Notes: 1. The original school at Longhill, which was quite a distance away from St. Aidan’s church, was opened forty years before, according to foundation stones, and was inadequate. The new school, which catered for 660 pupils, was built as a war memorial to replace the old building. A site was purchased in Stockton Road in a district less than half a mile to the west of a place called Foggy Furze.
Loyalty Road, which was laid in 1936 with money from the children from the school, runs in front of the school.
2. The man behind the scheme to build the new school was Canon Knowlden. The Rev. Knowlden instigated a fund to erect a fitting memorial to those who did not return and, as he put it at the time, as a mark of ‘gratitude’ for those who did. He wrote about it in 1922: “In 1916 we began what I then felt was a ten year task – the building of a new Day School for 350 boys and 350 girls”.
He died on the 16th November 1929 and was buried in Stranton Cemetery.
3. July 1922, the Building Committee gave general approval to the design of the Memorial School.
4. Mr. G. Fawcett was the first Headmaster of the Memorial School.
5. From the school, 614 old boys had volunteered for Service, 102 had fallen.
6. Although bearing the date of 23rd March, the three inscribed foundation stones were laid in the pouring rain by local dignitaries on 25th March. Colonel W. Thomlinson, a School Manager and benefactor, and the Mayor Councillor H. Mason, laid a stone each, which are on each side of the main front doors. Alderman J.T. Wilson, a former pupil of Longhill School, laid the third stone at the base of the West gable end of the hall. The latter was laid with the inscription on the interior, unlike the first two.
7. At the time of the laying of the foundation stones, £8,400 had been raised or promised. In 1926, a leaflet advertising a bazaar reads: “The cost of our memorial will be £15,000. During the nine years the Memorial Fund has been in existence we have raised £10,000. The balance of £5,000 has now to be secured. The Church Workers of St. Aidan’s are striving to diminish this £5,000 by as large an amount as possible, with the help of all generous folk who, while honouring the brave fallen, seek to benefit the rising generation. To promote the religious education of the young is to serve the highest ends of our well-being. The sum of £5,000 on top of the amount already raised, is beyond our ability as a Parish, and we venture to appeal to all who can help us.
A gift of £2,000 would pay for the Central Hall, which could be named by the Donor, while gifts of £500 would pay for a Class Room which might bear the name given by the donor.
8. One of the teachers, Mr Theo. Jones, was the first man to be killed on British soil in the Great War.
Notes from the School Log Books are as follows: 1st April 1905: ‘Mr Theo. Jones joins School Staff May 1912 ‘Theo Jones failed to return to School after the Whitsuntide break, after he had been to Paris with a large group of male friends, who together made up the ‘Excelsior Male Voice Choir’. They were on a singing trip over the vacation but were held up on their return journey’. 30th September 1913: ‘ Mr. T. Jones left to-day. Mr Jones has been appointed Head Teacher of the C. of E. Thringstone, Leicestershire’. Theo Jones is buried in Stranton Cemetery. A photo of a football team, shown here, shows Mr. Jones standing on the left in the back row. In the middle is the Rev Knowlden.
9. The school, when it opened, was called St. Aidan’s C of E School, Longhill. It is now called St. Aidan’s CE Memorial Primary School.
10. When visiting the school in 2014, the stone inside the school could not be found.
