Bath Technical Schools

Following last week's blog about Mary Berry and her training at the Bath School of Domestic Science, this week at the BSU Archive office I decided to delve into the box marked 'Bath College of Domestic Science, Old Prospectuses'. What a treat!

Bath Technical Schools main building, at the Guildhall

The prospectuses are A5 booklets, usually no more than 6 or 8 pages in length. They date from the establishment of the Domestic Science department of Bath Technical School, in 1893. Technical Schools were part of the nineteenth century expansion of education, and provided practical classes with the aim of increasing the skills level of a community.

Technical Schools prospectus, 1913-14

Local Authorities set up these schools, which included secondary, evening and adult classes, according to the skills required in the area. A sample of the learning supplied by the City of Bath Council in 1913 includes commerce, languages, maths, book keeping and clerical skills. A large department fulfilled the city's need for engineering knowledge and there is provision to learn engineering drawing, design, and technical skills as well as coach building, carpentry and plumbing. A combination of skills to suit a city concerned about its economy, perhaps?

Since its 18th century heyday, Bath had struggled with the image it displayed to the world and the reality of the life in its streets. In the later 19th century, the city fathers continued to emphasise its gentility, yet industry did thrive here, in the form of engineering works, and car manufacture grew out of the coach building businesses. The technical schools' prospectuses give a fuller picture of a city looking to the future.

Two of Bath Spa University's founding colleges have their origins in this move towards increased public education and training; the School of Art, and the Domestic Science College. These early prospectuses demonstrate the way that 19th century thinking, democratisation and a more diverse economy laid our foundation stones.

The Domestic Science school altered its course when an early student, Adela Heygate, asked to be trained as a teacher of Domestic subjects. She went on to become the Principal of the College, and later, a school inspector.

Cookery and Domestic Sciences prospectus 1914-15

Early classes feature in illustrations in the prospectuses, as well as course descriptions. The courses are very practical, as indicated by early lessons in 'range building', and early student memoirs attest to the resourcefulness they learned. Such skills stood them in good stead when they entered the teaching profession  between the wars, when many school premises were still quite basic.

Range building?

'Care of the Drains' and 'The Danger of Flies' - crucial in an era long before domestic refrigeration! 

Domestic Science students in 1900 wore a uniform consisting of  'a long black serge skirt, ankle length. A scarlet cashmere shirt and black tie for winter, white blouse and red tie for summer, worn with stiff white collar and cuffs. White linen aprons, skirt length with bibs and shoulder straps. A white muslin cap with scarlet ribbon'. (Memoir of student M. S. Toller, written in 1953)

The uniform made them very conspicuous, and earned them the local nick-name of 'Scarlet Runners'.

An anonymous student, also reminiscing in 1953 (the College's Jubilee) recalled that 

'In 1911, the militant suffragette movement was at its height, and Annie Kenney came to Bath and hurled a brick through the GPO window to arouse attention and interest - we students all there in the seething crowd - but alas the scarlet blouses were noticed and we were reported to the head'.