| Administrative History | In 1810 the Committee for Sunday and Working schools tried to rent part of the Union Hall in Foregate Street as a day school, but the rent was too high (see J.C. Fowler, The Development of Elementary Education in Chester, 1800-1902, 1968, pp. 48 and 52). Therefore, Earl Grosvenor, a member of the committee, bore the cost of a day school in the Union Hall which opened c 1810, until specially built premises, also financed by him, were opened on the north side of St. John's churchyardin Vicar's Lane in 1813. This school was known as the Earl and Countess Grosvenor's School. An infants' room was opened in November 1875.
Increasingly adverse reports on the condition of the school buildings were made by inspectors in the 1870s, until in August 1883 new schools were opened on a site adjacent to the old school which was later demolished. The new buildings also were financed by the Duke of Westminster (see J.C. Fowler op. cit., p.165).
In 1950 the school was reorganised as a controlled school consisting of a mixed junior department and an infants' department. The head of the girls' school became the head of the new junior school, the log book entries continuing in those of the girls' school. In 1958 the infants' school was closed. The junior school ceased in July 1964, but the premises continued as an annexe to Love Street Girls' School until 1967. |