A-Z Challenge 2024: April 5. E:- Education

Cuckfield Free Grammar School was established by Edmund Flower, a merchant tailor and citizen of London, in about 1512. By his will of 1521 he left lands for the support of the school, which were later  augmented by others.   It was initially established for the benefit of needy children of the parishes of Cuckfield and Balcombe.  Fee paying pupils gradually came to predominate as the income became insufficient to maintain the schoolmaster.

In 1844, due to dissatisfaction with the teaching quality and high fees of the school, an Order was issued by the Court of Chancery to reorganize it along the lines of a National School. A separate National School, which had been established in the parish in 1812, was discontinued during this period. Among other specific changes, Latin and Greek were no longer part of the curriculum, the schoolmaster was no longer required to be a cleric, and fees for each child were capped at 1 shilling per week. Additionally, the vicar of Cuckfield gained financial control.

Between 1854 and 1910 the school acquired two cottages at the back of a house in Church Street in 1854, the house itself in 1872, and two more cottages in Church Street in 1885. In 1886 the National Society donated £15 and the school became a National School.

In 1935, plans emerged to construct a Senior Council School in Cuckfield, serving the surrounding district. However, this proposal faced resistance from those concerned that the church’s control over local education would be significantly diminished. A concession was made by the County Council that if a quarter of the construction cost could be raised through public subscriptions before June 1940, the new school would remain affiliated with the church. An appeal was initiated, but the outbreak of war postponed the plans.Any funds raised between 1946 and 1950 were either returned to contributors or utilized to establish the new Cuckfield Voluntary Primary School as an ‘aided’ institution with some level of church oversight.

In 1964 the school was again reorganised, under the control of the Chichester Diocesan Board of Finance.  In 1991, the Primary school was rebuilt on a new site and the Church took over the buildings as a church hall and administrative offices.

The Old School, Cuckfield (recent)

Visit my website, Cuckfield Compendium

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