A Background to
the Early Days of
Windsor and Maidenhead College of Further Education
Claremont
Road, Windsor
This article covers
the period from the late 1940s to the early 1980s and excludes
subsequent changes
East Berks College
with Trinity Church behind at sunset
To the right, the Mexican Bean Tree in the Engineering Block
Quadrangle
The first prospectus of
the Windsor Technical Institute, for evening classes only, was
issued in 1947. A rubber stamp used at the time gives the name
as Windsor Evening Institute, this presumably dates from the
time when courses other than the strictly technical began to
be included, although this is the only reference to the establishment
by that name. Classes were held in various schools and other
premises all over Windsor. The separate institutes in East Berks
were merged to form one Area College in 1951. Classes under the
auspices of East Berks College were held at schools in Maidenhead,
Windsor, Sunningdale, Cookham, Cranborne and later, Ascot . Some
of these 'Outposts of Empire' still continue, some have been
closed, some new ones have been opened. These classes now come
under the jurisdiction of the Adult Education Department and
there are two Adult Education Centres, one at Furze Platt School,
Maidenhead and the other for Sunningdale and Ascot at Ascot Heath
School. The other departments of the College are General Studies,
Business Studies and Engineering.
Mr. Joseph Martin, MA.,
who had been appointed Superintendent of the Technical Institute
in 1947 became Principal of the newly created College in 1950
and remained until his death in 1977.
Administration was carried
out from offices in the Royal Albert Institute, Sheet Street,
Windsor. This Institute, under the patronage of H.R.H. Prince
Albert, was purpose-built for educational , cultural and recreational
use by the people of Windsor and was administered by a committee
of local residents until it was taken over by Berkshire County
Council in 1947. The building was demolished in 1975 and rebuilt
as offices. A statue of Prince Albert which originally stood
at the back of the stage in the hall of the old building has
been incorporated in the frontage of the office block.
The first buildings of
the College in Windsor as it exists today in Claremont Road were
brought into use in the session 1956/57, a range of single storey
workshops and classrooms. Similarly the premises in Boyn Hill
Avenue, Maidenhead, were extended by new buildings during this
period and this process of expansion continued until the mid-sixties.
A 1959/60 prospectus celebrated
the completion of B Block, Windsor and a new engineering block
at Maidenhead.
The records do not include
numbers of students in the early days but there is a reference
to 'over one thousand enrolments' in the preliminary notes to
the 1949/50 prospectus. Enrolments for the session 1979/80 totalled
approximately 8500. The 1949 prospectus listed fifty-one members
of teaching staff, rising to approximately 220 at the start of
the 1980s, almost equally divided between full-time and part-time.
East Berks College of Further
Education became Windsor and Maidenhead College of Further Education
in 1974 at the time of local government reorganisation.
The site of the College
in Claremont Road, Windsor, has always had educational connections.
The original building on the site was Church House, which became
part of St. Mark's School, and this developed into Imperial
Service College
on the nearby site west of Alma Road, and the original building
then became the Windsor County Boys School. Church House was
built by Stephen Hawtrey as his home. Hawtrey was incumbent of
the adjacent Trinity Church, which he served until 1872 when
he resigned from his position as mathematics master at Eton College.
The name of the Hawtrey family is commemorated in Hawtrey House
at Eton College and in Hawtrey Road which runs along the east
side of the College. The original Windsor County Boys School
playing field on which East Berks College currently stands was
known by local children as The Prairie and had a horse trough
installed to one side. Miss Harding, who ran the Froebell School
in Clarence Crescent in the 1950s, would from time to time take
the schoolchildren to 'The Prairie' on sunny afternoons. This
horse trough is still on the site, in the quadrangle of the Engineering
block, beside the Mexican Bean Tree.
The avenue of chestnut
trees along Claremont Road has been a famous feature of this
area throughout the 20th century and is mentioned in the book
covering the early history of Windsor County Boys School. "The
most beautiful sight, the long row of chestnuts which bordered
the field, fortunately remain." [Page 34. The History of
Windsor County Boys School. 1908-1929.]
In June 2001, plans were
announced to redevelop the entire area. East Berks College Redevelopment.
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