CCHS

Thanks to Kate Stubbs, Marketing and Communications Manager CCHS, for the following updates.

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Over the next term a new section will be created on the CCHSG website with the aim of sharing information about the history of the school and making some of our archive material, such as early school magazines, publicly available.  If members of the OGA have school memorabilia or photographs that they would be happy for CCHSG to share, Kate Stubbs would be delighted to hear from them via kstubbs@cchsg.com .  The school is particularly looking for copies of school magazines from the years 1954 to 1969 and post 1977.  Can you help?  Readers can also access the latest CCHSG e-newsletter on the website at https://www.cchsg.com/latest-newsletter/   

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Kate has been putting the history of the school in the CCHSG newsletter and the first part is below.  This could well stimulate your memories of the school and these could be included in their project.

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The CCHSG has been Educating Students in Colchester, since 1909  and much of the information shared here was originally collated as part of a publication to mark the schools fiftieth year and the booklet produced as part of the school’s centenary celebrations in 2009.

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The Colchester parents of 200 years ago did have an option to educate their daughters, but only in the most superficial and expensive way.  In 1762 a “Young Ladies Boarding School” was established on North Hill, offering English and Needlework at the then expensive fee of £14 a year.  French, Music Writing and Arithmetic were available each at an additional cost.  Not until the 1890s were female students in Colchester able to access an education of real value which prepared them for Matriculation and the examinations then used for university entrance. In 1900 the main employment available for Colchester’s women would have been as domestic servants, in one of the town’s two silk mills, or in the local tailoring industry.  In the first printed number of the CCHSG school magazine, in 1914, a student wrote:

 

"A girl who has a career has many more advantages than one who has not.  She is far more independent and helpful to others and herself.  She is dependent on no one for food and clothing, and has much wider views of life altogether……There are a great many openings now for girls.  In Victorian times it was considered unladylike for a girl to do anything but stay at home or go out as companion...  Nowadays everybody has far broader views, and there are innumerable careers for girls.  Teachers are wanted in many branches... There are also many positions as clerks and secretaries, which women can obtain.  Agriculture in many branches, bee-keeping, dairy work or poultry farming is suitable work for women... In fact, there is hardly any field of work that is not open to women today.  Of course, in every case a good training is essential...." (1914, p6).

 

In 1892 a School Board was formed in Colchester with representatives from the churches, the Co-operative Society and the trades council.  This body was responsible for setting up 6 schools, by 1895 3,910 children were attending free local schools.  The 1902 Education Act abolished the School Board and replaced it with a Borough Education Committee.  The founding of CCHSG came as part of the modernization and development of education in Colchester driven by this local authority at the turn of the twentieth century.

 

The school was originally located in the Albert Hall in the High Street (later the Co-operative Bank), under the Headship of Miss Mary Collins, until its intended premises at the top of North Hill, which is now the Sixth Form College, were completed in 1912. In 1909 there were just 67 students in four forms.  By 1914 numbers had risen to 165 and many different aspects of the school community we know today were already developing.  There was a uniform, of navy pleated tunic and velour hat; a red and navy blue tie was added in later years.  In 1914 the Preparatory department was opened in “St. Peter’s Parish Room”, and Swedish gymnastics, Cookery, and Class Singing became definite parts of the School curriculum (1927, p6).  The school magazine of 1927 presents the new school badge, which features for the first time on the front of the magazine, and was designed by a Mr Gurney Bentham.  Bentham was an academic and editor of the Essex County Standard for 59 years, who was also three times Mayor of Colchester.  The motto “Wisdom Giveth Life”, which we still refer to, was chosen by Headteacher Miss Crosthwaite.  This comes from Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, verses 11–14:

 

"Wisdom is good with an inheritance: and by it there is profit to them that see the sun.

"For Wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it."

 

At a time when many mottos were in Latin, “She particularly chose an English motto so that no girl, if asked what the words on her badge meant, would be unable to explain (1927, p4).”  It was in this year that the school also thanked Miss Crosthwaite and wished her well.  She departed to become Head of the prestigious Wycombe Abbey School after 15 years at CCHSG.

 

The CCHSG ethos of striving for excellence across a wide range of extra curricular activities was also in evidence from the very start.  Everyone played games, and the first Sports Day took place in 1914, before being suspended over the war years to resume in 1922.  With races such as the “Girdle Race” and the “Tunnel” from the 1920s the Sports day prizes awarded to the winning Form Groups were pictures. “The two halves of Upper VA won the Flag and Cross and Tunnel Team races, thereby gaining for their form-room the “Card Players” and the “Earl de la Warr… the prize for the highest number of points gained by Lower Va was a statuette the “Seated Mercury” (1927, p13).

 

CCHSG’s record of sporting success also started early.  In 1923 and 1924 it is recorded that netball team beat every school on the fixture list. Once activities resumed after the War, students eagerly participated in Rounders, Netball, Tennis and Hockey tournaments, with permanent members of the school teams being awarded their “colours”.  While this was a source of pride, the school magazine also published “criticism” of the players which might have been less positively received.  Members of the 1953 netball team were variously described as “a good shooter but sometimes a little erratic” and demonstrating “some spectacular intercepting, but must be careful not to barge in her eagerness to intercept the ball.”

 

A Drama Group and “Story Club” were started and also a Debating Society, at which in 1914 the resolution that “Women should be granted the Parliamentary franchise” was carried by nine votes to three (1914, p9). Women over 30 were finally to get the vote in 1920.  There were also exchange visits with French students, school concerts and performances such as Oliver Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer”, Open Days and parents’ evenings.  In 1924 the Historical and Archeological Society (HARK) began a long and active existence and a Music Club began regular concerts and recitals.  A Sixth Form was founded, from which students progressed on to Girton College, Cambridge and other universities.

 

Later, in 1920, when the school had grown to over 400 students, the County Council bought and adapted Grey Friars House, and a buildings next door as accommodation for the Juniors and for the boys and girls in the Preparatory School.  As the 1920 School Magazine records “The Upper School has been in parties to visit the new building, and everyone envies the Juniors for being in such a delightful place” (1920, p1).  For 37 years, Colchester County High School operated on a split site, linked by the High Street, with junior pupils at what is today the Grey Friars Hotel at the eastern end while senior pupils were taught in the same building as the technical school pupils at what is now the Colchester Sixth Form College off North Hill.   An early commitment to broadening access was evident in the 25% of the places at the school that were reserved for scholarship students.  Not unlike the school today, some students travelled considerable distances to school, using the bus and train.  There were even “train prefects” to look after them.  Some students even travelled in by horse, and one family came by carriage, with the eldest sister driving, and the horse being stabled during the day at the Fleece Hotel in Head Street.

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