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| The Website for all former pupils of the Prescot Grammar Schools |
| The
late Alec Weston had an original copy of the PGS
Prospectus when C W H Richardson was the
headmaster and this is also dated 1924. [School
pictured in 1924] This details the rules and conditions of all new pupils to the school when the fees for a term were Two Pounds, Three Shillings, and Eight Pence (£2/3/8). |
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| Rod
Crook adds,
"The PGS Prospectus for 1924 recently posted
by the Editor is a great item for the Archive. In
passing I also remember Alex Weston taking great
pride in showing me a brightly coloured striped
blazer dating from the 20s. It must have been for
sporting occasions only-presumably worn with the
straw hat referred to in the Prospectus and was
probably a minority possession. A photograph of
the blazer might be worth pursuing for the
Archive. A couple of points to notice. The fees
remained similar up to the time they were phased
out after the 1944 Edcation Act. In the early
1940s I think they stood at 2 pounds and 15
shillings a Term, as opposed to 2 pounds three
shilling and eight pence twenty years before.
This may not seem much to the reader today, but
should be related to the typical family wage.
This might represent perhaps 50% of a weeks
wages, impossible for many famlies and very hard
for others. The Twenties, as noted by the Editor
were sometimes referred to as the ‘roaring
twenties’ but this was the froth on the heap
of Depression, poverty and unemployment. For the
denizens of Prescot and environs it was not an
easy time, and the 30s were no better. You could
enter the School in Form 1 as a fee paying
student after your 8th birthday, and remain a pay
payer throughout, or enter in Form 3 after
passing what was termed the ‘Scholarship
Exam.’ Some of us changed status by taking
the Scholarship Exam while already attending the
Lower School. The Scholarship Exam was to become
the ‘11 plus,’ and of course became the
sole method of entry until the end of the Grammar
School. It is also interesting to notice that the Prospectus refers to 5 acres of land. This was of course the year of the change from the old High Street building to the St Helens Road site. Early in the life of the School it was intended that a Girls Grammar School would be created on the same site and the rest of the then farmland was purchased for the School. In other words the site many of you remember was much larger than 5 acres. For a fuller discussion see F.A.Bailey’s discussion in the 1944 volume or reprinted in that of 1994. I like the bit about the four rules of Arithmatic-presumably these were addition, subtraction, multiplication and division?" |
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