Page 26 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

BUILDIngs
A new school building was opened in 1914 and still stands today. The War Memorial in the foreground has since been moved to the village green near St John’s Church, Corby
national school) educating 40 – 60 boys daily with an additional 60 girls taught on a sunday, the whole thing being supported by subscription.
By 1833 the education of children in the village was beginning to change. the ‘education Returns’ of that year, known as the Kerry Returns, stated that for a population of 684 there was one Day school and sunday school, attended by 32 children of both sexes daily. girls were now beginning to receive a similar education to boys; the sunday school still had around 60 children attending with funding coming from subscription and from an annual £1 payment from parents who could afford it. the report mentioned that ‘an endowed school was on the point of being opened’; the future would see the closure of the Corby Anglican school (national school) by 1871 leaving the endowed school to flourish.
In 1831 William Rowlatt (d. 1840) undertook to establish a school in his native Corby. He was a prosperous merchant then living near Ringwood, Hampshire. In 1833 a site was secured by purchasing a house and a quarter of an acre of land on the corner of High street and Meeting Lane, which had formerly been Rowlatt family property but then belonged to the Meadows family. the house for the schoolmaster was repaired at a cost of £75 and a new school built for £500.
24