Jonathan Robinson School

From Site

The Jonathan Robinson School was the first school in Cheadle Hulme. In 1785 Jonathan Robinson, a merchant from Stockport, gave three acres of land on what is now Woods Lane, known as "the woods" in those days. The profit from the land was to be used to pay for a schoolmaster to teach four boys and four girls, and six other children who would pay twopence a week. The school was built in 1788 and the first schoolmaster was named Thomas Burrows.

By 1871, there were 135 scholars, and the building was enlarged in 1893. In 1873, the National School was built further down Church Road, in response to the 1870 Education Act. When the Jonathan Robinson School was enlarged, it became a public elementary school for 200 pupils, and the Infant School to the National School, where pupils transferred to at the age of seven.

In the 1900s, it was found the school was in a poor state, and it was closed at one point for health reasons. A new school, which eventually became Cheadle Hulme High School, was an idea in the works from as early as 1903, and only by 1930 did the council manage to purchase the land appropriate. The Jonathan Robinson School was considered too small, and the building was too old and in disrepair for it to be used as a school, and the National School and Queens Road Primary School partly took its place. It was eventually demolished in 1962, though its plaque which was on the front upper floor wall was saved, and is in the modern-day Cheadle Hulme High School, unveiled on 28 April 1986, the school's golden jubilee. It says "This School was Built by Subscription and Endowed by Mr Jonathan Robinson 1785".