Development of Moulsecoomb

Moulsecoomb - Bevendean History Project

Development of the Moulsecoomb estate

LORD BURNHAM OPENS MOULSECOOMB “JUNIOR MIXED.”

As the Newest Brighton, it is fitting that Moulsecoomb should be equipped with the newest school – the school newer in the structural and educational sense even than Balfour-road; and newest of all in its adoption of the principle of coeducation. This very pretty, very practical, very modern “Moulsecoomb Junior Mixed School” was publicly open on Monday by value Viscount Burnham, C. H.
Prominent members of the Brighton Education Committee, school managers, educationalists, and head teachers from various Brighton schools were present in the daintily decorated school hall, and there was a large attendance of the general public at the back – but “at the back” means little in a school hall which has spacious windows on all 4 sides and a wide-open brand immediately in the rear!
Builder to accommodate 348 boys and girls from 5 to 11 years of age, the school is clean and neat and comfortable for the children, and it is a positive light to the artistic eye of the observer. Its exterior of roughcast and read, with the long, low tiled roof, is as picturesque as one could dare make a public building in this country.
The setting is ideal. Switzerland itself would not disdain to possess so compact and picturesque the school – just a line of single classrooms, with a large hall in the centre, facing westwards the broad line of Downs, with brave old trees in the foreground, with kindly green hillock, horizoned with small trees, to the east of the rear. Southwards there is a screen of tall trees, with hillside and the rest of Moulsecoomb close at hand. Northwards – well, North Moulsecoomb does not exist yet, but it has got something to live up to!
On either side of the school hall and the administrative offices is a “wing” 4 classrooms. The wings diverged slightly from the central point – which means, in practical language, that the eye of control can be easily exercised. Each pair of classrooms has its separate cloakroom, each with locking gates, each with radiators for drying wet clothes. Covered lavatory blocks, in complete harmony with the rest of the building, are provided at either end. Along the entire length of the eastern side runs a wide covered veranda, which incidentally affords communication between the classrooms. On either side there are large windows, which can be completely open to admit the sun, or close to exclude typical English weather.
The school stands in a splendid sight of eight acres, affording a playing field of rare size and pictorial charm. Soon a school will be erected just to the north for the “senior” boys and girls – that is, those from the age of nine to eleven, no one at present in the school is over nine, and eleven is to be the critical age for the first stage of the new elementary education. After that there comes the secondary school – the new boys secondary school at Varndean is now due – or the intermediate school in the York Place buildings.
To complete the tale of the new Moulsecoomb school: it cost £15,474: the architect was Mr Gilbert M. Simpson F. R. I. B. A.: The builders were Messrs R. Cook and Sons Ltd, of Crawley: and the clerk of works was Mr J. J. Keating.

BEST HOPE OF OUR GENERATION

Lord Burnham, whose name stands for so much in the world of modern education – not merely because of the celebrated “Burnham scale” salaries for teachers, but because of devoted service for the children and the parents as well – made an impressive speech in opening the school. He was accompanied by Lady Burnham, and they were received by a guard of honour.
His Lordship said that Brighton always recalled to him memories and illusions of his lost youth. “Some of the enthusiasm, I am glad to say, have not died away: there is one in particular, the enthusiasm for education, which grows upon me as the years rolled by. Education is the best hope – some of the cynics say the last hope – of our generation. I am not half-hearted believer in the virtues of education – although, of course, it is no panacea for all the social evils of our time, or of any time.”
Lord Burnham declared the new school to be “almost the ideal of what such a school should be. Certainly,” he confessed, “it has been built amid ideal surroundings. It is as much an honour to Brighton as it is a blessing for those who are to receive their training for live within its walls. In our dominions overseas, it has always been thought that the best site in every township that is being laid out should be dedicated to the cause of education. I am not sure that it was not the ideal of our forefather predecessors in the country, because, after all, Eton and many another stately pile was put into the most favourable position that was then available – on the banks of some great river, or in the beautiful meadows of some fair valley. Later on, when the Industrial Revolution crowded the people into our towns, and assesses dated the hasty erection of some sort of buildings – very few in those days – by the churches to do a little for the children, such provision and provision was impossible.

ADMIRATION FOR MOULSECOOMB

“Here, what strikes me is the civic wisdom of the whole concept. So far as I know, I can honestly tell you that there has not been shown to me any great scheme of municipal housing that is equal to the Moulsecoomb Estate as I have seen it – not for the first time today. It has a plain dignity and attribute of comfort, above all, which chimes in well with the site in which it lies. Provision had to be made for the children of all those already dwell upon it, and I’m bound to think that no better scheme in the range of town planning could have been adopted and correct the school, with the ample playing grounds lying in front – which are now in most places and unsatisfied aspiration which it seems almost impossible to fulfil. I congratulate all who are concerned – the Town Council who originally adopted the plan, the architect, and the builder who has been the instruments of its execution.”
As to whether the beauty of the school surroundings would be a stimulus to the children or a sedative which would make them think it was not worthwhile to exert themselves to go out of the confines of their lives, Lord Burnham believed that though what have been called “divine discontent” is a great motive to either usefulness and certainly to exceptional achievement, yet that discontent has to be with the moral condition of life as well as the physical. However further physical conditions may be, there will always be the incentive that it is possible to make the world a little better in one’s own time, even in the humblest of occupations.
“So I count it a great thing to have so good a site for a school as this, and I only wish it were possible, by some interchange of pupils as there is an interchange of teachers, that those children who have to attend the slum schools of the great cities were able to come for a term or two to such a haven of bliss as in comparison, this is.

TRIBUTE TO EDUCATION COMMITTEE

“I am persuaded,” continued his Lordship, “that your education authority is on the right lines of educational development in tackling with so much courage and so much success, the difficult problem of splitting up our elementary education into its component parts. The great need of the day in education matters is surely that the great majority of the children of this country shall have some course of instruction fuller and more various than can be given in the old type of elementary school. We have developed the central school as a rough and ready, but at the same time a workable, outcome of our education Acts; and the Brighton authority, in setting themselves to the duty of providing junior and senior schools, is undoubtedly doing the right thing.
“I am not one of those who believe that it will be possible for a long time, or, where were it possible, that it would be desirable, for all the children of the country to go through secondary schools. I’m afraid that the hard necessities of life make it certain that, however the process of machinery may be developed, the great majority of our citizens must be engaged in productive labour – they must be doing things rather than writing or talking about them. If that is so, a purely literary education such as we give in our secondary schools cannot be the only thing that is provided, and certainly cannot embrace the whole community.
“I am not satisfied with things as they are. At the same time, I recognise that improvements must be gradual and I do not know a better way of realising the best that is possible at this moment than in dividing the elementary schools in some such fashion as Brighton proposes. I am glad to think that you are doing it now, in such a way as this building gives evidence of.”

PLEA FOR MANUAL WORK

Lord Burnham advanced a strong plea for the development of manual work of appropriate kinds both for boys and girls. Such training of the mind, through the hand and they I as is highly developed in the schools of Scandinavia, leads to the highest standards of elocution and performance in after life. “I am not thinking of vocational selection of training at so tender age. That can wait. But our schools are not doing their duty if they are not brought into due relation to the necessities – often the hard necessities – of our national life.”
Lord Burnham advise those concerned with education to make the fullest used of the cinema and the wireless, although he reminded them that not even these wonderful “gadgets” of modern science can abolish the necessity for personal sympathy and the personal touch in education.
“With the highest hopes of what this school can do,” is Lordship said, in conclusion, “and with sincere congratulations upon its layout and equipment, it is a great privilege for me to declare it open. As Ruskin said, education is not for advancement in life – it is advancement in life”. You cannot have it housed to well, or into dignified a fashion, I see it with my own eyes here. And I shall, with all seriousness, implore the blessing of Providence on the work that will be done here, which will only be shown in the future that lies before us, and the happier and healthier conditions under which those who will come after me will live in this splendid town.”
The rest of the speechmaking, and the brief dedication ceremony by the vicar of Brighton Canon F. C. N. Hicks, D. D. were worthy of the occasion. The Mayor of Brighton Councillor Richard Major, who presided, said that as this was the third of the large new schools to be constructed outside the existing borough but within the proposed extension the Education Committee were very wise to make it “one of the very best.”

MOST BEAUTIFUL OF SCHOOLS

As Chairman of the Sites and Works Sub-Committee, Councillor W. J. Steers formally “delivered” the school into the hands of Miss M. F. Heathcote, Chairman of the Elementary Schools Sub-Committee. Miss Heathcote said that she had never “owned” the school before, and she was sorry that she would only “own” this one for about 10 minutes, because “it is the most beautiful school I have ever seen.”
Miss Heathcote explained that the present proportion of the teaching staff is for women to one man – the headmaster Mr A. F. Kitchen enthusiast in coeducation, and as the age of the children increases to eleven, the proportion is to be two men to every three women.
Lord and Lady Burnham were cordially thanked for their presence on the proposition of Alderman H. Milner Black J. P. Chairman of the Education Committee who made a most delightful speech seconded by Alderman R. N. Southall J. P. Chairman of the School Managers. They were presented with a photograph of the school. His Lordship made an appropriate reply.
The children sang 2 charming songs – as spring like as the school itself; and to hymns were sung by the gathering, “now let us all our voices raise” and “O God our help in ages past”.
Afterwards Alderman and Mrs Black entertained the company to tea. The catering arrangements were carried out by Messrs G. Morley and Son of the Pavilion Restaurant.
A representative guard of honour was formed by companies of the Boys Brigade, the Church Lads Brigade, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and Brownies and the Girls Guilds.
Lord and Lady Burnham were the guests of the mayor and Mayoress of Brighton to luncheon at the Royal Albion Hotel. The company included Councillor J. Lord Thompson J. P. and Mrs J. Lord Thompson. Councillor H. Milner Black J. P. and Mrs Black. Alderman B. N. Southall J. P. And Mrs Southall. Councillor W. J. Steers. The Vicar of Brighton (Canon Hicks). The Town Clerk, Mr J. H. Rothwell C. B. E, Miss Heathcote, Mr W. H. Attwick. Mr H. W. Hone. Mr J. Henson Infield J. P. Mr A. E. Kitchen, (headmaster of the school). Mr A. F. Lower (Mayors secretary). Mr H. H. Purnell (President of the Brighton Teachers Association). Mr Gilbert Simpson (architect to the Education Committee), and Mr F. Herbert Toyne B. A. (Secretary to the Education Committee), and Mrs Toyne.

From Brighton & Hove Herald 30th April 1927