The Father of Baines School
When was Baines School created?
A 1675 [First mention of a school on the site]
B 9th March 1717 [setting up the Foundation]
C 6th June 1919
D 1934
The answer is C. Bet that has come as a shock.
Who created Baines’s School? If you thought James Baines then you would be wrong. Looking back on the old maps from 1675 to 1717 the school was called Hardhorn-with-Newton Free School. When the school was taken over by the trustees of the James Baines Foundation in 1717 it became the Hardhorn-with-Newton Endowed School. No mention of the name James Baines. We need to look over 200 years on from that date and the arrival of a new headmaster Mr Thomas Davies Whittington who changed a village school into a pseudo public school.
Whittington not only changed the name of the school but its whole ethos. One of his first PR exercises was to create the history of James Baines. A G Pagett ably helped him in this task in the book ‘The History of Baines Grammar School’.
Prior to the 1900s I doubt if many in Poulton knew much about James Baines but all that was to change. Pagett claimed that there was no record of Baines’ birth in the Parish Registers. Actually, there is but you have to look very closely. It is recorded as a death possibly due to his mother being gravely ill at the birth or the fact that his twin was still born but we will never know.
In reality Baines was born on 6th August 1648 at Berkenhead Farm in Nether Wyresdale. No one knew where and when he died either – an enigma. Again in reality he was buried in Marton at midnight on 5th Jan 1717 and recorded in Victorian times in both St Chad’s and St Paul’s, Marton. If you look at the very front of the Parish Register for St Chad’s it states St Paul’s Marton – oops!
This is from the Bishops Transcript. Baines is a Draper
This is from St Paul’s, Marton – he is a Yeoman
Thomas D Whittington was a PR expert and the legacy he left us with continues today. He changed the school from the Endowed School into a Boys Grammar school with boarders. This is taken from the 1901 census records.
Thomas Davies Whittington was born in Llandinam, Montgomeryshire, Wales on 17th July 1859. In 1880 he studied at the St Mark’s Training College in Chelsea, then the London University before moving to Dulwich Lower College as a teacher. Dulwich Lower College was the prep school for Dulwich College an independent, day and boarding school for boys. After four successful years he moved to Camberwell Grammar School and then by 1890 he had moved to take up a post of Science teacher at the newly opened Ipswich Prep School. He rapidly rose up through the ranks to Senior Science Master markedly improving the science results in the school.
There is a pattern emerging to his moves in Education – something that would eventually shape our School. In 1893 he headed North to take up the headship of Blackpool High School. In six years he had transformed Blackpool High School and by 1899 he was ready to wave his magic wand at Baines. The Endowed School soon to be renamed Baines Grammar School had had mixed fortunes, it had closed twice in its history and was a poor relation to the public schools he had taught in. His contempories thought he was mad taking on such a post. But why take on such a post? Blackpool was the up and coming place to be and where the money was. Did Thomas want a challenge to take over a run down school and transform it, He certainly did that. We will never know.
He took up his post on 24th Jan 1899 and promptly introduced a school cap and badge and sacked one of the staff. Within three weeks he had improved absenteeism and punctuality in the school.
Within the first year he had introduced the school colours, school sports day, school scholarships, increased the size of the school population by doubling it and had enough money to carry out urgent repairs. His greatest assets in his first year was to rename the school as Baines’s Grammar School, introduce boarders and give the school a motto, and a school song. Gradually the run down Endowed School was changing into a pseudo public school. In the early years of the 1900s he introduced Speech Day, rare on the Fylde, the Old Boys Association (1906) and on 9th March 1909 the Poultonian. On 16th June 1919 the school officially changed its name from Hardhorn-with-Newton Endowed School to Baines’s Grammar School. Basically he had changed the school into a pseudo public school and had ensured its future for many years to come.
However in 1919 the school was taken over by Lancashire Education Committee which meant it lost its boarders, which it had housed since 1901. By 1919 there were over 40 boarders in the school, and losing these meant a blow to numbers in the school and finances. This was to have a devastating effect on the school as it led to Whittington ultimately resigning.
What is Lancashire had not taken over the school, would we be looking at anther Royal Grammar School which is one of only a handful or State Boarding Schools. Certainly looking at the past history of the school in the early 1900s the school attracted pupils from all over the country and the world.
Thomas Davies Whittington died on 2nd April 1947 and is buried at St Philip and St James Church, Leckhampton,Gloucestershire.