Trinity School, long before SATs and proms
Last updated 05:37, Friday, 29 August 2008
When Holy Trinity Church was built in Caldewgate in 1830 and the Canal Branch Railway opened in 1837, a small triangle of land was left on Caldcotes adjoining the churchyard.
This seems to have been part of a three-acre field, known since medieval times as Stonecrossgate, but isolated by the construction of the railway.
The field had been bought from George Blamire in 1820 as a proposed site for cavalry barracks.Thereafter it was known as the Ordnance Field, but, having decided that barracks were unnecessary, the military authorities sold the land to George Head in 1838.
Mr Head, a philanthropist, who saw the need for a school in Caldewgate, bought the land with a purpose.
The rent from the field was to be used to fund the new school.
The school was to be a Church of England one sponsored by Trinity Church to be run on the national system and the choice of name was obvious, ‘Trinity National School’.
A trust was formed and they were able to acquire the triangle in the churchyard at little cost in 1841.
Tenders were invited for construction in May 1842 to designs by John Hodgson.
Further adverts in February 1843 were for a master and mistress at a joint salary of £80 per annum and an infant mistress at £30 per annum, but it took some time to make the necessary appointments.
In June the Carlisle Journal announced: “A national and infant school in connection with Trinity Church have recently been erected in Caldewgate, the funds raised by subscription and by Parliamentary fund.”
Subscribers to the trust welcomed the Bishop of Carlisle on a visit at this time and the Journal said: “If these schools be conducted in a proper spirit they cannot fail to be of great service in the populous neighbourhood in which they are situated.”
The bishop was “well pleased with the system of education pursued and the efficiency with which the schools were conducted.”
Reminiscences of the school at this early period were given in 1958. “An old scholar recollects that the headmaster about 1847 was Mr Smith, a venerable old gentleman with a long ginger beard, which he stroked downwards with his right hand.”
The scholar continued: “The assistant master was Tom Coulthard who afterwards became headmaster of a school in Maryport, a fine type of teacher, loved and respected by all the pupils and parents.”
Few mentions are made of the school but in September 1857 four boys appeared at Petty Sessions charged with creating a disturbance.
Three of them pleaded guilty to firing a rocket through a window of the school and the fourth admitted breaking the glass with a stone.
This had created great alarm inside the schoolroom where, the Rev Tasker, incumbent of Trinity Church, said “between 50 and 60 factory girls attend a night school.”
He had engaged a mistress to teach them, “but since establishment they had suffered considerable annoyance by persons throwing stones and breaking windows.”
Not wanting a prosecution the vicar allowed the boys to be discharged with a warning.
Numbers on the rolls for the school were 240 in 1870.
Tragedy struck a year later. A woman cleaner was working out of school hours on a Saturday with her child, Esther Hastings, aged three.
The Journal reported that while the mother was “temporarily absent from the schoolroom the child got too near the fire and her clothes caught fire.”
As the child was severely burnt it was decided to take her home, rather than the nearby infirmary, where she died a few hours later.
Various meetings were held in the schoolroom and services in 1886 while the church was being restored.
Although other schools were built – the Ragged School, Caldewgate School and Ashley Street – the numbers at Trinity School rose from 275 in 1878 to 400 in 1902.
Tenders were invited for alterations and improvements in 1892, but the next year the chairman of the School Board said: “The site, which is at the corner of the churchyard, is totally out of character for a school of the present day.”
Despite the board claiming “it was a disgrace to the city, unfitted for the purpose for which it was intended and incapable of being made a school in accordance with the new code”, Trinity School remained open.
A series of closure dates were proposed; January 1909 was one but there were still 290 pupils later that year.
In December 1910 the board considered “in view of the very unsatisfactory conditions under which work was carried on at Trinity School they had decided that they could not continue to recognise the existing premises after March 31, 1912.”
But the end did not come until, the Journal reported: “It had been removed from the list of public elementary schools in receipt of grants from September 12, 1915.”
The former school was then used as a church hall until a new one opened on Wigton Road, but the building remained standing.
Few photographs were taken of the area, the last showing the school in 1924, but it was believed to have still been standing into the 1950s.
Part of the front wall remained until removed during the 1990s street widening.
