The Bridgwater Collegiate School was a private school, in operation from about 1871 to 1946. After which it was succeeded as Rodbourne House School in Malmsbury. It had a variety of names over its existence, being called the King Square Academy, Mr Russell’s School and then Lonsdale House School and possibly Elm Villa School. It was initially based in York Buildings, then King Square, then Blake Street, before moving to Green Dragon Lane by 1897, although teaching also appears to have taken place in a series of other properties. A large part of this account is based on the work of Tony Morgan and his research is attributed by (T.M.),
In 1866 a James Russell had either set up or taken over a school, described as an ‘Academy’ in York Buildings. He was only twenty years old at this time. He was from Othery on the Levels. He does not appear in the 1861 census in the town (unsurprisingly, given his age), and no school seems to be mentioned in York Buildings, although various schools and schoolmaster and mistresses are mentioned nearby (T.M.).
By the 1871 census, Russell had moved to nearby King Square, most likely to the house now numbered 16 on the north side. The census mentions Russell’s wife Annie, two years his senior, and a grand total of three schoolmaster’s assistants (Morle, Hall and Winslade), 8 boy boarders from a variety of places in Somerset and further afield in England, and 4 servants. In the following year the school is described as the King Square Academy, at which time there were five assistant masters (T.M.).
By 1874 Russell had moved the school to Lonsdale House in Blake Street. This large building was once a grand Elizabethan Mansion, although heavily altered over the years: it would have provided much more space for the prosperous school.
The report on Lonsdale House on this website includes details on the history of the school:
Within a few years of [after] 1871, the property had become a school. The Bridgwater Directory for 1874–5 records a ‘gentlemen’s school’ at Lonsdale House, run by one James Russell. According to the on-line Welsh National Biography, his partner in this enterprise was a Welsh non-Conformist minister named Thomas Nicholas (1816–79); legal letters and papers dating to 1876–7 document the latter’s involvement, recording the establishment’s name as the Lonsdale House School. Census return of 1881, the then occupier was William Porritt, Schoolmaster & Science Lecturer.
Allan, JP and Parker, RW. An Archaeological Assessment of No. 3 Blake Street and the Sedgemoor Centre, Bridgwater.
Rev. Dr. Thomas Nicholas was in partnership with Rev William Parkes to run the school, as shown by the below advertisement, although the partnership was dissolved in the first half of 1877, with Parkes continuing in sole ownership. In 1877 we see the first mention of this being the ‘Bridgwater College School’. Parkes sold the school to William Porritt in 1880 (T.M.).
Porrit is described in the 1881 census as 35 years old, born in Burnley, and a ‘schoolmaster and science lecturer’. Living with his was wife Ann, and their brood of five children. There were three borders, a governess and two servants (T.M.).
Porrit is mentioned as schoolmaster of the ‘Lonsdale House School’ in 1883 John Whitby and Sons Handy Directory of Bridgwater and Neighbourhood.
We find the school first called the Collegiate School in the same year in Kelly’s directory. Porrit was still master in 1886 (T.M.).
By 1888 the school was run by Brian Norris, who was from Northampton and had attended London University. He would remain master of the school for several decades and was central to the rest of its history in Bridgwater.
In 1891 Lonsdale House was given over to the Bridgwater Art and Technical School, and the Collegiate School seems to have moved out. Norris continued his association with Lonsdale House, however, as he continued to teach shorthand writing, typing and bookkeeping there.
In the 1891 census we find Norris living at in Taunton Road, at ‘Elm Villa School’ (now number 20 Taunton Road). He was 33 at the time. Also living there were his wife Annie, and their two children, Percy Brian and Annie W. The assistant schoolmaster was Brian Kellet. There were two boys boarding with them and one domestic servant. It is unclear if this is the same as the Collegiate School, as in later life Norris would teach privately in his own home, but we might assume, given the presence of an assistant schoolmaster, that it was being temporarily held here.
Norris’ two children would grow up in this school, although we later learn of the tragic death of Percy and another infant child from a family memorial in the Wembdon Road Cemetery:
Left, Wembdon Road Cemetery, Anglican section J, memorial 19: “ In Loving Memory of Dean Bertram Norris who died in infancy January 23rd 1892. In Loving Memory of Percy Brian Norris who died at Bahia, Brazil April 21st 1909 aged 22 years. Sophia Lees born October 4th 1836 died March 28th 1916.”.
Percy is not buried here, his body was presumably interred in Brazil.
It is unclear who Sophia was, she lived in 19 Coronation Road and may have been either Brian or Annie’s sister.
The Collegiate School had acquired a schoolhouse in Green Dragon Lane by 1897 (Dunning, Dunning, Victoria County History), although it seems the house on Taunton Road was also in use, as we find the Norrises still there in 1901. There was no assistant schoolmaster then, but we find two boarders and a servant. One of the boarders was Cyril Ricks, who would be killed when the Titanic sank in 1912. In the 1901 census, the ‘Green Dragon Lane School House’ is listed immediately after Friarn Street, although no one seems to have lived there.
In the 1900 Bridgwater Rate Book the Green Dragon schoolhouse was described as just ‘schoolroom and yard’ suggesting there was no accommodation to be had (T.M.).
In the 1911 census Brian Norris was now living in 20 Northfield ‘Feratank’. Wife Annie and daughter Annie Winifred were living with him, along with Arthur Frederick Webb, assistant schoolmaster, one scholar and one domestic servant.
In the 1937 Whitby Light and Lane Directory for the town, headmaster of the ‘Collegiate School for Boys’ was still Brian Norris. We also find an A.L. Morris apparently living in or next to the school in Green Dragon Lane, and this is possibly the man who took it over a little after this. In 1939 we find Brian Norris living at 25 Church Street in Eastover, still described as a private schoolmaster, although now a widower, living with a housekeeper. He retired from the school that year in favour of L.W. Morris. Morris moved the school briefly to the Grange on Durleigh Road, which had been St Mary’s Vicarage. The school, then moved to Malmsbury in 1946 (Dunning, Victoria County History).
Old Norris died in 1948 in Bridgwater.
The old schoolhouse in Green Dragon Lane became the meeting hall for the Order of the Moose, a charitable fraternity, and was known as ‘Moose Hall’. It closed in 1992. By 1998 it was a nursery. In 2007 it was converted into dwellings and the schoolyard built over (T.M.).
MKP November 2022