South Metropolitan School District

The 1834 Poor Law Act led to improvements in the arrangements made for the education of pauper children. Poor Law Unions, and parishes regulated by local acts, were persuaded to establish schools and to appoint schoolmasters. The policy of separating the children from their parents (who were generally considered to be a bad influence on their children) and sending them, if possible, to the country was continued and by 1866 several metropolitan authorities were sending children to schools outside London. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1844 made possible a further development in this field which was of significance for the metropolitan area. Unions and parishes were empowered to unite and to form a School District which then set up a large separate school for the education of all the indoor pauper children of the constituents of the district. These were usually industrial schools where both boys and girls were taught the basics of a useful trade which, it was hoped, would provide them with better prospects in future.

The South Metropolitan School District was founded in 1849 by the Poor Law Unions of Bermondsey, Camberwell, Greenwich and Saint Olave's. The Saint Mary Newington Union joined between 1854 and 1869; Stepney Union joined in 1873 and the Woolwich Union joined in 1868. The School District constructed a new school at Brighton Road in Sutton, which held 890 children. However this provision soon proved inadequate and in 1882 another school was constructed on Banstead Road. This became the girl's school while boys remained at the older site. In the same year the District purchased an old workhouse in Witham, Essex, which it used as an orphanage. The District also opened a convalescent home by the seaside in a former hotel in Herne Bay, Kent. The South Metropolitan School District was disbanded in 1902.

Source of information: Peter Higginbotham at The Workhouse website.