Reference
X214/15
Title
Minute book of the Early Morning Adult School, Dallow Road Branch.
Date free text
21 October 1911 - 27 January 1957
Production date
From: 1911 To: 1957
Scope and Content
Begins with the formal opening of the building by Mr Cecil Harmsworth MP on 21st October. The first school meeting was held on Sunday Oct 29th with 20 members enrolled. On the 1st November a social club was formed. In June 1913 the number on the register was 26 with an average attendance of 17.75. Membership grew and various methods were used to increase it. By the end of 1913 there was a library and a benevolent fund. At the outbreak of war in August 1914 letters were read from the Luton School Council and the National Adult School Union and a memorial to the Foreign Secretary was agreed. It was agreed that the secretary should try to keep in correspondence with the members who had been called away on military service. By November 1914 the school was being opened every evening for the use of territorials to spend the evening.
On the 25th October the secretary drew attention to the appeal being made throughout the country for help for Belgian Refugees. Action was proposed of renting a house to be offered as a home to one Belgian family for the period of 6 months and to guarantee weekly contributions to provide about £1 per week in addition to the rental of the house. Membership was 48 at the time of the annual report.
19th December 1914 the Belgian family in residence at the home provided in Dallow Road consisted of two men, two women and one child.
17 January 1915 another house had been taken at Dallow Road and a Belgian family of father, mother and 3 children were living there.
11 July 1915 two members of the adult schools - H Sanderson and A Houghton - who during the stay of their regiment in Luton frequently attended the school had been killed in action. Includes letter from Mr Houghton's family in response to letter of sympathy.
12 Sept 1915 newspaper cutting about the war work of the adult schools in Luton.
By the annual report of November 1915 there were 47 members on the register. By the next annual report this had dropped to 28, 11 of whom were on active service. Membership continued at this level with attendance between 11 and 19 for several years but by November 1926 it was down to 12.
1929 'Owing to the premises not being available for the usual Women's school on Sunday afternoons, it was resolved that we come a mixed school, whereby our women friends could participate in our morning meetings & that a hearty invitation be extended to women friends to join with us in our Sunday morning meetings.'
1932 membership on the register was 21 and total attendances for the years amounted to 693.
Minutes are no longer regularly kept with up to three years between entries.
1941 'The secretary gave a brief resume of the general activities of the work of the school, outstanding features of which are the wider interests served through members association with public activities represented by Luton town Council, Rotary, WEA...and in two instances the rendering of home hospitality to a young girl refugee friend from Vienna & a Polish refugee young woman who found in our school fellowship the kind interest and encouragement which enabled her to realise the value of sympathetic understanding and its resultant friendship maintained through correspondence with one of our members sincer her transference to the USA.' Number on the register = 16.
1946 acknowledgement of the service of Mr & Mrs Church in looking after Gerty Baron of Vienna throughout the war 'until her becoming of the age when she could take her place in the general life our country and earn her own livelihood.'
There are no minutes for 1948-1956. The final entry is as follows:
'1957 During the past ten years there has been a gradual decline in membership, and it has been very difficult to carry on. Perhaps it may be, the School has served its purpose and generation, and we have diced to close down.
We the undersigned, members of the Dallow Rd Adult School, consider that this minute book may be of interest to members of the public who have been appreciative of the splendid work done in the past by the school in the cause of brotherhood and goodwill, especially in the extension of adult education among all classes. We wish that this book be placed in the Luton Museum Library for reference and as a record of the Luton Dallow Rd Adult School.'
Level of description
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