Socio-economic Considerations

One important factor that should be borne in mind in this era is this: all the boys attending the school in the 1920s were born either just before or during the Great War. How that war affected them is immeasurable; some would have lost relatives, such as fathers, brothers, cousins and uncles. Some relatives would have returned home from the war carrying wounds, some physical and others mental. Some men never worked again, whilst others suffered problems for the rest of their days. Mothers struggled to cope in a changed world that was not always kind to them. In urban areas work was sometimes not easy to find, especially in the economic climate of the 1920s when many of the old labour-intensive staple industries were experiencing foreign competition and decline. Unemployment, poverty, social deprivation, poor housing and slums were the backdrop against which some boys developed. Whilst not giving this as an excuse for anything that went on at St Gregory’s, it was nevertheless the way things were at that time.

Something similar could be said of the 1930s. The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 had repercussions the world over, including in Manchester which was particularly affected by the decline in the cotton, engineering and coal industries. The depressed years of the 1930s must have caused shortages and hardship to some pupils and their families, especially compounded on those who lived in conditions of social deprivation of one sort or another.

Having said this, many young people living in these difficult times would have had their ideas and attitudes influenced by the events and conditions of the world in which they lived. Influenced in what way? Who knows? Perhaps it encouraged some (or many) to develop a determined work ethic; to value the importance of educational and vocational qualifications; to become more independent and self-reliant; to seek and secure useful employment; to develop an appreciation of helping others, starting with one’s own family; and to appreciate the value of scarce resources and not squander.

A good number of the boys had exceptional ability and had excelled in the entrance examinations, but they came from working class backgrounds where many fathers tended not to be of the professional or business classes. “All the poor, clever kids went to Greg’s,” it was said. But this claim did have a ring of truth about it. Some pupils, it is known, had achieved marks in the entrance examinations that were among the highest in the city, but their parents opted for them to study at St Gregory’s. The perceived cost of sending a child to St Bede’s or Xaverian – in terms of travel, uniform, sports kit and so on – was considered prohibitive by some parents, especially those with several sons. St Gregory’s, at Ardwick Green, became the first choice for some parents; it was also centrally placed and convenient to travel to. The area within Manchester’s boundary was much smaller in those days and the inner-city districts were more densely populated. The 1921 national census revealed that the city’s population was 730,307: in 1931 it stood at 766,311. In the days before major slum clearance and before the emergence of huge outlying estates such as Wythenshawe and other parts of south Manchester, the school would have drawn many of its pupils from not too far away. The inner-city areas were also centres of Irish immigration and a quick glance at the list of pupils featured in the school’s Sports Day programmes of 1929 and 1936 shows many names of Irish origin.

In spite of the intense economic depression and the widespread unemployment, the numbers admitted to the school and remaining for the full four-year course continued to grow. Parents in those days were clearly well content with the type of education that the school offered and much credit for this was due to the hard work and dedication of Mr Holmes.

St Bede’s and Xaverian Colleges

As a central school St Gregory’s was on a lower plane educationally and socially from the two Catholic grammar schools for boys in Manchester, St Bede’s and Xaverian. Both these schools enjoyed a high prestige in the field of Catholic education and being of grammar school status. Xaverian College in Victoria Park had developed from a boys’ school opened in Grosvenor Square, All Saints, in 1854. The Xaverian Brothers had established an education footing in nineteenth-century England during a period of great activity on the part of Catholic religious congregations. St Bede’s College on Alexandra Road enjoyed a unique status as an educational establishment. It was founded by the second Bishop of Salford, Herbert Vaughan, in 1876 in the same square where, over twenty years previously, the Xaverian Brothers opened their own school. The previous year had witnessed the establishment by the Bishop of his Diocesan Seminary of Pastoral Theology. Herbert Vaughan saw in St Bede’s a college where boys coming from the higher social classes of the populace could be educated as a preparation for employment in the commercial life of the city. Both the classical and commercial education could be harmoniously niched in the new college. St Bede’s enjoyed the position in the education of future priests before going on to the great seminaries leading to their ordination and priestly apostolate.

Memoir of Larry Nolan

Former pupil Larry Nolan, writing in the 1990s, recalled his memories of Manchester coal miners in the Twenties and Thirties. He wrote:

“I was influenced by social conditions I saw around me as I walked through the slum areas of Hulme, Ancoats and Miles Platting, and of course by my own personal experience of being one of the expendable unemployed and attending the Labour Exchange during the years 1931-33, the grim years of “the Black Thirties”, as they were so described by many political commentators of the time.

I still have a vivid memory of my first glimpse of the coal miners as they went home after the end of their shift at the colliery which was situated between Ancoats and Droylsden. Physically, they represented a picture of small, undersized, tired-looking men, coal-black hands and faces, with a look of resignation written all over their faces, and wearing well-worn, coal-dusted clothes, cloth caps and carrying their food containers in which they brought their meagre meals. They ate deep down in the bowels of the earth, far beneath the passing traffic and the grimy-looking workers’ houses.

I felt a great pity for such men, barely eking out a living for themselves and families, under atrocious conditions, often in situations of danger, for a pittance, as it was in the Twenties and Thirties…”

Some miscellaneous facts about the school in the 1920s

• Annual religious inspections.

• Internal examinations before Christmas and before the end of the summer term.

• Christmas parties for both junior and senior classes on consecutive days.

• Closure of school for celebration of feast days, such as:

                                    Epiphany

                                    St Gregory

                                    St Patrick

                                    Ascension

                                    Corpus Christi

                                    SS Peter & Paul

• Closure of school for other reasons, such as:

            - Consecration of the bishop-elect of Salford.

            - Shrove Tuesday celebration. School closed in the afternoon.

            - Viewing royalty processions in the city centre.

            - Miscellaneous, civic and other reasons.

• Annual Manchester schools’ sports at Belle Vue.

• Annual school sports at the M.A.C. Ground, Fallowfield, from 1926.

• Swimming instruction at the Mayfield Baths.

• Football and organised games at Gorton Park.

• Frequent visits of inspectors to inspect and report on progress in the school.

• Inspectors visiting to inspect particular teachers.

• Mr M. Kemp, from the Education Committee, was sent from 1925 to visit the school to give instruction to the boys in physical training. He continued to do this well into the 1930s.

• Summer holidays usually of four weeks.

• Autumn term commenced in August.

• New intake tested in August, followed by preliminary grading of classes.

• Increase in numbers of teachers as pupil numbers grew.

• Pupil attendance very low at times owing to factors such as influenza epidemic, bad weather and the General Strike of 1926.

• Staff absences and shortages continued to be a problem and the headmaster continued to teach.

• The first reunion of the Old Boys’ Association was held in January 1927, suggesting that the first boys to leave the school did so in 1926.

• The Old Gregorian Association was set up in 1928.

• Medical examinations were held annually.

• A growing number of newly appointed teachers had degrees, while others studied for one in their own time usually from London University.

• Annual Open Day and distribution of prizes.

• Use of temporary teachers from time to time.

• Building up of stock and resources.

• Increase in the number of books for the school library and for the teachers’ reference library.

• Increase in apparatus for P.T. lessons.

• Visits of pupils to places of cultural and educational interest in Manchester, such as the Opera House.

• Organised school hiking and camping.

• The Central School Certificate from 1929.

Staff, 1920s

Among the staff who taught at the school in the 1920s were:

Previous  Next