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Original Text (Annotation: EPW042801 / 400229)
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Craven Street School which later became Malet Lambert on James Reckitt Avenue
Quoting form the Malet Lambert web site
"In the early 1890s the Hull School Board became increasingly concerned with the needs of children above the statutory school leaving age, and, by what Malet Lambert later confessed to be "a manipulation of the regulations", three higher grade schools were built, of which Craven Street Higher Grade School, opened in 1893, was the second. It was in this school that Malet Lambert High School had its origins. As well as offering the usual elementary education, it provided a secondary education on practical and scientific lines for children above the normal school leaving age, though this education was not free. However some scholarships were provided. The Craven Street School was large and equipped with laboratories and workshops according to the highest standards of the time, the upper classes forming an Organized Science School under the Science and Art Department. In 1893, with infants and junior departments, the school had places for 336 boys and 336 girls. A headmaster was appointed for the Craven Street Higher Grade Boys School and a headmistress for the Craven Street Higher Grade Girls School, thus explaining the sharp division between boys and girls within the school which persisted for many years.
The Balfour Education Act of 1902 abolished School Boards transferring control to the County and Borough Authorities. The new education authorities were allowed to set up secondary schools to continue the education of pupils to 16 and later 16 years of age, though this was not free, except for a limited number of pupils who won entrance scholarships. As a result of this act, after 1905, the school became Craven Street Municipal Secondary School expanding after 1912 when the infants and junior departments were accommodated separately. "Packed to capacity" with 564 pupils in 1926, this school moved to James Reckitt Avenue in September, 1932, becoming Malet Lambert High School. The first headmaster appointed in 1893 was Mr. Harvy Sheppard who remained headmaster until 1917. His son, Thomas Sheppard, became the famous Curator of the Hull Museums and a prolific writer on local topics. The school contained both boys and girls though the boys were, on the whole, in classrooms downstairs, with the girls in the classrooms upstairs. This division persisted long after the move to Malet Lambert High School and the staff rooms remained divided until 1970. On Mr. Sheppard's retirement in 1917 he was succeeded as headmaster by Mr. J. W. Smith, who in turn was succeeded by Mr. Harry Shoosmith in 1922.
Mr. Shoosmith established a close association with Rt. Hon. T.R. Ferens, M.P. for East Hull, the Chairman of the East Hull firm of Reckitts, and a great public benefactor, who lived in the large residence on Holderness Road, now an old people's home. Mr. Ferens, who gave large sums of money towards the building of the Ferens Art Gallery and the setting up of the Hull University College, took a personal interest in the fortunes of the Craven Street School generously donating prizes and regularly attending Prize Distributions. In some quarters it was suggested that when the School moved to James Reckitt Avenue it was going to be named after him. However this was not to be and the new school was named after Canon Joseph Malet Lambert, Chairman of the Higher Education Committee, who had been prominent in the field of education in Hull for some 40 years.
It was realized by Mr. Shoosmith that the Craven Street buildings were incapable of further development as a secondary school and in 1926 the Committee of Higher Education under its Chairman, Canon Malet Lambert, now Archdeacon of the East Riding, was persuaded to provide the school with more suitable premises elsewhere, leaving the Craven Street building to be used as a Senior Mixed Elementary School." '
