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1920 – (Bond Street) Full School Photo

There was a full school photo taken in 1920. Whilst the quality is much lower than I would like, it is the best I can put together from the available resources and it does at least serve to provide a flavour of what the school was like at the time.

Whole School
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The year was significant because the number of Grammar School pupils exceeded 200 for the first time. At this time, the vast majority of the school was fee paying and ‘School Certificates’ and ‘Higher School Certificates’ were the standard qualifications being some 32 years before the replacement by ‘O’ and ‘A’ Levels.

 In 1920, just 17 ‘School Certificates’ were awarded together with 3 ‘Higher School Certificates’.

1930 – (Bond Street) Full School Photo

1930 was the last year that saw R.T. Robinson at the helm as Headmaster.

The number of boys at the school had now reached three hundred for the first time. It now had a full staff allocation and could be considered to have completely recovered from WWI.


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George Cooper can be seen on the staff can have had no idea at the time that he would remain so until he retired some forty years later.

1932 – (Bond Street) Full School Photo

By now, Mr. Robinson had been replaced by Sydney Wilson as headmaster. The school had ceased to be independent and was now a state run school but had a good name for sound, solid work.

The number of boys at the school had now reached three hundred for the first time. It now had a full staff allocation and could be considered to have completely recovered from WWI.


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A few schoolmasters the likes of Herbert Pitchford, Joseph Hammond and George Cooper can be seen at the outset of their careers, little knowing that there would soon be another major war, or that they had such a long association with the school ahead of them.

1934 – (Bond Street) Full School Photo

Sydney Ernest Wilson was still headmaster in 1934 but he was to leave the following year to become the Principal of King William’s College on the Isle of Man


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An increasing number of masters who were to well establish themselves over the next few years are now in evidence.

1939 – (Bond Street) Full School Photo

In 1939, just prior to the outbreak of World War II, there were 316 boys in the school.

Whole School
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It would be fairly natural to assume that the largest man in the centre was the headmaster, but this was in fact, Mr T. Parkin who had recently been acting headmaster for a short period before being replaced by Mr W.D. Fraser, who is next on the right.

A few faces can been seen that would remain on the staff until after the school had moved to Winshill almost twenty years later. Most notably, Herbert ‘Horace’ Pitchford, who would by that time be headmaster, George Cooper, Frank ‘Bill’ Read, Joseph ‘Jake’ Hammond, Ron ‘Ronnie’ Illingworth, Dai ‘Taffy’ Davies and Cecil ‘Chazzer’ Brown.