St Malachy’s School and Church, Beaufort Street, 1975

Beaufort Street County Primary, 1975

Parkhill County Primary, 1977

Windsor Street County Primary
Whenever I look through my collection of photographs of Liverpool in the 1970s (the decade I came to Liverpool), I am always amazed at the amount of change that has taken place in such a relatively short period of time – after all, forty years is within most of our lifetimes. When I arrived in 1970, the population of the city was 610,000. Now it is 464,000 (2011 Census). Going back further to 1931, the recorded population was 846,000: in 1961 it was 745,000. In other words, the demographic changes have been huge and the city has had to adjust in a relatively short period of time.
The casualties have been the many requirements of a more densely populated city: housing, industry, and public services such as hospitals and schools.
Schools have seen an incredible change, partly due to changes in education thinking as well as the plummeting school age population of the inner city. New schools have been built to replace crumbling Victorian board schools with the vacant buildings usually being demolished. Quite a few still survive and they are an essential part of our heritage. Universal education was heralded in with the Elementary Education Act of 1870 – which is one of the great milestones of social reform. Local authorities were legally obliged to step up their provision and the result, in Liverpool, was an impressive stock of well-built schools throughout the borough.
The photographs captured some of the many schools in the Dingle. St Malachy’s survived as a school until 2010 (and the building is still standing). Beaufort Street school, on the same stretch of road, was less fortunate and burnt down a few years after closing in 2000 (when it merged as a new school with Parkhill Primary (the new school has since closed down). I have fond memories of Beaufort Street Primary (the Bewey – the local pronunciation was Bewfort – not Bowfort). My wife taught there for many years and I often visited – and took photographs as it was about to close in 2000.
Windsor Street School was originally the Wesleyan Day and Sunday School. I don’t have a closing date but I do have photographs taken by Bert Hardy of Picture Post magazine as part of his feature about the British race relations in 1949. The playground is the roof area on the right (inside the railings). Can you imagine that being allowed today?


More...