late 1800s school photo

@carly - I keep a copy of all the school photos where the names have been added so I will have a scan through them all and see if I can find a photo with a similar background. I will let you know weather I find a match or not but I don't recognize it. 

@carly - we don't have any school photos from the 'late 1800s' and I can't find a photo with brickwork that completely  matches the brickwork in your photo.

I have only ever found three schools that were in the area in the 1800's. They are :-

1. The Village school, opened 1874, on Church Lane Bedlington (flats now built on the land)

2. Bedlington station Colliery school. Don't know when it was built but it is identified on on and 1859 OS map. This area used to be named Sleekburn but changed it's name to Bedlington Station after the Bedlington railway station was built in Sleekburn.

3. On an 1896 OS map a school is identified in Bell's Place in Bedlington. Unfortunately no image of this school have ever been posed on any of the local groups.

This is a compilation of your photo + Bedlington Village School photo + Bedlington Station Colliery school photo :-     

This is the only reference, 1896 map, to the school in Bell's Place + a Goole Street view of the area now - Bedlington's East End area :-

I would guess you are researching your family. Do you have any info on where they lived in Bedlington?

Thank you so much for looking into this for me. The little boy on the bottom row, third from the right is my great, great Grandfather David Waddell. On the 1891 census he was 4 years old and was living on Coach Road in Bedlington. I am not 100% sure, but believe that his older sister Mary is on this photograph too. I think she is the girl on the second row down, second in after the little boy standing next to the teacher with the curled under fringe. In 1891 she would have been 12. 

2 minutes ago, carly said:

 ..........was living on Coach Road in Bedlington.

@carly I'll see if i can find Coach Row on any of the old maps and if I can find it it should give us a clue to what school they went to.

Do you happen to know if the Village School, Church Lane also known as Vulcan School? Or is that a separate building altogether? 

8 minutes ago, carly said:

Do you happen to know if the Village School, Church Lane also known as Vulcan School? Or is that a separate building altogether? 

@carlyI haven't heard the Village school referred to as 'Vulcan School' but that school was a less than 50 yards/meters from Vulcan Place  = across the road from the school.

Can't find a Coach Row but did find a Coach Road on an old map and it was down the East End Front Street, in the Hollymount area, of Bedlington just a few hundred yards from the school. I'll have a bit more look around this evening and let you see what I find, probably sometime tomorrow.

@Canny lass have you come across a Coach Row when you have been researching the area?

it was Coach Road, not Row. I feel like I am getting closer to finding out which school it is. I feel like the brickwork looks similar to the Village School / Vulcan school. If my great great grandfather was 4 in 1891, and I would say he looks between 4 and 6 on this photo, it would suggest it was taken around 1891-1893

I think the school may well be the Village School, as looking at a photograph from more recent times (before demolition) the brickwork does seem to match. 

Coach Road is shown in blue on the attached 1897 map of Bedlington East End. The road is still there leading to Spring view and the last houses were demolished in the early 1950’s. The East End Church of England school was only about 250 yards from Coach Road so is fair to assume that this is the school in the photo. The school (shown in yellow on the map) was closed in the early 1900’s and the site is now part of Hollymount Square.

@carly - I wasn't sure about the Village School being the school your great granda went to as there was a school closer to where he lived.  did a bit more checking and I had forgot about an article in a local mans book on Bedlington that has some info on the East End of the town. This is an extract from Stephen Martin's book and says that the school @James identified as a possibility in his 1897 map extract was a private school :-

This combined image shows the current area with 2 old images + the 1897 map extract :-

This image shows the quickest route your great granda would have been able to take to the Village/St Cuthbert's school :-

This is the earliest photo we have of the Village school :-

This 1896 map extract shows the area around the river Blyth that your great granda would have to to play in :-

I have joined the 1896 map with the current Google aerial view of the area  :-

Hope that helps.

In the 'Gallery' section under 'Historical Bedlington' we keep an album of all the previous and current schools. This is a direct link to what is currently held in the Bedlington Village School' album :- 

On 01/10/2023 at 16:53, Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) said:

@Canny lass have you come across a Coach Row when you have been researching the area?

No, only Coach Road leading to Bells Place,

Hi Carly!

I don't think this is St Cuthberts (the village school). I agree that the brickwork is similar but windows are very different. St Cuthberts had windows with 16 panes of glass  - 2 rows of 4 in the upper half  and the same in the lower half. Your photo shows only what I think are windows with 4 large panes - 2 up, 2 down.

I think there are two other possible schools:

Whitley Memorial School in Vulcan Place. It was there from at least 1856 and only a couple of hundred yards from Coach Lane.

WM had some 4 pane windows as you can see in this photo of the football team taken in 1920 and the brickwork bears a striking resemblance:

This type of window was very common in East End of Bedlington in the earlier dwellings and you can see them above in the photo of Bell's Place.

The other possibility is the private (Presbyterian) School that Eggy mentions above. Unfortunately, we have no phototos of that school.

@Canny lass & @carly - I had totally forgotten about the Whitley memorial school in Vulcan Place - must be me age.

Carly - this is a link to the Whitley Memorial school album  :- 

1 hour ago, Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) said:

must be me age

I didn't know you could have a 'senior moment' at the age of 21

The information attached is from a St. Cuthbert's church history booklet.

@carly I have checked all the school photos that we have for the Village school, Church Lane and the Whitley Memorial school, Vulcan Place and I would agree with @Canny lass that our best guess would be your great granda went to the Whitley Memorial. 

The 1897 map that @James has posted showing the other school closest to Coach road and the info from the St. Cuthbert's church history booklet is backed up by info on the East End of Bedlington in a booklet 'Bedlingtonshire Villages History Series - Bedlington' by Stephen B. Martin. The info in that booklet saying it was a 'Private School' built c1850 ran by a Mr Whittle I would think the info from 'carly' rules out the possibility that her great granda would have attended that school. 

But there again, at my age (21), my logic, according to the wife, is often wrong

Thanks for that little gem, @James! I thought that I'd researched my old school (Nedderton village) well but I never knew that it was once a church school.

3 hours ago, Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) said:

my logic, according to the wife, is often wrong

It's a man thing. Trust me, I'm a woman!

@carly based on what @Canny lass has posted and your reference to Vulcan place I have added the info, and a place for names, to your photo.

Is it Ok if I post your photo, with info & names, on the Facebook group Bygone Bedlington ?

Of course. However, number 9 is likely to be Mary Waddell rather than number 10. 

@carly No 10 switched to No 9👍.

I will let you know if we get any feed back from the Bygone Bedlington group.

@Canny lass I posted the photo + the info from @carly on the Bygone Bedlington (BB) Facebook group and there have been a load of replies from members who had relatives that had lived in Coach Road and had attended the Vulcan place School = the Whitley Memorial.

Normally I would take a scree-shot of the comments and paste the into a picture file to post within this group. However since posting on the BB group I have replaced my aging Desktop PC with a new one and the new keyboard is driving me mad. The new keyboard dosem't have a 'Prt scr' button and although I have found a way to get a screen shot I haven't found a way to get it into a picture file.

(The software I add the names and info to the jpg school photos etc I play with is no longer available and I have an even older PC with that software on. The software only runs on Windows Vista and I transfer (via email) the files I clart with from one PC to the other. I can still do that but screen shots and saving and editing them has me beat.)

After I posted on the BB group 'carly' joined the group and these are some of the replies (not screen shots just copy and paste of text) that she has recieved :-

Kathleen Newcombe Egen

Janet Jackson

 Ann Bower

Judith Bosomworth

A little off topic, sorry.

Re. your computer Alan, I too maintain my "Vista" computer because of the old programs etc, (photo editing, printing options) I also bought a new PC but only use it to keep it updated! I hate the newer Windows, (anything newer than Vista) I usually transfer anything I need by using a flash drive and an external hard drive. I now use Apple products whenever possible, MacAir etc, which accepts the flash drive and external hard drive. Oh for a good photo editing program.

2 hours ago, Vic Patterson said:

A little off topic, sorry.

Re. your computer Alan, I too maintain my "Vista" computer because of the old programs etc, (photo editing, printing options) I also bought a new PC but only use it to keep it updated! I hate the newer Windows, (anything newer than Vista) I usually transfer anything I need by using a flash drive and an external hard drive. I now use Apple products whenever possible, MacAir etc, which accepts the flash drive and external hard drive. Oh for a good photo editing program.

Unfortunately my old Microsft Digital Image Pro 10 is no longer available on the Windows 7 to 11 platform. I have tried a few of the new 'photoshopping' products but just couldn't get them to do what I had learned, over a couple of years, to do with my old software..

I'm hoping the old PC lasts out longer than me or I will be stuck with nowt to keep me occupied 

On 11/10/2023 at 13:24, Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) said:

although I have found a way to get a screen shot I haven't found a way to get it into a picture file

How are you getting your screen shot ?

41 minutes ago, Canny lass said:

How are you getting your screen shot ?

Unfortunately CL I have passed my 4 year old DeskTop PC + the wireless keyboard from my new PC to one of the grandsons who is going to set the PC up for his oldest son, aged 8, to play and learn from so I can't tell you how I managed to get a screen shot as I tried a few keys, with TLAs/shortened names/symbols on that I have never had before.

I now have my 4 year old wired keyboard plugged into my new PC so it's back to the simple method of using the 'Shift + Print Scrn' just to the right of the 12 Function keys.

On my 4 year old PC I had always 'cropped' my screen prints by 'Paste'ing them into a blank file within a free piece of Microsoft software - Paint 3D Microsoft.

When I wanted to add text etc. to a posted photo or screen shot I pass the image to my Windows Vista Desktop PC that has the even older software (not available on Windows 7,8,10 or 11) = Microsoft Digital Image pro 10.