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Out of respect to the untimely deaths of two of the main subscribers to the school, there was no official opening ceremony performed. This article, however, appeared in the Cleckheaton Guardian on Friday 9 September 1910 and describes the layout, contractors, staff and how the school would be open to the public and pupils in the coming week.
Cleckheaton Secondary School
To be open for public inspection next Monday
A great undertaking nearing completion
In view of the opening for public inspection on Monday next and succeeding days of the new Secondary and Technical School for Cleckheaton, and the commencement of school work in the buildings during the week, we have pleasure in reproducing a perspective drawing of the structure as prepared for us by the architect at the time of the foundation stone laying in June of last year, and in giving some particulars relating partly to the building and partly to its high purpose.
At the time of writing there remains a good deal yet to be done in the cleaning up and laying out of the ground within the curtilage of the school, but internally the cleaning is nearly finished and the furnishing well advanced, so that by Monday it will no doubt be practically ready for the entry of the pupils.
As regards the structure, it is not necessary for us to attempt any elaborate written description. The main entrance opens into a vestibule, on the respective sides of which are the headmaster's room and the secretary's office. The vestibule leads in a direct line to the assembly hall and gymnasium away in the rear, but immediately beyond the headmaster's room it is crossed by a spacious corridor at right angles, running from end to end of the principal front. On one side of the corridor, facing Whitcliffe Road, is a handsome room which is to be used as a library and common room, and also several classrooms and cloakrooms; and on the other side are other classrooms and cloakrooms, and also the mechanics' laboratory (which will be used chiefly for evening technical classes).
On the second floor is a similar corridor, running from end to end; and on the Whitcliffe side of this are the botany, chemistry and physics laboratories, with lecture and subsidiary rooms, and on the other side the art rooms (with specially large windows, looking upon one of the quadrangles), dressmaking room and private rooms for the staff. All the laboratories are fitted with the needful fixed working benches, with water and gas where necessary; in the lecture room adjoining the chemistry laboratory there is to be fixed an electric arc lamp for lantern demonstrations; projecting from the botanical laboratory there is a glasshouse, fitted with heating apparatus, for the cultivation of specimens; and in connection with the physics laboratory there is a dark room for photographic and kindred work. A good deal of the flooring is of polished wood blocks, but this is not uniformly so throughout the building.
On one side, at right angles to the main front, are the manual instruction rooms (fitted for woodwork and metalwork); on the other side are the cookery kitchen and dining room; and between these and the assembly hall and gymnasium, completing the square, as it were, are covered cycle sheds and lavatories. The two quadrangles are of considerable extent, and are to be sown with grass. The assembly hall and gymnasium are divided by a movable partition only, so that they can readily be thrown into one when required on any special occasion. The gymnasium is to be furnished with all the apparatus for Swedish drill. In the furnishing of the chemistry and physics laboratories of course the appliances and stock from the Technical Institute in Brooke Street are being utilised as far as possible, but extensive purchases have had to be made nevertheless.
Separate playgrounds are provided for boys and girls, with an asphalt tennis court in each, and grass courts are to be laid out in the playing field. Until next spring probably the field will not be of much use, as a good deal of it has had to be levelled up and will require time to settle. In the meantime possibly it might be necessary to rent a field for winter games.
The work of construction has been carried out under the supervision of the architect (Mr. William H. Thorp, F.R.I.B.A., Leeds) by the following contractors:
Builders - Messrs. Robinson & Crowther, Cleckheaton
Joiner - Mr. Ralph Rodgers, Cleckheaton
Slaters - Messrs. J. Atkinson & Sons, Ltd., Leeds
Plasterer - Mr. Allan Lee, Gomersal
Painters - Messrs. Clapham & Walker, Cleckheaton
Plumber - Mr. Ernest Nutter, Cleckheaton
Electrical work - Mr. G. W. Birkett, Cleckheaton
Other contractors and business firms concerned are:
Gates & railings - Messrs. Taylor & Parsons Ltd., Bradford
Heating apparatus - Messrs. Ashwell & Nesbit, Leicester
Asphalting etc. - Mr. James Brooke, Leeds
Machinery for engineering classes - Messrs. W. Hardill, Sons & Co. and Messrs T. S. Harrison & Sons
Furniture - Messrs. Halstead Brothers, Todmorden
Gymnasium apparatus - Messrs. Spencer, Heath & George, London
Curtains - The Cleckheaton Co-operative Society.
The Secondary School will commence with about 110 pupils, of whom a considerable proportion will of course be second and third year students (the school having been begun in the Technical Institute in Brooke Street two years ago). Including the new appointments recently made, the staff is as follows:
Head Master - Mr. Joshua Holden, M.A., Oxon (1st Class Honours; late Scholar of Trinity College).
Senior Mistress - Miss Helen G. Crosland, (Diplome d'etudes Francaises). The International Guild, Paris. Late French mistress at the Mount School, York).
Assistant Mistress - Miss F. A. Daft, B.A. (London).
Assistant Master - Mr. H. A. Clayborn, B.Sc. (London)
Assistant Master - Mr. G. Stanley Cooper, B.Sc. (London)
Art Master - Mr. J. R. Trout
Music - Miss Isherwood, L.R.C.M.
Cookery - Miss Mason
Manual Instructor - Mr. W. Cliffe
Swedish Drill (girls) - Miss Horsfall
The curriculum of the school is intended to give the boys and girls who enter for the full course, a thorough training in the subjects that form the necessary basis of the various professions, and of skilled occupations in industry and business, viz., English, mathematics, science and drawing. French is taught throughout the school, and German and Latin to those pupils requiring them. Adequate attention will be paid to manual work. For boys, instruction will be given in sloyd, woodwork and metalwork, whilst girls will have a progressive course in needlework, cookery, laundry and domestic science (including hygiene and physiology). The aim is, on the intellectual side, to develop different mental aptitudes, to foster a love for what is best in literature and art, and to show boys and girls how they may obtain knowledge for themselves and make use of it. On the practical side, the course is designed to fit pupils for further skilled work in some profession, or in business, or at home, and so to enable them to serve the community to the best advantage, and gain an honourable livelihood.
Owing to the lamented death of Mr J.W. Wadsworth, and the resignation of Mrs. Crosland, the governing body of the school is at present not quite complete, but it includes Mr. H. Wadsworth (chairman) and Ald. Goldthorp as representing the West Riding County Council; Messrs. G. Whiteley, R.M. Grylls, H.S. Atkinson and J.H. Field, representing the District Council; Mrs H. Wadsworth, Miss Law, Mr J.G. Mowat, Mr W.H. Clough, Mr Herbert Hirst and Mr R.T. Spence; and a representative of the Leeds University.
All the principal classes of the Technical Institute will also be held in the new buildings (as advertised in this week's Guardian), and Mr. Holden will now exercise a general supervision of these, having been appointed organising master by the governors of the Institute. This appointment will afford a good deal of relief to Mr. Lewis Ellis, who for many years has done yeoman service as guide, philosopher and friend to everybody, as well as in the capacity of secretary; and on the other hand, Mr Holden's experience and educational zeal will be a valuable asset in the development of the work under the new conditions. The day pupils will have a half holiday on Tuesdays and Thursday and will attend Saturday mornings.
At present, no definite information is available as to the cost of the school, or as to the proportion that will fall upon the rates of the town, but on this score there need be no anxiety or apprehension. The aggregate outlay no doubt runs a good long way into five figures, but by the undertaking of the Council to the County Authority, no greater charge can fall upon the rates than would have been the case if the town had accepted the Heckmondwike School as a common centre for secondary education in the district. In point of fact it is not likely that the addition to the rate will be more than two or three pence at the most - and surely it is simply worth that to have in our own midst such a school as this, with facilities for secondary education second to none in the country, and providing also for technical instruction in evening classes on terms which need not exclude the poorest in the community.
Towards the cost, it will be remembered, a sum approaching £4,000 was voluntarily subscribed by the inhabitants in the first instance. Then there is the fact that the building and equipment of the assembly hall and gymnasium are to be provided for on behalf of the late Mrs. Mowat and her sister Miss Law (who also jointly gave £2,000 to endow a scholarship). We may therefore take it that there was £6,000 towards the cost without drawing upon public funds at all in the ordinary sense of the term; and if we add to that an equal sum from the gas fund (representing accumulated profits), and £5,000 as a capital sum representing what would have been the annual cost to the town if the Heckmondwike School had been accepted, the cost must be approximately covered, and that without hardship upon any class of the community. These figures are largely speculative of course, but at any rate they may be taken as indicating the scope of the scheme on its financial side, and £1,000 more or less in the aggregate capital outlay will hardly make any appreciable difference to the average ratepayer.
The school, as we have said, will be open to public inspection on the first three days of next week, and the governors hope that large numbers of the inhabitants will avail themselves of the opportunity of going through it. So far as we can judge, everything has been thoroughly well done; and we feel sure that before long the scheme will have been abundantly justified, and that there will be a gradual broadening and strengthening in the town and district of that educational zeal and public spirit which are at once the cause and the effect of educational success.
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