All-school picture: Moira House progressive girls’ school was founded in Addiscombe in 1875. This photograph dates from 1883
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: A school where the wonders of the Crystal Palace and the nature of the Surrey Hills were part of the progressive curriculum, where cricket was played by girls, and where exams were barely tolerated, was founded in Addiscombe 150 years ago. DAVID MORGAN has delved into the archives
School founder: Charles Ingham
Imagine a school where the headteacher was so concerned about the pressures of external exams that he didn’t enter his pupils for them.
Imagine a school where pupils learned for the sheer joy of it, and not because they had to.
Imagine a school where every pupil played cricket. Imagine that this was a school just for girls.
Such an establishment really did exist, in Croydon 150 years ago.
Opening on Sunday January 24, 1875, at 73 Upper Addiscombe Road – the street now known as simply Addiscombe Road – the school’s head was Charles Ingham, a trailblazer for girls’ education. At a time when there was little state education provision, the school operated from Ingham’s home in Addiscombe for eight and a half years before relocating to the south coast, first in Bournemouth and later at Eastbourne.
Ingham decided to open a school while he was on business in New York. He was dissatisfied about the education which was provided for girls and young women in England and he and his wife, Annie, decided to purchase Moira House in Addiscombe.
The three-storey detached building needed some adaptation, but its location was ideal. It was just three miles from Crystal Palace, where Ingham could take the girls to study “the large historical and art collections”. And it overlooked the countryside leading to the Surrey Hills.
The name of the school, Moira House School, was decided upon because the building they bought was once owned by an Irish nobleman from County Down, the Earl of Moira.
With the name Moira House etched into the stone gatepost, the Inghams decided that this would be a suitable name for their new school. A Greek scholar who was a friend of the family reminded them that in Greek mythology, Moira was linked with The Fates and the Moirai spun the web of human life. Thus the school name made sense.
‘The Ladies High-Class School’: an early advertisement for Moira House
Ingham set out to create a school where girls and young women were given the opportunity to better themselves in ways which previously had not been open to them. Although there were some key subjects which were taught, he decided that separating subjects into compartments wasn’t the way forward and that broader areas of study were needed.
He had very clear views on the amount of time and effort which should be devoted to study. A regime of overwork with little recreation or leisure would be self-defeating, as Ingham saw it. He believed that the brain needed some time without pressure if it were to be at its most efficient. Sometimes, parents who wanted their girls “worked harder” needed to be educated themselves in the ways of learning.
To begin with at Moira House, there were no bells to signify the end of lessons. Hardly any rules were required. Ingham thought intelligent young ladies didn’t need any. There was no uniform policy either.
One essential element of the development of each girl was “the training of ear, eye and hand through music, art and craft”. It was a rare sight back then for girls to be learning the violin.
Setting the right tone: all pupils at Moira House were taught music and learned an instrument, encouraged by the cornet-playing headteacher, Charles Ingham
Ingham, himself, was a competent musician. He played the organ to accompany hymn singing and he is photographed holding a cornet in the school orchestra photo of 1883. He composed a school hymn, Marching Onward, which was sung at assembly that was held every Monday. As well as encouraging each girl to play an instrument, he wanted them to “appreciate good music, played well”.
There were music recitals too, given by staff and invited musicians.
The staff and pupils worked together to put on shows, such as Snowdrop, Jack and the Princess Who Never Laughed and Harvest of Gold.
Ingham’s introduction of cricket to the girls certainly raised a few eyebrows. There was even a mention about it in The Times. Ingham’s straightforward answer to why he chose cricket was that this was the only game he knew anything about. One of the highlights of the year, as the school built up its numbers, was the cricket match between the boarders and the day students which took place at Croydon Cricket Club.
There were just six pupils when the school opened. There were three local day pupils from Addiscombe and three boarders from America. One of the Americans was Jessie MacDonald, whose father was a director of the Anchor Steamship Line, with whom Ingham had shared his ideas for a girls’ school.
The school worked hard to increase the roll. Advertisements placed in the local newspapers invited parents to pick up a prospectus from the school or from Mr Warren’s bookshop at 131 High Street.
Innovative: Moira House soon added kindergarten classes to its schooling offer
Those people who came to look around the new school would have been impressed by how Ingham had kitted it out, ordering the latest furniture from America which he had seen whilst visiting schools there. Ingham described the desks as “having an hygienic form and an inviting appearance”.
Interest in this new school with its different regime grew quickly. Prospective families came and sampled Ingham’s lessons on chemistry and electricity. One family who lived in Outram Road, Addiscombe, chose to send their two girls for selected lessons only. Both girls were to study English, French and music. The older one took drawing as well.
In 1875, the school managed to recruit 17 pupils, of which nine were day girls. The following year, 18 pupils joined, 14 of them day girls.
The school hours were from 9am until 1pm, with a further period of study from 3.30pm until 5pm.
Boarding fees were between 80 and 100 guineas per year – with a guinea being £1 1s, the fees were the equivalent of almost £16,000 today.
Ingham was acutely aware of the need to be competitive and prices were often dropped if parents struggled to pay. The price of a governess to live in and teach a family’s children would have been less than an individual boarding fee.
In the month after they opened, The Croydon Chronicle reported that the new school was set up on the “Collegiate system in furtherance of the principles for the higher education of women”. The reporter noted that special attention was given to the teaching of English, in a manner which was both “efficient and interesting”.
A kit list from 1875 has survived.
“2 bath towels, 2 hand towels, 2 table napkins, 2 pairs of sheets 8ft by 5ft, 1 flannel dressing gown, 1 print dressing cape, shoes for school-room wear (not to be pumps), 2 hats and a garden hat, 2 dresses.”
“It is desirable that as few clothes should be brought as possible.”
Rather than insisting on a regular uniform, Ingham wanted his pupils to make their own choice as to what to wear.
By September 1878, advertisements were appearing offering places in a class for girls under 10. This class was to be taught on kindergarten principles and prepare the girls for high school. By January 1880, the school ads included the word boys. Parents of both boys and girls aged between four and eight were being encouraged to sign up for the kindergarten class.
Although it was a school for girls, Percy Ingham, the son of the headteacher, was educated there. He is pictured in the school orchestra in 1883 playing a cello. Percy and his sister Gertie had been part of the school right from its opening day. Gertrude would eventually become headmistress in 1890, by which time the school had moved to Eastbourne.
Gertrude Ingham was to make her own innovations in the world of education, particularly related to school trips. When she took a group of girls across the Channel in 1912, Moira House was among the first schools to travel abroad on an organised visit, many years before they became common in schools’ calendars.
The school closed its doors in Addiscombe on July 15 1883. Ingham had suffered poor health and a move to the coast was recommended. The school reopened in the autumn term in Bodorgan Road, Bournemouth.
Moira House operated for five years in Bournemouth before moving to a seafront location in Eastbourne, until a purpose-built premises was established in nearby Carlisle Road.
In 2017, the school became an annex of Roedean, the famous Sussex girls’ private school, but this arrangement did not last long and Moira House closed its doors permanently in 2020.
Moira House was always progressive in its thinking and its teaching. Mona Swann, another former pupil who went on to become headmistress, summed up their approach to the curriculum: “How many teachers, me included, have said at one time or another, I don’t think we need to bother about this, I don’t think you’ll be asked a question on it?
“The real issue is whether this study is valuable for intellectual development, not whether it is going to be in an exam or not. The child begins to think that the only thing worth knowing about is what is tested in an exam.”
Is such thinking relevant today? You have 45 minutes to complete your answer. Write on one side of the paper only.
David Morgan, pictured, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Music hall star Minnie Cunningham does a turn for North End
- The day that a ‘globe walker’ arrived in Croydon to win a bet
- Enter the Almshouses and travel back in time four centuries
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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Interesting….Moira House school was not in Croydon for long (1875 to 1883), but that did include Upper Addiscombe Road being renamed as a continuation of Addiscombe Rd (1880). It did not include Moira House being numbered as no. 73 (Addiscombe Rd) because that did not occur until 1890.
Having been absorbed into Addiscombe Rd in 1880, the building is described as “Moira House, Ladies’ High School” in both the 1880 and 1882 directories, and as “Moira House, The Addiscombe Ladies’ High School” in the 1884 directory, although the school had already moved to Bournemouth, but perhaps the directory compilers hadn’t noticed? The building remained empty until 1892, so perhaps Mr. Ingham kept it, in case his health improved?
I am doing some research on two (female) teachers who lived in a house in Addiscombe Grove for half-a-century (1888 to 1939). In the 1881 census, they were both lodgers at a house in Grant Road (off Lower Addiscombe Rd) and both described as governesses. Were they staff at Moira House school, before becoming a music teacher (Jessie Hitchcock) and a Parisienne teacher (Mdlle Marie Juliette Lerat) after they moved to Addiscombe Grove?