young resident standing outside the Copthorne Road Hostel nissen huts in the 1940's

Before Copthorne School was built the site had served as a miners’ hostel - or “industrial hostel” as shown on Ordnance Survey maps. As the site plans and aerial photographs below show the hotel buildings covered a much greater area than the school buildings covered.

Under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1940 young men could be directed to work in coal mines rather than be conscripted in to the forces. They were known as the “Bevin Boys” after the then minister for Labour and National Service: Ernest Bevin. A hostel was consequently built at Copthorne Road to house the “Bevin Boys” that were to work locally. The hostel, which covered a far more extensive area than the school ever covered (see site plans below), consisted of a brick built administration block and a series of nissen huts. The nissen huts were used as dormitories whereas the the administrative block had recreational and dining facilities and offices -later it was to become part of Copthorne School.

In his book "The Bevin Boy”, printed in 1993 (ISBN 1-85695-162-6) David Day which gives this war time description of the hostel.

"The hostel stood in one of the city suburbs called Keresley, on a large patch of open ground surrounded by rows of modern houses. It consisted of several blocks of semicircular roofed nissen huts, and from the outside looked like a rash of green fungus that had sprung up during the night.

Inside however the contrast was immediate. The walls were painted in bright colours and the layout resembled that of a seaside holiday camp. The main block, or welfare block as it was called, boasted among its amenities a shop, a cinema, a games room with billiard and table tennis tables, a library, a vast dining hall and a well upholstered lounge.

The dormitory blocks were not so good. Each room had six lockers and narrow beds on either side, with a hot water pipe running round the ceiling and heavy black-out curtains drooping at the windows.”

Board and lodging at the hostel cost David Day twenty five shilling a week (£1.25) half the writer's pay-packet.

After the war there was a tremendous shortage of housing in Coventry and some time in late 1946 my father heard that people were moving in to the nissen huts on the Copthorne site - effectively squatting. Though some Bevin Boys weren’t “deconscripted" until 1948 in late 1946 there seems little doubt there were few of them occupying the hostel - quiet possibly there were none at all.

The “squatting” was seemingly semi-official. My father thinks he remembers two city councillors - possibly Communists - organising the occupation. He was told that if he wanted to claim a hut he had to place some item of furniture inside it. My father thus went to his parent’s home, less than half a mile away, and asked his mother for the loan of a chair. In fact he borrowed two - he “claimed” another hut for his sister.

My father believes the local council, who presumably owned the site, were happy for people to move in but didn’t want to place them there officially as they might then feel entitled to demand basic facilities that the huts didn't have. Apparently most residents, like the miners before, took their meals communally in the administration block. Soon after the squat took place residents were paying rent to remain there.

I was born in January 1947 and the hut my father took over was my first home. By the time I was two I had moved with my parents to a council house in Tile Hill. I knew nothing of my having once lived on the Copthorne site when I was a pupil at Copthorne - it was only some years after I had left that I learnt these details.

[For further information on Britain's war time hostels generally visit www.virtualmuseum.co.uk and click on the word "hostels" tab in its masthead]

Paul Buttle, January, 2008.

Further Findings - two hostels!

A recent examination of the Coventry electoral register for 1947 led me to discover that the school actually occupied the site of not one hostel but two hostels! :- "Copthorne Road Hostel" and "Keresley Hostel".

Copthorne Road Hostel, as the name suggests, occupied the site the purpose built part of the school occupied. Keresley hostel occupied what was to become the school's playing fields and the war time buildings that eventually became part of the school; it was never occupied by families but remained a functioning hostel up until March 1953 when it closed.

142 electors were registered at the Copthorne Road Hostel in 1947, 31 in 1949 and 20 in 1950. These figures probably reflect the situation as appertained in the autumn of the previous year when the registers were compiled. In 1951 only two people were registered - the school's caretaker and his wife.

In 1947 417 electors were registered at Keresley Hostel - when it closed 280 adults, all men, were apparently still resident, though previously females had also lived there. A report in the Coventry Standard on the 6th March 1953 (page 7) claimed some men had lived in the hostel for ten years. Electoral registers between 1947 and 1953, though, indicate the hostel had a high turnover of residents. Most residents it seems were transferred to a hostel at Wyken.

Why the two hostels should have been designated as separate hostels and whether they were so designated from the beginning I have not yet discovered. Possibly the Copthorne Road Hostel was built for Bevan Boys and the Keresley Hostel for other war time workers. A report in the Coventry Standard for the 30th January, 1953 claims the hostel was built to house "munition and arms workers".

Paul Buttle, June, 2009.

On re-reading what I wrote above (now more than twelve years ago) - I think the two seperate hostels became defined when families moved in. The section which families occupied became known as Copthorne Road Hostel - the remaining part remained known as Keresley Hostel and was for single men and possibly also single females.

Perhaps also there had always existed a section for Bevan Boys (which families occupied as the Bevan Boys were demobed and went home) and another section for other war time workers.

As much the history of this hostel will ever be written I suspect this is it!

Paul Buttle, October, 2,021

Copthorne Road Site Plan -

illustrating how much larger the hostel was compared to the school

Hostel plan circa 1948

School plan circa 1958

Aerial Photographs of the Copthorne site circa 1948 and 1969

(the drive from Copthorne Road in to the hostel was the same as the school later used)

NB - clicking on to any of the plans or the photographs should result in a a larger image appearing.

The above map is a detail of a street map of Coventry - on the same map is shown Whitmore Park Primary School which opened the same year as Copthorne so Copthorne School should be shown on this map - it isn't instead it shows the roads which ran around the hostel site, which by this time had virtually disappeared - and named! Was this a planned development that never happened - and the cartographers were never told about it?

An insight in to the life of the hostel

In November 1943 a "Grand Charity Fete" was held at "Keresley Industrial Hostel".

A programme for this event was acquired by an ex-pupil of Copthorne, Terry Pearce, on ebay !

Terry was kind enough to pass the document on to me. Unfortunately I have not been able to upload an image of this document but if anyone is keen to see a image of it I will happily email them a scan.

The document gives an insight in to the life of the hostel as seven specific rooms are listed :-

A.R.P Room (A.R.P. almost certainly stands for Air Raid Precautions.)

Games Room

Library.

Billiard Room

Lounge

Assembly Hall

Canteen.

The Assembly Hall is obvious and I think the canteen was what became the handicraft rooms - but as to the locations of the other rooms I would say that's anyone's guess.

If you have any further information about Copthorne Road Hostel or Keresley Hostel , or any photographs of the two hostels, please contact the website's webmaster using either the postal or email address given on the Contact Page

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