Central School was located at Whapload Road, in the centre of the area known at the Beach Village, or "The Grit". This part of Lowestoft was lively, rough, and poor. There were factories and fisheries just steps away from the school and the students would walk every day past huge mountains of barrels of herring, crowded docks, and smokey factories making everything from rope to nets to everything needed to outfit a trawler or service the men who worked on them.
Central School opened September 8, 1919 and the first, last and only headmaster was Thomas Herbert Adams.
It was what we would call today a vocational school and the students who went there prepared themselves for apprenticeships and managaging households. This wasn't a school for those heading to university, but for the children of shopkeepers, factory workers, and fisherman. Most of the students would go to work at 14, but a few of the brighter ones would manage to pass the exams needed for higher education and the more technical engineering apprenticeships. When that happened, the scribe of the Central Log Book proudly noted their names.
The age ranges was about 11 to 14, which a few students ranging up to 15 or 16. The school had about 250 students at any one time and about 13-14 teachers.
Located at the bottom of a steep score, where students regularly crashed into walls and other students when they rode their bikes down it, the school had an assembly room, school rooms, a workshop to learn woodworking and other industrial trades, and an industrial kitchen, to teach cookery. Students (male and female) learnt a variety of handicrafts (sewing, for instance) and participated in a range of team sports, to include swimming at the Denes lido.
The teachers tried hard to enrich the lives of their students, and regularly brought in lecturers, showed movies and even took them on long jaunts across England to improve the mind, lift the soul, and show them that there was a world outside of Lowestoft.
The log books at the Lowestoft Records Office start in 1919, but the one I transcribed from was the last one and started in 1930. However, not much happened in the intervening years and so this record starts with the day Miss Lowman was hired, February 20th, 1939. She comes in the middle of the year and so continues the story...
← Ivy Lowman .. .. .. .. .. Central School Logs, 1939 →
Do you have Lowestoft-interest photos to add to the database or want to contribute an article? Or do you have a correction or comment? More information about adding to the site is here.
Events, clubs and activities are updated here. Do you have an event or club you want posted? Let us know!
Find out what's new on the site. New images and commentary are uploaded and updated daily.