During the Middle Ages learning was closely connected with the church and one of the clergy from the town’s churches and chapels may have taught children. By the late 12th century, a church lawyer named Nicholas of Guildford was writing “The Owl & the Nightingale”, a witty and literate debate between piety and frivolity. He must have had at least the beginnings of a good education in his home town.

The Friary, like all Dominican Friaries, was responsible for the education of the friars. There was probably a school of theology at the Guildford Friary and lectures would have been open to outsiders, such as secular clergy. There is no direct evidence that the friars taught children, but there are hints. Mediaeval records mention Master Geoffrey, rector of the schools of Guildford and Brother Geoffrey, late master of the scholars of Guildford. They may be the same man and he may have been in charge of the friars’ studies rather than those of children, but it seems likely that the Friary was involved in teaching boys. There must have been other teachers who carried on the work after the Friary was dissolved in 1538 – an ex-friar, ‘Sir Lawson’ may have done so until the middle of the century.

The Royal Grammar School was founded in 1512. It was part of an ‘educational revolution’ that began in early Tudor times. Boys were taught Latin – ‘grammar’ – and the classics, before going on to the Inns of Court or the universities. The free grammar school in Guildford was founded with money from lands left for the purpose by Robert Beckingham, a London grocer who had died in 1509. He had already given the town a property in Castle Street and the school was probably housed there, with perhaps twenty or thirty pupils and one schoolmaster.

Unfortunately, the rules of the school required the pupils to pray for Beckingham’s soul, and this effectively made it a chantry. The abolition of chantries in 1547 led to the school’s endowment being confiscated. Nevertheless, Edward VI recognised the value of such schools and re-established Guildford’s Grammar School in 1552, granting it a royal charter. It was around this time that the boys of the school were recorded as playing ‘creckett’: the first reference in English to the game. In 1555 the Mayor and Approved Men bought an area of land at the eastern edge of the borough (now the Upper High Street) and began building a schoolhouse there in 1557. At this time, however, there was trouble brewing. Archbishop Heath, Queen Mary’s Lord Chancellor, thought it and other such schools were nurseries for Protestantism and demanded the surrender of the school’s charter. However, the death of the Catholic Mary and the succession of the Protestant Elizabeth enabled the school to survive. The building was not completed until 1586, by which time the two wings for the Master’s and Usher’s houses had been added, with a gallery linking them along the High Street frontage. The gallery contained the books bequeathed to the town by Bishop Parkhurst of Norwich, an old Guildfordian, in 1573.

In 1579 Thomas Baker, a Guildford clothier, built a rye market house in front of Holy Trinity Church. After his death the rents were used to pay a school master to teach thirty poor men’s sons to read, write and cast accounts so that they could enter the Grammar School or be apprenticed. The income from the rye market was never adequate, so the master supplemented it by taking paying pupils as well. Until 1712 the school was probably held in the master’s house. In 1712 two rooms were built onto the Market House as a school for both boys and girls – the first provision for girls’ education. In 1762 the charity was re-established and became known as the Bluecoat School, from the colour of the boy’s uniform coat: girls were no longer provided for. The school was housed in the newly-built tower of Holy Trinity Church until 1855 when Baker’s Charity was amalgamated with George Abbot’s Manufacturing Endowment to form Archbishop Abbot’s School in the Old Cloth Hall, for boys aged seven to fourteen years. Baker’s Charity provided free places; the others were fee-paying. The school closed in 1933.

Another educational charity was that of Caleb Lovejoy, who left money in 1676 for a woman to teach poor children so they could read the Bible. Over the years Lovejoy boys were educated at various schools, including the Bluecoat school.

There was no state provision for education until the later 19th century, partly because of a wide dislike of government involvement in daily life, and partly because of disagreement over the nature of religious instruction. Anyone could start a school, and there must have been many ‘dame schools’ in Guildford though few records of them survive. These were small schools run by one woman providing a basic education for young boys and girls, usually of the lower classes. In 1827 the Guildford Infant School was founded by William Haydon following the plan of Robert Owen’s model factory school in Lanark, for children under five. They played games and listened to stories. It was very popular but only lasted for about twenty years.

In 1812 the National Society for promoting the education of the poor in the principles of the Church of England founded a school in Guildford at the foot of Pewley Hill. It was also known as Holy Trinity and St. Mary’s School. The rival British and Foreign School Society, which was non-denominational, established a school in Guildford in 1814 on South Hill. It was first known as the Girls’ Subscription School, and then the British School. The numbers of pupils at each school varied between about 150 and 400 over the years. There was also a National School in St. Nicholas’ parish.

In 1870 the Elementary Education Act provided for a school in every parish run by School Boards, and by 1880 attendance was compulsory. The earlier difficulties over state education had been resolved by compromises.

There were many private schools set up in Guildford in the 18th and 19th centuries, mainly for middle-class children. They were nearly all held in private houses, rather than purpose-built schools. Sometimes the husband taught while his wife helped, particularly with the domestic arrangements. Many schools were run by single ladies, as it was the only respectable career open to them. Most schools took both boarders and day pupils and were usually small. One run by the Rev. R.H. Quick in 1881-2 had only six boys. Another actually called the Middle Class School had about a hundred pupils. This was started in 1872, and taken over in 1876 by Mrs Beeney who established various experimental schools in the building in Haydon Place, including a teacher training school.

Many schools relied on the monitor system, whereby a quick pupil would teach what he or she had learnt to a group of other pupils, or on pupil-teachers, good scholars who continued their education while teaching. Often the school would be in one room; for example at Miss Tye’s Establishment for Young Ladies in Stoke House, there were seven classes of ten girls in one room.

The type of education varied. In an age when society was strictly defined, schools were designed for specific social groups. Some just taught the three Rs to working class children, others specialised in commerce for middle-class tradesmens’ sons and others were more academic. The education of girls was taken less seriously and usually consisted of the three Rs with needlework, music and dancing. (Needlework was very important as each girl would have to make and mend clothes and accessories all her life.) Later in the 19th century girls’ education expanded. For example, the Misses Jepps’ School in Quarry Street was teaching Latin and science by 1899 as well as the usual subjects. The High School for girls was founded in 1888 and the County School in 1905. The latter was founded as a training centre for pupil-teachers and taught a mixture of pupil-teachers, fee-paying and non-paying pupils.

In 1902 the Education Act made county councils the education authorities instead of School Boards, although large boroughs, including Guildford, continued to be responsible for elementary education in their area until after the Second World War.

Guildford Museum, Castle Arch, Guildford, Surrey

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