Education in Benfleet 1840 to 1984

From Chelmsford Record Office

South Benfleet County Primary School

In the 1840s the Revd John Phelps, vicar of  South Benfleet , appealed for subscriptions to found a  School in the parish. The target of £420 was reached and premises were built ‘near the village centre along a path leading to Canvey’. By the beginning of the 1920s it was realised that new premises were needed and a new Council School  was erected on High Road at the bottom of Kents Hill Road.

The new school was opened on 9 April 1926 by Alderman J.H. Burrows and members of the Rochford District Education Committee. In the first few years it experienced much fluctuation in pupils’ attendance as a result of which Council School  and old National School  premises were used until 1929.

In 1930 the  School  was reorganised into a senior and junior  School and an infants’ School, It was reorganised six years later when the senior boys and girls were separated into two departments. Further changes were necessary after the Second World War when the School  became a  Primary   School and then a junior and infants School. In 1984 the  School reverted to being a  Primary School  and the premises were extensively remodelled.

See H.E. Priestley and W.T. Phillips, A History of  Benfleet, Book Two, Modern Times [1984].

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