1874 – Middle Class Schools for the Grocers Company, Hackney, London

A submitted design for a new school for the Grocers Company. As part of the Company’s work, a school was founded in Hackney, east London, in 1876 for the sons of middle class gentlemen.

From The Building News, October 30 1974: “In this design there is much ingenuity and good grouping displayed. The arrangement is compact, and in strict conformity to tho Prussian classroom system. On the ground floor we have a spacious entrance-hall, with right and left cloakrooms. Central with tho entrance is a hall for 800, lighted mainly on one side by large semicircular windows shown in our view. The extreme wings are occupied as rooms for the head and assistant masters, and on the other side is a dining-hall extending the full depth, being 63ft. by 22ft. Gin. The stairs on each side of tho hall have two flights, and lead to tho classrooms and lecture-hall. The scats are on the dual system, four and five deep ; tho larger classrooms are for fifty and the small for forty pupils. A gallery corridor on the first floor, overlooking hall, is an essential feature of Mr. Smith’s plan. Exteriorly, the design is appropriate and simple in character. The staircases are developed into the campanile terminations, and the treatment of the windows with the horizontal masses is both simple and effective.”