Stotfold Endowed Boys School

Boys School, 2024

A school for boys was founded by Henricus Octavius Roe in 1808. In the deed of 1808 it stated that ‘one acre of arable land in Church Crofts, Stotfold, adjoining the churchyard, land formerly of Edward Freeman, now John Atkinson W, abutting south on Church Close and north on Dark Lane, with tithes and now in occupation of William Fisher that a messuage was to be erected by H.O. Roe on trust that Roe, during life and after his death, the vicar and churchwardens of Stotfold, nominated a schoolmaster to keep a school for the instruction of poor children and to live in the messuage and occupy the close so long as he should diligently teach reading, writing and arithmetic and particularly the Church catechism and principles of the Christian religion to such reasonable number of poor children in Stotfold whose parents should be members of Church of England’ [ref: P83/25/21].

Boys sat at at their desks [ref: Z1306/115/19/3]

The building, 97 Church Road, housed the Master and the schoolroom. A new schoolroom was built in 1870, and this was able to accommodate 100 children and two teachers. In 1890 a school board was formed and in 1891 two further classrooms were added enlarging the school further. The school was reopened by its Headmaster Jonathan Wood on 26th October 1891. As with other board schools it transferred to the county council as the local education authority in 1903; it became a county primary in 1946. In 1952 the building was Grade II listed. From 1971 girls were admitted to the school. The school had no playing field, no kitchen, no dining area, no hall, no staffroom, no electricity, mains water, or sewage, so earth closets only, until well into the twentieth century, as modern facilities gradually came to Stotfold. Until the 1970s, there was one front door only and no fire exit. The Boys’ School began to expand onto the new site in Church Road with a temporary classroom. Permanent buildings came slowly, in stages, and were completed in 1981. The school was renamed Roecroft School during these changes. Roecroft was successively known as Stotfold Endowed Boys' School, Board Boys, Council Boys (1903), County Primary Boys, County Primary Mixed and from 1975 Roecroft Lower School. In 2011 the school was relocated to Buttercup Road.

In a memorandum on Stotfold charities to incoming vicar Rev. A.A Ellis, his predecessor Rev. Fenn stated that the School Master Mr William Hill: “has been an admirable master, the founder of the school was his patron and left him property producing more than £200 per annum”. Mr Hill had made the school more available to the poor than previously but had lately suffered “strange disorders which rumour ascribes to intemperance…he has been actually insane for a few days at a time” and that he was “an admirable accountant and faithful in his duties but he has often been most strangely disordered during the year” [ref: P83/25/78]. Mr Hill became School Master in 1835, in 1864 he withdrew his claim to have authority from H.O. Roe and undertaking to conduct the school to the satisfaction of the vicar and churchwardens [ref: P83/25/32].

List of sources at Bedfordshire Archives: 

• AD3865/41: Plans of Stotfold National School, 1843-1870
• P83/25/21: Conveyance, 1808
• P83/25/29: Declaration of trust of £2,500 and £200 stock, 1843
• P83/25/31: Declaration of trust regarding £6,100 stock, 1849
• P83/25/40: Charity accounts for various Stotfold Charities including the Endowed School, 1854-1857
• P83/25/41: Charity accounts for various Stotfold Charities including the Endowed School, 1858-1860
• P83/25/54: Articles, rules and orders for the regulation of Stotfold School, 1829
• P83/25/78: Memorandum on Stotfold Charities to incoming vicar, Rev A.A. Ellis from his predecessor, 1860
• SB43: Stotfold School Board, 1890-1903
• SDStotRL: Records of Roecroft Lower School, Stotfold, 1891-1995
• SM/E63: Notice by William Hill that he has become schoolmaster of the school in Stotfold, 1835
• E/IN1/1: School inspection reports, 1911-1938
• CT/V/2/10/200: Receipted invoice for repairing floor in schoolhouse, 1911
• Z55/1/67: Photograph of Boys school (Roecroft old buildings), 1990
• Z1255/1/85: Photograph of original boys’ school, 2006