35th Board School Wheeler Street Higher Openshaw

School replaced Lees Street School. Accommodation for 1180 children. Cost £22,500. Memorial stone laid on 27 April 1901

The design of Mr Frank Edwards, architect of this city, for the school to be erected in Wheeler Street, Higher Openshaw for the Manchester School Board has been selected in a limited competition. [Manchester City News 10 February 1900 Page 5, Column 7]

The memorial stone of the thirty-fifth Board School built by the Manchester Schools Board will be laid this afternoon, Mr N Meadowcroft taking the principal part in the ceremony. The school fronts Wheeler-street, Openshaw, and it replaces the Lees-street school. It will provide accommodation for 1,180 children and the total estimated cost of the building, including furnishings and the formation of streets is  £22,000. [Manchester City News 27 April 1901 Page 5, Column 1]

The thirty-fifth school of the Manchester School Board is now in the course of erection upon a site in Wheeler-street, Higher Openshaw. It will supplant, when completed, a school in Lees-street where instruction is at present provided for 880 children, the new school being designed for the accommodation of 1,180. Class rooms for infants will be provided on the ground floor and the basement is to be employed for purposes of manual instruction for boys while in a detached building, facilities for the teaching of cookery and laundry work are to be provided. Mr Frank Edwards of Manchester is the architect and Messrs Young Tinker & Young of Cheetham are the contractors. (Report continues with details of the laying of memorial stone by Nathan Meadowcroft, Chairman of the Sites & Building Committee of the Board. In the speeches the estimated cost is given as £22,500 and the anticipated opening of the school as summer 1902). [Manchester City News 4 May 1901 Page 3 Column 7]

BOARD SCHOOL, OPENSHAW - The memorial stone of a new Board School was laid on the 27th ult in Wheeler Street, Openshaw. This is the 35th school erected by the Manchester School Board and it will provide accommodation for 1,400 children. The new building, which has been designed by Mr Frank Edwards, architect, Manchester, will have classrooms on the ground floor for the infants department and the first standard of the seniors department and the remaining standards will occupy the second floor. Manual instruction for boys will be provided in the basement; there will be a special room for drawing instruction and a cookery room and laundry are to be built apart from the main building. The contractors are Messrs Young Tinker & Young of Cheetham. [Builder 4 May 1901 Page 437]

Reference    Manchester City News 10 February 1900  Page 5, Column 7
Reference    Manchester City News 27 April 1901 Page 5, Column 1
Reference    Manchester City News 4 May 1901 Page 3 Column 7
Reference    Building News 3 May 1901 Page 616
Reference    Builder 4 May 1901 Page 437