September 2021 – Tales from the Archives

September 24, 2021

A Second Sanatorium and an Insult to the Town of Reading

The Sanatorium in Shinfield Road may have been the first to accommodate students with infections, but it certainly wasn’t the last. A University plan of 1929 shows its successor to be located on the west side Northcourt Avenue at Number 60.

Part of a plan of the University Area Published in W. M. Childs’s ‘Making a University’

Professor W. M. Childs, Reading’s first Vice-Chancellor, recorded in his memoir that a larger sanatorium was being planned during 1921, and 60 Northcourt Avenue was in operation with 12 beds from 1922 until 1938 when it moved down the hill to Number 16.

Once Reading had achieved university status in 1926, the Calendar contained a regular entry for the Sanatorium that included the name of its Superintendent and its rules and regulations. In 1926, the Superintendent was Mrs Hole and the regulations stated that the wardens of halls could compel students to be admitted, referring rather ominously to ‘detention’. The final rule (Number 7, p.136) asserts that:

‘The University reserves the right to refuse admission of infectious cases to the Sanatorium and to send such cases to the Borough of Reading Isolation Hospital, when all charges incidental thereto must be borne by the student.’

Extract from the Sanatorium Regulations (University of Reading Calendar 1926-27)

Number 60, The Barn, has an interesting history that has been thoroughly investigated by Penny Kemp, historian and near neighbour. The house was built in 1906, leased to the University College in 1919 and purchased by Reading University in 1933. In the annual accounts for 1932-33 it is listed among the University’s assets as having a value of £2,525. By the following year this had risen to £2,556/10/6d where it remained until 1937 when it was sold to Mrs Agneta Clark, a local artist, for £3,000.

The University’s Calendar for 1935-36 shows that the post of ‘Superintendent’ had been upgraded to ‘Matron’ and was occupied by Miss R. E. Strange.

In her history of Northcourt Avenue (pp. 16-17), Penny Kemp describes how, three years after its construction, The Barn was featured in Country Life in an extraordinary feature that speaks almost contemptuously of both the house and the town of Reading. Of the house, it declares:

‘… The Barn, a modest house illustrated in these pages, is generally held in the locality to be a highly inartistic production. We confess with pain that it lacks many elements of distinction common to the neighbourhood.’

And of Reading it is claimed that:

‘Over the suburbs there has spread a red rash of buildings mostly compounded of vulgar vagaries….It is not too much to say that Reading serves as a compendium of what to avoid.’

Number 60 is no longer The Barn; its new name is Three Oaks. In the mean time it has undergone substantial alterations.

Sources

Childs, W. M. (1933). Making a university: an account of the university movement at Reading. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.

Kemp, P. (1996). Northcourt Avenue: its history & people. Reading: Northcourt Avenue Residents’ Association.

University of Reading. Calendar, 1926-27 & 1935-36.

University of Reading. Proceedings of the University, 1932-33 to 1936-37.

September 14, 2021October 14, 2021

Caroline Herford MBE (1860-1945): a Landmark Appointment and the Origin of this Blog

In 2018, I was in touch with Lady Barn House School, a mixed independent school in Cheshire. It was the school my father had attended in the 1920s, and my contact was the Deputy Head, Dan Slade, a historian and the School’s archivist.

Apparently, one their Head Teachers, Caroline Herford, had once lectured at a college in Reading. Maybe it was University College Reading. I promised to see whether there was any mention of her in the University’s Special Collections, a search that made me aware of the wealth of material they held about the London Road Campus and early academic life there, material that led to the creation of this blog.

Caroline Herford did indeed figure in records for the academic years 1909-10 and 1910-11. She was a colleague of Edith Morley, her neighbour in Morgan Road, and a fellow suffragist. Her first cousin, Professor Charles Herford (1853-1931), had been Morley’s examiner and later her colleague at King’s College, London.

Calendar for 1910-11 showing entries for Caroline Herford and Edith Morley

By the time she arrived in Reading, Caroline Herford had already spent 21 years as Head of Lady Barn House School and had been one of the founders of Withington Girls’ School in Manchester.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography dismisses Herford’s time at Reading in a few words:

‘After [her father’s] death, she was briefly a lecturer at University College, Reading.’

In her five terms here, however, she certainly left her mark. In fact, hers was a landmark appointment; she was the first Lecturer in Secondary Education at Reading and set up the forerunner of Reading’s Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). It was for women only, starting with a class of 6 – a modest enterprise compared with current recruitment of 246 students – and bore the grand title of ‘Postgraduate Course for the Training of Secondary Teaching (Women).’

Students were entered for the Cambridge Postgraduate Certificate and, like today, it was a one-year course. Fees were £20 per session, reduced to £15 for residents of Reading and the surrounding counties. Students spent three mornings a week in a girls’ school and paid observational visits to other schools.

As the only Secondary Lecturer she had to pull together an interdisciplinary team from outside her department to provide short courses on the teaching of specialist subjects. This included:

Professor Childs (College Principal and Reading’s first Vice-Chancellor): History
Professor Morley: English
Professor Keeble: Elementary Science.

Other courses dealt with Maths, Geography and Drawing, and lectures on Plato’s Republic and the Philosophy of Education were delivered by Professor de Burgh (Dean of the Faculty of Letters).

Caroline Herford left Reading in 1910 for a Lectureship at Manchester University where she remained until 1918. During the War she was a Commandant for the Red Cross in Lancashire, for which she was awarded the MBE in 1919. She was one of the founders of the Manchester University branch of the British Federation of University Women and a member of the Manchester Society for Women’s Suffrage.

Miss Caroline Herford, oil painting by Francis Dodd
(Image Courtesy of the Manchester Art Gallery)

During her lifetime she made a valuable contribution to the field of education as a lecturer, teacher and headteacher. She was an advocate of mixed education during a period when it wasn’t popular, promoted cricket and lacrosse for both sexes and campaigned for women’s rights in education. She served on the Manchester City Council’s Education Committee, was a magistrate, school governor and later a member of the Somerset Education Committee.

According to the website of Withington Girls’ School where she taught Biology:

‘Miss Herford enjoyed the reputation of being a redoubtable woman, vigorous, forceful and a splendid teacher. For the most part her pupils admired and stood in awe of her, though there is no doubt she also had the power to intimidate.’

Brian Richards, 14/09/2021

Sources

Lady Barn House School, Cheadle

Morley, E. J. (2016). Before and after: reminiscences of a working life (original text of 1944 edited by Barbara Morris). Reading: Two Rivers Press.

Oxford University Press (2004). Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford: OUP.

University College Reading. Calendar, 1909-10 & 1910-11.

Withington Girls’ School, Manchester

Thanks to

Dan Slade for sending me his notes and Powerpoint presentations about Lady Barn House School and Caroline Herford’s part in its history.

John Peel of the Manchester Art Gallery for permission to use the image of Caroline Herford.

September 7, 2021September 17, 2021

Measles, Epidemics and a College Sanatorium

The COVID-19 crisis isn’t the first time that academic work at Reading has been disrupted by an epidemic. In 1917, University College Reading and its campus at London Road were closed due to an epidemic of measles.

The Annual Report and Accounts for 1916/17 reads as follows:

‘An outbreak of measles, which occurred during the Session, necessitated the closing of the College a fortnight before the end of the Lent Term. The inconvenience thus caused led to the consideration of a scheme for establishing a College Sanatorium. The Council have accordingly rented a house, No. 20, Shinfield Road, which has been opened for the reception of students. A small additional fee charged to each student in residence will, it is hoped, make this Sanatorium self-supporting.’ (p.3).

The Report of the Council the following year confirms that the scheme had gone ahead:

‘A sanatorium for the use of students in halls of residence and recognized houses has been provided, and has proved of great service in times of epidemics.’ (p.4).

One wonders just how many epidemics had occurred between 1917 and 1918. Spanish flu springs to mind but I have found no mention of this in the Calendars or Annual reports. Nevertheless, epidemics including Measles and Spanish flu were common in Reading as documented by Margaret Ounsley in her chapter on ‘health, medicine, illness and death’ in the Coley area: child fatalities from measles were frequent, and Coley School had to close twice in 1918 because of Spanish flu. There are papers in the University’s Special Collections that deal with a proposal for students to do social work in Coley, and there were fears about students bringing infections to their hostels despite the fact that Education students were already doing teaching practice in Coley.

Interestingly, the ‘small additional fee’ mentioned above must have been very effective because the accounts for the following year include this item:

‘The College Sanatorium—Suspense Account .. £193 3s 5d.’ (p.17).

According to the Bank of England’s Inflation Calculator that could be as much as £12,000 nowadays.

University College Reading continued to rent the house until 1922 when premises for a new sanatorium became available at 60 Northcourt Avenue.

So what happened to the original sanatorium? The house is still there, opposite Queen’s Drive. But for how much longer? At the time of writing, 20 Shinfield Road is the target of a planning application that could mean its disappearance:

‘Demolition of existing house and erection of a new, detached building to provide 4 x 3 bedroom apartments, together with associated car parking, bin and cycle storage, access and servicing arrangements, and landscaping improvement.’ (Planning Application No. 201879).

Local residents are fighting the proposal. One of the many reasons given in comments from the Northcourt Avenue Residents’ Association is its historical significance:

‘This house is a direct link to the early history of Reading University — and in a curious twist of fate at a time of an epidemic similar to current events. Demolishing the house would break yet one more link to Reading’s heritage in a direct assault on Reading’s Local Plan which emphasises the importance placed on the protection of the historic environment.’ (Letter to the Planning Dept).

20 Shinfield Road was the first of three sanatoriums at Reading that were the forerunners of the current Health Centre. These will be the subject of future posts.

Sources

Holt, J. C. (1977). The University of Reading: the first fifty years. Reading: University of Reading Press.

Northcourt Avenue Residents’ Association. Letter to the Planning Department, Reading Borough Council, 19^th June, 1921.

Ounsley, M. (2021). Coley talking: realities of life in old Reading. Reading: Two Rivers Press.

Reading Borough Council. Planning Application No. 201879.

University College Reading, Annual Report and Accounts, 1916-17 & 1917-18.

University of Reading Special Collections. Uncatalogued papers relating to women students. Reference UHC AA-SA 8.

The header image of the University College in London Road is from the University of Reading Special Collections Photographic Archive (History of the University: London Road architecture).

Thanks

I am grateful to Simone Illger, Chair of the Northcourt Avenue Residents’ Association, for allowing me to quote the extract from correspondence with the Planning Department of Reading Borough Council.

Thanks also to Sharon Maxwell, University Archivist, for tracking down the material about women students and social work, and to Margaret Ounsley for information about epidemics in Coley.