Ealing and Its Vicinity

by D. F. E. Sykes

Ealing House in the Park Road, now occupied as Byron House School, belonged to the Bonfoy family in 1691; in 1715 to Sir James Montagu, Baron of the Exchequer, later to General John Hawke and the Earl of Galloway. A further notice of this house will be found in later pages.

Its Schools. Few, if any, places of anything like the same size, contain so many and so excellent Colleges, Academies, Boarding and Day Schools, as Ealing. Many circumstances have conspired to this result. In the first place, the fons et origo, probably, of this consummation, nature seems to have marked the spot for schools. The situation is near enough to the Thames to make the loveliest haunts of the river easily accessible, and it is distant enough to be free from the fogs and low humours of a riparian situation; it is remote enough from London to be almost pastoral in its charms yet close enough to be reached by many routes within an hour. The streets of the town and the urban roads are broad and well made, the latter lined with noble chestnuts that, in the spring, are a mass of spiked bloom, suggesting the boulevards of continental cities rather than the prosaic high ways of English life. It abounds in large open spaces, wide stretching greens and commons, everywhere foliage and bloom greet the senses. No noisome factories belch poison into the air. It is rus in urbe in effect. The man of business can be wafted almost without effort to the very heart of the business centre of the world, and yet his home lie in gracious avenues lined with stately trees, and far remote from the toil and turmoil of the city and its eternal din. In all Ealing there is not what may be reasonably called a slum, and its most confined and gloomy alley might almost claim to rank as an open space compared with the crowded courts of the East End. Little wonder that the schoolmaster who is often spoken of as abroad is very much at home in Ealing. The illustrious men, distinguished in every pursuit of life, in arms, in commerce, in the calm of the cloister, and in the strife of the forum, in literature and in arts, who have drunk their first draughts of the Pierian Spring at Ealing, their names are many, illustrious, and historic. The most celebrated Private School in Great Britain, beyond question, was that kept in Ealing by Dr. Nicholas, and known as the Great Ealing School. It stood formerly on the site of the present Post Office in Ranelagh Road, and that of the buildings on the opposite side of the Ranelagh Road now used as a Repository. The House now called Thorne House, or St. Mary’s College, conducted by Mr. Fiscn, M.A., was. occupied as a Master’s House. Dr. Nicholas himself is spoken of more than once in Thackeray’s Papers as “Dr. Tickle-us of Great Ealing School.” How few private schools, indeed can any other private school? claim among its alumni such men as Sir Henry Lawrence, Lord Lawrence, Bishop Selwyn, Charles Knight, Sir Henry Rawlinson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Cardinal Newman, Professor Huxley and W. S. Gilbert. Charles Knight says of his schooldays here, “my school life was a real happiness. My nature bourgeoned under kindness.” The present Great Ealing School stands on the opposite side of the road to the former premises. It was built by Dr. Nicholas for his son, but the early death of that gentleman frustrated that scheme. The School is now conducted by Rev. John Chapman. It stands on a gravel soil, and is surrounded by nearly seven acres of ground, with lawns and orchards. If the list of the conspicuous successes gained in nearly all the Public Examinations of the present day are any augury for the future, the Great Ealing School bids fair to sustain its illustrious traditions. No school could do more.

The former Master’s House, we have said, was, with an adjacent row of houses, opened as a school for boys by Mr. Ray. In his hands it became widely known, and was one of the largest private educational establishments in the neighbourhood of London. The present Principal is Mr. Jas. Fison, M.A., (London), who has given regard to the needs of pupils preparing for the Universities, and the Public Examinations. The tendency of modern education is to lay greater stress than formerly on scientific study, and extensive chemical and physical laboratories are now being erected with a well-filled workshop. It is confidently anticipated that these will not only be of service to the pupils at the school, but will be availed of by students residing in the neighbourhood, who seek to obtain practical experience in scientific or technical subjects. A large and well-appointed gymnasium is also in course of erection in the playground attached to the school and classes in physical education will be formed.

In point of numbers the Byron House School, whose principals are Mr. B. Bruce Smith, LL.D., and the Rev. E. J. Hockly, M.A., and which is situate in the Park Road bears the palm. This School had a noble beginning. It was instituted by Lady Byron, the poet’s wife, and for many years that lady paid the fees of the boys admitted on her nomination. Her Head-Master was Mr. Charles Nelson Atlee, and in 1848 the increasing years and infirmities of her ladyship, combined no doubt with a desire to mark her gratitude for Mr. Atlee’s co-operation for so many years, prompted Lady Byron to hand over the school entirely to Mr. Atlee, and it was carried on by him and his son, Mr. Charles Atlee, A.C.P., till the father’s death in 1866, and its efficiency and success may be guaged by the fact that in that period the number of pupils rose from 40 to 100. The school remained in Mr. C.Atlee’s hands till 1886, when Dr.Bruce Smith acquired it. It now numbers over 200 pupils, and thirteen resident and three visiting masters constitute a teaching staff of exceptional strength, and their efforts have borne fruit in the University and other competitive Class Lists. One of the greatest living musicians and one of the best of our modern sculptors received their early training at Byron School, and many of the banks and commercial establishments of high repute throughout England and the Colonies have officered their desks from former pupils of the School. In its earlier days Byron House supplemented the Battersea Training College as an Academy for Teachers, and a circumstance of special interest to Masters, may be noted in the fact that the College of Preceptors was practically founded in the private dining-room of Byron House School. It is beyond all dispute that the scheme for testing the efficiency of private schools, which led to the foundation of the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations, has done more than any other movement to stimulate education in this country. It annihilated the sluggard school-master, and considerably wakened up the sluggard school-boy.

The Castle Hill School. This School presents one notable feature. Standing in some half-acre of ground, abutting on four acres of play-ground, the building itself has been designed and constructed specially for the use to which it is now devoted. A building whose original purpose is private residence is not always best adapted for a large school, but the architect for the Castle. Hill School with the initial advantage of commodious and appropriate site has produced a School whose adaptation of means to end, strikes the merest observer. The central school-room is 60ft. long, 23ft wide, and 16ft. high, and the sanitary arrangements of the whole structure are beyond criticism. The Castle Hill School was founded, but not on its present site, by the Rev. O. G. D. Perrott, M.A., in 1875, who transferred it in 1885 to the present Head-Master, Mr. E. J. Morgan, 1st B. A., (London) and by him the present school was erected in 1891. Admittedly the Cambridge Local Examinations are a severe test of a school’s efficiency and that out of the 19 certificates gained at the Ealing Centre at the last Examination, 11 were secured by pupils of Mr. Morgan, one with first-class honours, speaks highly in the School’s favour.

Space forbids the specific mention of all the educational advantages of which Ealing can boast, but lest it should be assumed these are confined to budding geniuses of the sterner sex, we may refer to the Princess Helena College, a High School for Girls, situate in Montpelier Road, of which the following account appeared in the excellent work, “Ealing Illustrated,” published in 1893, by Messrs G. Tyer and Co., London.

“At Montpelier Road, we find the public High School for girls, known as the Princess Helena College, which has an interesting history attaching to it. It was originally founded in 1820, as a training school for governesses, and also for the education of the orphans of Military and Naval officers, members of the Civil Service, and Clergymen, having been established as a memorial to H.R.H. Princess Charlotte of Wales. At this time, it was known as the Audit and Orphan Institution, and was situated near Regent’s Park, London. Greater accommodation eventually became necessary, however, and a movement was set on foot, under the presidency of Princess Christian, to erect larger and more suitable buildings. The site now occupied was chosen, and the present erection was built at a cost of £10,000, from designs by Mr. S. Bannister, of Lincolns Inn Fields. Although, as we have stated, it is now a Public High School for girls, the original object of its foundation has not been lost sight of, and a portion of its revenue derived from subscription is devoted to the education of girls of the classes before referred to.”

Ealing is the home of many charitable institutions and the Training College for Teachers of the Deaf, situate at Elmhurst, Castlebar Hill, under the Presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has a wide reputation. One of the Homes of the London Police Court Mission is to be found in Church Lane, where, under the energetic and sympathetic superintendence of Mr. Robert Marshall, those who have slipped from the straight path, find help and encouragement in the hard and uphill struggle to redeem the past.

The municipal Government of Ealing is vested in a Local Board formed on May 25th, 1863, superseding the old Highway Board with its nine life members. That the Local Board has been enterprising a retrospect of thirty years would amply prove: that its policy has been successful, a few figures abundantly establish. In 1863 the population was about 5,200. It now exceeds 37,000. In 1863 its rateable value was £18,396, it is now over £167,000, That it has jealously insisted that sanitary safeguards should accompany the swift stride of progress may be inferred from the fact that Ealing has but a death-rate of 11:23 per 1000, whilst professed and we may say professional health resorts like Eastbourne, Harrogate, Cheltenham, and Scarborough, range from near 15 to close on 19 per 1000.

For Parliamentary purposes Ealing, with Chiswick and Acton, constitutes the Ealing Division. Lord George Hamilton is the present member, and it may be said that the Conservative view is in much favor in Ealing. There are those who assert a necessary connection between this fact and the abundance and excellence of its educational advantages. This History sayeth not how this may be.