Cheadle Hulme School

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(Redirected from The Manchester Warehousemen and Clerks' Orphan School)

Type: Independent school
Headteacher: Mr Paul Dixon
Address: Claremont Road, Cheadle Hulme, Cheadle, Cheshire, SK8 6EF
Telephone: 0161 488 3330
Age range: 4-18
Pupil capacity: 1384
ISI: 0202
Website: http://www.cheadlehulmeschool.co.uk

Notes

The photo on the right shows what is possibly the earliest photo of Cheadle Hulme School, taken in the 1880s.

Founded as The Manchester Warehousemen and Clerks' Orphan School in 1855, Cheadle Hulme School has come quite a way in its long history. It was established by a committee of warehousemen and clerks, who created an institution in which men would pay an annual subscription to pay for their children's education, should they perish. It followed a similar set-up in London, where a school was successfully set up (it's now known as the Royal Russell School). The first scholars were elected in by the subscribers on 29 October 1855, and were originally educated at an existing boarding school in Flixton. They moved to Ardwick some years later, before the current school was built in 1869.

The school was originally for the orphans or children from famillies that were struggling to make ends meet. Orphans were not really the same as the modern sense of the word - they would have still had their mothers. Over the years, the school began to accept day pupils in addition to the boarders and it changed its name when it began to accept children regardless of their background. During World War II, Cheadle Hulme School became a refuge for two schools in Manchester.

Due to declining numbers, the school stopped accepting boarders from 1993. Alumi of Cheadle Hulme School are known as Old Waconians (WACON coming from Warehousemen And Clerks' OrphaN).