Buildings of Stoke-on-Trent
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Cobridge School
In the 1680's there were only three or four small houses at Cobridge but by the mid 1770's a distinct settlement had come into existence in the vicinity of the crossroads formed by Sneyd Street Grange Street and Elder Road.
By 1766 the population of the district had increased to the point where provision was made for the construction of a public building to serve the area.
The original trust deed made between Thomas Fenton of Newcastle Gent. and 57 trustees including Josiah Wedgwood and John Hales devised:
“a piece of land in Cobridge containing 120 sq yards lying on the north side of the road leading from Cobridge to Burslem & a dwelling house & other buildings erected upon it for the purpose of a school for the education and instruction of children, & a Public hall for the purpose of meetings for transacting public affairs in Cobridge & its neighbourhood". In 1766 members of the Warburton family were prominent among the list of trustees of the Cobridge school.
The report of the commissioners concerning Staffordshire Charities in 1826 records that a school was built to accommodate 60 to 70 scholars on the first floor with two dwelling rooms on the pound floor. The report went on to state that the school of the first floor was kept by a master who paid the trustees a rent of £2 while the rooms on the ground floor were occupied a widow who ran a small school there and who paid a rent of £5.
Fifteen years later John Hales one of the surviving trustees reported to Samuel Scriven (Royal Commission on Children’s Employment, 1841) that the school:
“is now occupied by Mr Goodfellow; he pays a rent to me, or has do so at the expiration of 12 months, of £5, which I find hardly enough to keep it in repair.
There are now 20 scholars educated in it at their own expense; Mr Goodfellow derives the profits and emoluments arising out of it. There was a committee appointed to the management some years ago, but they are all dead, and the whole management consequently devolves on me and Mr John Hales; I believe I was appointed by the original trust deed with the others, but I cannot find the deeds, and therefore cannot say with certainty.”
Cobridge School - the front of which faced Elder Road
Sneyd Street is the road on the right.
(from Scarratt: "Old times in the Potteries" 1906)
The same location in 2001
The site of the school is marked by the traffic island
and a monument
Site of the old school house
erected 1766 demolished 1897
take a "walk" around this area
09/12/2001
