The  Britannia Wesleyan day school was opened on the 13th July 1873 the first headmaster being a Mr Tyfort who occupied the position for two years until he emigrated to Australia. On August 2nd 1875 Mr J N Hudson took over the running of the school and was in this position until 1886. The next headmaster was a Mr T Parkinson who remained until 19th February 1890 when unfortunately he died at the age of 27. Mr Hudson was reappointed on the 5th May 1890 and remained headmaster until 30th June 1916 at which point he was appointed headmaster of Western school.  The new purpose built council school was opened on 30th. June 1928 for 296 mixed pupils at a cost of £10, 550.

 

Article Below Taken From Jubilee Booklet 1979 compiled by Mr Fairbrother.

From a conversation with Mrs. A, Rhodes, M.B.E. Ex Teacher.

 

If you look at Nestor, right at the back there's a lower building. That's where the Infants school was when I started my teaching, I left St. Saviours school and in those days they used to write from the Education Office to ask your parents if they were prepared to let you study to become a teacher, and mine were. I would be about 14 then. I watched the new building being built from the very beginning. I'd only to look across the field and there was the new school being built, The field was used just for grazing cattle before the building started. At Nestor the yard was walled in and very tiny. I used to let my little ones have playtime and fir, Hudson let his children play out later. The little children played Ring-a-ring-a-roses, and the bigger ones played and sang 'Oats and beans and barley corn....' The children watched the new school being built, but they knew they'd to keep their distance -they were forbidden to leave the yard at Nestor.
The day of the move to the new school all the children came looking really lovely - I was proud of them. There were about 70 children in the infants department. There were 3 teachers in the infants department and about 5 in Mr. Hudson's junior department. The children paraded across to the new school, head boy and head girl first.
 

The building started about September 1927 but there were many days in the winter when the workmen couldn't do anything. In winter time in those days we used to have to walk through great big snow drifts up the sides of the path. Many a time there weren't enough children in school to mark the register. Mr. Hudson used to come in and say "No marking today". Some teachers had to give up because they couldn't stand the winters. We had a great big fire in the infants department, because there were no pipes in those days.
Children very seldom needed punishing. We were very strict with the children - occasionally Mr. Hudson had a severe rant - he really got his stick out when someone had got really naughty and he made up his mind he'd give them a walk round - and they didn't need a stick for a long long time after that. We had a very strange headmistress in that department. She used to get ••••She used to go across to the Wellington at dinner time and she used to come back very jolly, and she came back so jolly one day that she sat down on her chair and went to sleep and while she was asleep the Inspector walked in. He came back later with the Director of Education -Mr. Frederick Goldsmith - and they saw her off the premises with her wages and her notice, and we never saw her again.

I have lots of memories of Britannia school. We had one little boy whose name was Jack. His granny had to bring him to school every day, so I said to him "What's the matter Jack, this isn't a school for grannies, its a school for boys and girls," so I began to call for him and bring him along so that Granny didn't have to trail along. He soon settled down.