Education in Benfleet 1840 to 1984
From Chelmsford Record Office
South Benfleet County Primary SchoolIn 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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