When Titus Salt (1803-1876) founded Saltaire, among the amenities that he was committed to developing were those for education. This commitment was continued by his successors.
The following is a summary of when and where the provision of education began and how the educational amenities developed and still thrive today.
On 12 August 1854 the architects Lockwood and Mawson (who designed Salts Mill and Saltaire) placed a notice in the local press that they were seeking contractors to erect: Dining Hall, cooking kitchen and other offices; stable buildings, a coach house, cart sheds and cottages; eleven shops with dwelling houses attached.
Read on for the significance of the Dining Hall
On 3 November 1855, the Shipley Times reported that the ‘dining hall is just being completed’ and describes it, surprisingly, as ‘a place of worship and a school room’.
The Dining Hall was the first public building in Saltaire. For several years it provided space for a large range of activities – including schooling – until purpose-built amenities were completed.
From 1833 employers were under a legal obligation to provide elementary education for children for at least two hours a day.
The well-equipped Factory School provided that education for Salts Mill child workers until a purpose-built primary school was built in 1868.
The Dining Hall also provided evening classes to adults, at a cost.
In 1833 the Government had passed a Factory Act to improve conditions for children working in factories. The Act required factory owners to provide a minimum of two hours schooling each day for child workers. Children could only be employed if they had a schoolmaster’s certificate that confirmed that in ‘the previous week’ they had had two hours of education each day. The children paid for their education by a deduction of a penny in the shilling from their wages.
Many industrialists flouted the law, often setting aside a poorly equipped, dingy room within a factory to provide the two hours of education and frequently ignoring the age limits set down. Many just ignored the law altogether.
In contrast, Titus Salt was committed to the provision of education. The Saltaire Factory School in the Dining Hall was both well equipped and well attended.
In 1868 a large new building to house the Factory school was opened on the main Victoria Road in Saltaire.
There were separate entrances for girls and boys who were taught separately. The schools could accommodate 750 pupils and their facilities were advanced, the classrooms having central heating, gas lighting and fitted cupboards. Playgrounds at the rear of the schools included covered areas for use in bad weather.
The new schools showed Titus Salt was ahead of his time in establishing well-provisioned education, but only just.
The 1870 Education Act became law shortly after the schools were in full use. This Act was the first to deal with the comprehensive need for the provision of education in Britain and demonstrated a commitment to provision on a national scale.
A consequence of the new Education Act for Saltaire was that the new school’s capacity was soon insufficient. Additional space was found in the Saltaire Institute (now known as Victoria Hall).
On the opening of The Institute in 1871, a newspaper article noted that the building harmonised with the Salt Schools building directly opposite.
The article mentions that on the first floor are classrooms ‘devoted to the School of Art’ which are equipped with a valuable collection of casts to assist students in their elementary and advanced studies. Classrooms and a laboratory for science classes were available in the basement. Night school facilities were also established in the Institute.
By 1876 increasing demand for education for older children had convinced Sit Titus Salt to establish high schools for both boys and girls over the age of ten.
The schools opened in 1876 and were due to be hosted in the Victoria Road buildings of the Factory School. While a new school (see below) was built to house the younger children, the high schools occupied temporary spaces, including part of The Saltaire Institute.
The high schools were aimed at the middle classes, charging two pounds ten shillings per term. They offered advanced syllabuses, under the guidance of progressive headteachers such as Medina Griffiths (pictured) and Harriet Byles.
Titus Salt Junior and his wife Catherine strongly advocated education for children and were supporters of the reforming pedagogue Friedrich Froebel who advocated education for under-fives.
They successfully campaigned for a new elementary school. This opened in February 1878 on some land gifted by the Salts on Albert Road, Saltaire. The younger pupils from the Factory schools on Victoria Road transferred to the Albert Road school.
The Inscription for this new elementary school includes the following:
It (the new school) is two storeys high, a central hall 92ft by 36ft, rising the entire height and being lighted from the roof. Around this, sixteen classrooms, each of which is 22ft by 21ft, are ranged, eight on the ground floor and eight on the first floor, the latter being reached by two staircases (one for each sex) and a balcony, which gives an appearance of relief to the hall. Between the two staircases just mentioned are placed two teachers’ rooms. On each floor are two cloakrooms (one for boys and one for girls), provided with umbrella stands and excellently ventilated; indeed, in this respect every portion of the building is as perfect as it can possibly be made. Separate covered playgrounds are placed in the rear of the school, with lavatories near at hand. Each classroom is surrounded by ample glass lights so that the headmistress may see at a glance what is going on within, either looking from one room to another or from the central hall. It is, however, intended to have frosted the lights communicating with the several classrooms, as it is found that the attention of the children in one room is apt to be attracted by what is going on in the apartment immediately in front. But this arrangement, which enables the head mistress to see, while at her desk in the hall, what is transpiring with four classes or standards, is a feature which at once commends itself to one’s mind.
To meet the ever-increasing demand for school places, Titus Salt Junior developed a grand plan for a new ‘technical schools for art and science’.
In 1885 he proposed holding an art exhibition in Saltaire ‘which may be the means of raising a building for Science and Art and which would provide an outlet for those who desire to erect a memorial to the late Sir Titus Salt’.
The School of Art and Science was opened in 1887 by Princess Beatrice in a grand celebration as part of The Royal Yorkshire Jubilee Exhibition.
The public subscriptions raised for the New School were far less than anticipated however and despite the many visitors to the Exhibition, its costs outweighed its income. On 18 November 1887, Titus Salt Junior was due to meet the exhibition’s executive committee but he sent his apologies and tragically died later that day.
Long after their foundation, the Salt High Schools moved to a new site just north of Saltaire, and became the co-educational ‘Titus Salt School’.
The Albert Road school is still a thriving primary school.
The School of Art and Science eventually became a college of further education, now named Shipley College. The College also occupies the Victoria Road school buildings and, bringing things full-circle, the Dining Hall building where education in Saltaire first began.
Education is a major theme in our Collection. View school records, campaigning letters and lots more
A nineteenth century teacher, Medina was the progressive headmistress of Salt High School for Girls
Harriet succeeded Medina Griffiths as the headmistress of Salt High School for Girls and continued progressive education
George was an early teacher at the new Factory School. He served 45 years in various teaching posts