Newington Academy for Girls
Encyclopedia
The Newington Academy for Girls, also known as Newington College for Girls, was a Quaker school established in 1824 in Stoke Newington
, then north of London
. In a time when girls' educational opportunities
were limited, it offered a wide range of subjects "on a plan in degree differing from any hitherto adopted", according to the prospectus. It was also innovative in commissioning the world's first school bus
. One of its founders was William Allen
, a scientist and businessman active with the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade
.
had a Quaker presence from the early days of the Society of Friends. (George Fox
stayed for a time in neighbouring Dalston
, for example..) From 1668 there was a Quaker girls' school in nearby Shacklewell
, run first by Mary Stott and then Jane Bullock, “to Instruct younge lasses & maydens in whatsever thinges was civill & useful in ye creation” By the early nineteenth century, Stoke Newington was known for its Quaker residents, many of whom had connections to the Gracechurch Street
meeting in the City of London
. Samuel Hoare Jr
, founding member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade
, was born there, as was his brother Jonathan, who commissioned the mansion in Clissold Park
.
The educational milieu was favourable. Nearby Newington Green
was populated by Rational Dissenters
of another denomination
who were drawn to its Unitarian chapel
. That village was known for its dissenting academies
, establishments only open to boys and young men. Education for girls
was still limited, but the English Enlightenment of the previous half-century had begun to push those boundaries. These villages north of London had been part of that movement: it was in Newington Green in 1785 that Mary Wollstonecraft
opened her innovative boarding school for girls. Her first book, drawing on that time, was Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
, and her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
, bases its argument largely around education in its widest sense.
Quaker views on women had from the beginning tended towards equality, with women allowed to minister. Quaker women were involved in shaping the national conversation on subjects such as abolitionism
; in the year of the school's founding, for example, Elizabeth Heyrick
published a pamphlet entitled Immediate, not Gradual Abolition, which was influential in encouraging public opinion to support the cause.
, one of Oliver Cromwell
's generals, from whom it got its name, and then through various parties until the foundation of the school. Fleetwood House served as a meeting place for Dissenters. Elizabeth Crisp ran a boarding school
for young ladies there in the 1770s.
Its immediate neighbour to the west on what is now Stoke Newington Church Street
was Abney House (the Manor House
), which had been built for Thomas Gunston (1667-1700). He died as it was being completed and the estate passed to his sister, who married Sir Thomas Abney, a prosperous merchant and banker and later Lord Mayor of London
, getting its name from them. The two mansions shared parkland
, which was laid out by the lady of the manor, Lady Mary Abney
, and her companion, Dr Isaac Watts
, when they lived there in the early eighteenth century. They were neither Quakers nor members of the established church, but Independents or Congregationalist
s. The school made great use of Abney Park
.
In the grounds was a third building, called the Summerhouse, but it must have been a proper dwelling, because it was taken from 1774 for summer residence by the family of the young James Stephen (1758-1832). Although not a Quaker, he grew up to be closely involved in a cause associated with them, the abolition
of the slave trade. In 1800 he married a sister of his friend William Wilberforce
, who visited Stoke Newington regularly. Between them, the two men drafted the Slave Trade Act 1807.
At the time of the school's foundation, Abney House was occupied by James William Freshfield
(1774 – 1864) and his family. He founded the international law firm of that still bears his name
and was a Conservative
Member of Parliament
. He too was one of the non-Quakers working for abolition. Freshfield bought Abney House in the 1810s and the Fleetwood Estate in 1827. From circa 1838 Abney House was used as a Wesleyan Methodist training college, before being demolished in 1843. The governorship of the seminary was held by Rev. John Farrar
, Secretary of the Methodist Conference on fourteen occasions and twice its elected President, so Newington Academy for Girls had high-minded neighbours.
A fire station now stands on the site of Fleetwood House.
Newington Academy for Girls issued its first prospectus on 14 August 1824 and it began taking pupils shortly thereafter. Its founders and benefactors included the Quaker scientist and abolitionist William Allen
and his third wife Grizell (1757 - 1835), sister of Jonathan and Samuel Hoare Jr, mentioned above. . She was a wealthy and elderly widow, having previously married a Birkbeck, and their marriage caused Robert Cruikshank to produce a satirical cartoon, in which the academy is referred to as "Newington Nunnery". Other founders included Anna Hanbury, mother of Sir Thomas Buxton, 1st Baronet, Luke Howard
, pharmacist and metereologist, Edward Harris, father-in-law of Alfred Tylor
, and Samuel Gurney
, banker.
The headmistress of the school was Susanna Corder (1787 -1864). She appears to have learned the art of teaching at Suir Island School, later known as the Clonmel School, a Quaker establishment in Ireland
. This had been set up by Sarah Tuke Grubb (1756-1790) and her husband Robert, who travelled extensively in Europe as missionaries. Sarah Grubb "believed that children needed both discipline and respect and should be taught useful skills.". Susanna Corder later wrote biographies of Quakers, including an 1853 volume about (and drawing largely on the diaries of) Elizabeth Fry
, whom she knew well enough to accompany when the prison reformer escorted the King of Prussia
to see the conditions at Newgate
in 1842.
The first prospectus proposed “an Establishment in our religious society on a plan in degree differing from any hitherto adopted, wherein the children of Friends should not only be liberally instructed in the Elements of useful knowledge, but in which particular attention should be paid to the state of mind of each individual child”.. According to Fleetwood House, "It started with twelve pupils, but more than doubled in three years. Subjects included Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry, which were taught by William Allen; the languages available included Latin, Greek, German and Italian as well as French."
One of the pupils influenced by the school was Louisa Hooper (1818-1918), who went on to marry John Stewart, owner of the Edinburgh Review
. She was an early advocate of women’s suffrage; in 1869 she published The Missing Law; or, Woman’s Birthright. She also worked on the temperance movement
(abstention from alcohol) and set up a school in a caravan for circus children.
It is unclear when this novel Quaker girls' school closed, but it lost exclusive use of the eastern portion of Abney Park when the Abney Park Cemetery
was formed in 1840, though the pupils thereafter benefitted from its splendid educational arboretum
designed by Loddiges
. Fleetwood House itself was demolished in 1872.
, the site of the Quaker meeting house
in the City of London
. This was felt to be quite a distance for the pupils to walk, so another solution was sought.
George Shillibeer
(1797 - 1866) grew up in London and worked for the coach company Hatchetts in Long Acre
, the coach-building district of the capital. In the 1820s he was offered work in Paris
, where he was commissioned to build some unusually large horse-drawn coaches of "novel design". The aim was to build a coach capable of transporting a whole group of people, perhaps two dozen, at a time. Shillibeer's design worked, was very stable, and was introduced into the streets of Paris in 1827. Shortly afterwards, he built another van
specifically for the Newington Academy, seating 25 pupils on a pair of facing benches. This entered history as the first school bus
.
The Quaker population of Stoke Newington was growing, and in 1828 a meeting house opened in Park Street (now Yoakley Road). The pupils could attend service locally, and so the school bus was decommissioned. Repainted, it served to launch London's first omnibus service the following year, from Paddington
to the Bank of England
, mainly along the New Road (now Euston Road
). A full-size replica of the van is in London Transport Museum.
, a railway pioneer who later became the first Quaker MP. He wrote a doggerel verse in praise of the girls' school in 1827, reflecting the novelty of a school for girls teaching such a breadth of subjects.
"Coz" is an abbreviation for "cousin", but was often used to indicate a wide range of family relationships; "Friends" means "Quaker" and "Town" means "London"; "Blues" presumably refers to Bluestockings, learned women, rather than Oxbridge
athletes; Gracechurch Street houses the Quaker Meeting House in the City that they attended for services; the "van
" is the school bus.
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
, then north of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In a time when girls' educational opportunities
Female education
Female education is a catch-all term for a complex of issues and debates surrounding education for females. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education, and its connection to the alleviation of poverty...
were limited, it offered a wide range of subjects "on a plan in degree differing from any hitherto adopted", according to the prospectus. It was also innovative in commissioning the world's first school bus
School bus
A school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...
. One of its founders was William Allen
William Allen (Quaker)
William Allen FRS, FLS was an English scientist and philanthropist who opposed slavery and engaged in schemes of social and penal improvement in early nineteenth century England.-Early life:...
, a scientist and businessman active with the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Society for effecting the abolition of the slave trade
The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, , was a British abolitionist group, formed on 22 May 1787, when twelve men gathered together at a printing shop in London, England.-Origins:...
.
Background
Stoke NewingtonStoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
had a Quaker presence from the early days of the Society of Friends. (George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
stayed for a time in neighbouring Dalston
Dalston
Dalston is a district of north-east London, England, located in the London Borough of Hackney. It is situated northeast of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
, for example..) From 1668 there was a Quaker girls' school in nearby Shacklewell
Shacklewell
Shacklewell is a district within the London Borough of Hackney, roughly North-east of modern-day Dalston, .-History:...
, run first by Mary Stott and then Jane Bullock, “to Instruct younge lasses & maydens in whatsever thinges was civill & useful in ye creation” By the early nineteenth century, Stoke Newington was known for its Quaker residents, many of whom had connections to the Gracechurch Street
Gracechurch Street
Gracechurch Street is a street in the City of London which forms part of the A10. It is home to a number of shops, restaurants, offices and Leadenhall Market....
meeting in the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. Samuel Hoare Jr
Samuel Hoare Jr
Samuel Hoare Jr was a wealthy British Quaker merchant and abolitionist born in Stoke Newington, the north of London. He was one of the twelve founding members of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.-Background:...
, founding member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Society for effecting the abolition of the slave trade
The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, , was a British abolitionist group, formed on 22 May 1787, when twelve men gathered together at a printing shop in London, England.-Origins:...
, was born there, as was his brother Jonathan, who commissioned the mansion in Clissold Park
Clissold Park
Clissold Park is a community park in Stoke Newington within the London Borough of Hackney. Facilities include a children's playground, sports fields, a bowling green, tennis courts, a cafe and some animal attractions including terrapins in its lakes...
.
The educational milieu was favourable. Nearby Newington Green
Newington Green
Newington Green is an open space in north London which straddles the border between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the southern section of Stoke Newington with Green Lanes-Matthias Road...
was populated by Rational Dissenters
English Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
of another denomination
General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches
The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches is the umbrella organisation for Unitarian, Free Christian and other liberal religious congregations in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1928, with denominational roots going back to the Great Ejection of 1662...
who were drawn to its Unitarian chapel
Newington Green Unitarian Church
Newington Green Unitarian Church in north London is one of England's oldest Unitarian churches. It has had strong ties to political radicalism for over 300 years, and is London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use...
. That village was known for its dissenting academies
Dissenting academies
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and nonconformist seminaries run by dissenters. They formed a significant part of England’s educational systems from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries....
, establishments only open to boys and young men. Education for girls
Female education
Female education is a catch-all term for a complex of issues and debates surrounding education for females. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education, and its connection to the alleviation of poverty...
was still limited, but the English Enlightenment of the previous half-century had begun to push those boundaries. These villages north of London had been part of that movement: it was in Newington Green in 1785 that Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
opened her innovative boarding school for girls. Her first book, drawing on that time, was Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life is the first published work of the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Published in 1787 by her friend Joseph Johnson, Thoughts is a conduct book that offers advice on female education...
, and her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects , written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th...
, bases its argument largely around education in its widest sense.
Quaker views on women had from the beginning tended towards equality, with women allowed to minister. Quaker women were involved in shaping the national conversation on subjects such as abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
; in the year of the school's founding, for example, Elizabeth Heyrick
Elizabeth Heyrick
Elizabeth Heyrick was a British philanthropist and campaigner against the slave trade.-Early life:Born Elizabeth Coltman in Leicester, her father John Coltman had been a manufacturer of worstead cloth and a Unitarian, her mother Elizabeth Cartwright a poet and writer...
published a pamphlet entitled Immediate, not Gradual Abolition, which was influential in encouraging public opinion to support the cause.
Location and neighbours
Newington Academy for Girls was established in Fleetwood House, which had been built in the 1630s for Sir Edward Hartopp. By marriage the estate passed to Charles FleetwoodCharles Fleetwood
Charles Fleetwood was an English Parliamentary soldier and politician, Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1652–55, where he enforced the Cromwellian Settlement. At the Restoration he was included in the Act of Indemnity as among the twenty liable to penalties other than capital, and was finally...
, one of Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
's generals, from whom it got its name, and then through various parties until the foundation of the school. Fleetwood House served as a meeting place for Dissenters. Elizabeth Crisp ran a boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
for young ladies there in the 1770s.
Its immediate neighbour to the west on what is now Stoke Newington Church Street
Stoke Newington Church Street
Stoke Newington Church Street is a road in north London of the borough of Hackney. The road links Green Lanes in the west to Stoke Newington High Street , in the east...
was Abney House (the Manor House
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
), which had been built for Thomas Gunston (1667-1700). He died as it was being completed and the estate passed to his sister, who married Sir Thomas Abney, a prosperous merchant and banker and later Lord Mayor of London
Lord Mayor of London
The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...
, getting its name from them. The two mansions shared parkland
English garden
The English garden, also called English landscape park , is a style of Landscape garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical Garden à la française of the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The...
, which was laid out by the lady of the manor, Lady Mary Abney
Lady Mary Abney
Mary, Lady Abney inherited the Manor of Stoke Newington in the early 18th century, which lies about five miles north of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London...
, and her companion, Dr Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
, when they lived there in the early eighteenth century. They were neither Quakers nor members of the established church, but Independents or Congregationalist
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
s. The school made great use of Abney Park
Abney Park
The historic grounds of Abney Park are situated in Stoke Newington, London, England. It is a 13ha park dating from just before 1700, named after Lady Mary Abney and associated with Dr Isaac Watts. In the early 18th century, the park was accessed via the frontages and gardens of two large mansions...
.
In the grounds was a third building, called the Summerhouse, but it must have been a proper dwelling, because it was taken from 1774 for summer residence by the family of the young James Stephen (1758-1832). Although not a Quaker, he grew up to be closely involved in a cause associated with them, the abolition
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
of the slave trade. In 1800 he married a sister of his friend William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
, who visited Stoke Newington regularly. Between them, the two men drafted the Slave Trade Act 1807.
At the time of the school's foundation, Abney House was occupied by James William Freshfield
James William Freshfield
James William Freshfield was an English lawyer and founder of the international law firm of Freshfields. He was also a Conservative politician and Member of Parliament, representing the seats of Penryn and Boston.-Early life:...
(1774 – 1864) and his family. He founded the international law firm of that still bears his name
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is a global law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom and a member of the 'Magic Circle' of leading English law firms. It is the second-largest law firm in the world measured by revenues. In 2010-11 it achieved total revenues of £1.14 billion and profits...
and was a Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
. He too was one of the non-Quakers working for abolition. Freshfield bought Abney House in the 1810s and the Fleetwood Estate in 1827. From circa 1838 Abney House was used as a Wesleyan Methodist training college, before being demolished in 1843. The governorship of the seminary was held by Rev. John Farrar
John Farrar (minister)
Rev. John Farrar was a Methodist minister. He served as Secretary of the annual British Methodist Conference on fourteen occasions, and was twice its elected President. Farrar was tutor and governor of several Wesleyan colleges...
, Secretary of the Methodist Conference on fourteen occasions and twice its elected President, so Newington Academy for Girls had high-minded neighbours.
A fire station now stands on the site of Fleetwood House.
Establishment
William Allen (Quaker)
William Allen FRS, FLS was an English scientist and philanthropist who opposed slavery and engaged in schemes of social and penal improvement in early nineteenth century England.-Early life:...
and his third wife Grizell (1757 - 1835), sister of Jonathan and Samuel Hoare Jr, mentioned above. . She was a wealthy and elderly widow, having previously married a Birkbeck, and their marriage caused Robert Cruikshank to produce a satirical cartoon, in which the academy is referred to as "Newington Nunnery". Other founders included Anna Hanbury, mother of Sir Thomas Buxton, 1st Baronet, Luke Howard
Luke Howard
Luke Howard FRS was a British manufacturing chemist and an amateur meteorologist with broad interests in science...
, pharmacist and metereologist, Edward Harris, father-in-law of Alfred Tylor
Alfred Tylor
-Life:Born on 26 January 1824, he was the second son of Joseph Tylor, brassfounder, by his wife, Harriet Skipper, and elder brother of Edward Burnett Tylor. His grandfather set up the colliery around which the village of Tylorstown grew in the Rhondda Valley, Wales....
, and Samuel Gurney
Samuel Gurney
Samuel Gurney was an English banker and philanthropist.He should not be confused with his second son, Samuel , also described as banker and philanthropist, and a Member of Parliament.-Early years and marriage:...
, banker.
The headmistress of the school was Susanna Corder (1787 -1864). She appears to have learned the art of teaching at Suir Island School, later known as the Clonmel School, a Quaker establishment in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. This had been set up by Sarah Tuke Grubb (1756-1790) and her husband Robert, who travelled extensively in Europe as missionaries. Sarah Grubb "believed that children needed both discipline and respect and should be taught useful skills.". Susanna Corder later wrote biographies of Quakers, including an 1853 volume about (and drawing largely on the diaries of) Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry , née Gurney, was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist...
, whom she knew well enough to accompany when the prison reformer escorted the King of Prussia
Frederick William IV of Prussia
|align=right|Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a popular legislative assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of...
to see the conditions at Newgate
Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...
in 1842.
The first prospectus proposed “an Establishment in our religious society on a plan in degree differing from any hitherto adopted, wherein the children of Friends should not only be liberally instructed in the Elements of useful knowledge, but in which particular attention should be paid to the state of mind of each individual child”.. According to Fleetwood House, "It started with twelve pupils, but more than doubled in three years. Subjects included Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry, which were taught by William Allen; the languages available included Latin, Greek, German and Italian as well as French."
One of the pupils influenced by the school was Louisa Hooper (1818-1918), who went on to marry John Stewart, owner of the Edinburgh Review
Edinburgh Review
The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...
. She was an early advocate of women’s suffrage; in 1869 she published The Missing Law; or, Woman’s Birthright. She also worked on the temperance movement
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
(abstention from alcohol) and set up a school in a caravan for circus children.
It is unclear when this novel Quaker girls' school closed, but it lost exclusive use of the eastern portion of Abney Park when the Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park in Stoke Newington, in the London Borough of Hackney, is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney and Dr. Isaac Watts, and the neighbouring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery, semi-public park arboretum, and...
was formed in 1840, though the pupils thereafter benefitted from its splendid educational arboretum
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...
designed by Loddiges
Loddiges
The Loddiges family managed one of the most notable of the eighteenth and nineteenth century plant nurseries that traded in and introduced exotic plants, trees, shrubs, ferns, palms and orchids into European gardens....
. Fleetwood House itself was demolished in 1872.
The world's first schoolbus
The school was a couple of miles from Gracechurch StreetGracechurch Street
Gracechurch Street is a street in the City of London which forms part of the A10. It is home to a number of shops, restaurants, offices and Leadenhall Market....
, the site of the Quaker meeting house
Meeting house
A meeting house describes a building where a public meeting takes place. This includes secular buildings which function like a town or city hall, and buildings used for religious meetings, particularly of some non-conformist Christian denominations....
in the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. This was felt to be quite a distance for the pupils to walk, so another solution was sought.
George Shillibeer
George Shillibeer
George Shillibeer was an English coachbuilder.Shillibeer was born in St Marylebone, London the son of Abraham and Elizabeth Shillibeer. Christened in St Marys Church, Marylebone on 22 October 1797, Shillibeer worked for the coach company Hatchetts in Long Acre, the coach-building district of the...
(1797 - 1866) grew up in London and worked for the coach company Hatchetts in Long Acre
Long Acre
Long Acre is a street in central London, England. Starting from St. Martin's Lane it runs from west to east just north of Covent Garden piazza, one block north of Floral Street. The street was completed in the early 17th century. It was once known for its coach-makers, and later for its car dealers...
, the coach-building district of the capital. In the 1820s he was offered work in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he was commissioned to build some unusually large horse-drawn coaches of "novel design". The aim was to build a coach capable of transporting a whole group of people, perhaps two dozen, at a time. Shillibeer's design worked, was very stable, and was introduced into the streets of Paris in 1827. Shortly afterwards, he built another van
Van
A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people.In British English usage, it can be either specially designed or based on a saloon or sedan car, the latter type often including derivatives with open backs...
specifically for the Newington Academy, seating 25 pupils on a pair of facing benches. This entered history as the first school bus
School bus
A school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...
.
The Quaker population of Stoke Newington was growing, and in 1828 a meeting house opened in Park Street (now Yoakley Road). The pupils could attend service locally, and so the school bus was decommissioned. Repainted, it served to launch London's first omnibus service the following year, from Paddington
Paddington
Paddington is a district within the City of Westminster, in central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965...
to the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
, mainly along the New Road (now Euston Road
Euston Road
Euston Road is an important thoroughfare in central London, England, and forms part of the A501. It is part of the New Road from Paddington to Islington, and was opened as part of the New Road in 1756...
). A full-size replica of the van is in London Transport Museum.
Pease's poem
One early visitor was Joseph PeaseJoseph Pease (1799-1872)
Joseph Pease was involved in the early railway system in the UK and was the first Quaker elected to Parliament.-Life:...
, a railway pioneer who later became the first Quaker MP. He wrote a doggerel verse in praise of the girls' school in 1827, reflecting the novelty of a school for girls teaching such a breadth of subjects.
- "Dear Coz in my last
- I shewed the advantage as well as renown
- That our body of Friends cannot fail to acquire
- By the Female Establishment two miles from Town"
- "Where the pupils imbibe such astounding variety
- Of stores intellectual - I solemly vow
- Since the earliest days of the Quaker Society,
- Such achievements by girls were ne'er heard of till now."
- "No science, no art, in their tribe is a mystery
- The path of the earth and the tides of the sea,
- Cosmography, Algebra, Chemistry, History
- To those juvenile Blues are a mere A.B.C"
- "And in languages -oh you'd not credit their skill !
- One can scarce name a tongue, Coz, but what they can reason in,
- Greek, Hebrew, French, Latin, Italian at will,
- With Irish and Welch for occasional seasoning."
- "The strainht path of Truth the dear Girl's keep their feet in
- And ah ! It would do your heart good Cousin Anne
- To see them arriving at Gracechurch Street Meeting
- All snugly packed 25 in a van."
"Coz" is an abbreviation for "cousin", but was often used to indicate a wide range of family relationships; "Friends" means "Quaker" and "Town" means "London"; "Blues" presumably refers to Bluestockings, learned women, rather than Oxbridge
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...
athletes; Gracechurch Street houses the Quaker Meeting House in the City that they attended for services; the "van
Van
A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people.In British English usage, it can be either specially designed or based on a saloon or sedan car, the latter type often including derivatives with open backs...
" is the school bus.
Sources
- Shirren, A.J. (reprint; 1951 1st ed) The Chronicles of Fleetwood House. University of Houston Foundation: Pacesetter
- Whitehead, Jack (1983) The Growth of Stoke Newington. London: J Whitehead
- Joyce, Paul (1984) A guide to Abney Park Cemetery. London: Hackney Society