The History of Fort Pitt Grammar School, Chatham

FORT PITT

CHATHAM’S UNIQUE SITE: DESIGNED TO PROTECT ADAPTED TO CARE MODIFIED TO EDUCATE

COMPILED BY JOAN HOWARD

THE FORT Until the time of the Tudors, Chatham was a small agricultural and fishing village on the south bank of the River Medway about one mile from the walled City of Rochester. Chatham’s growth was closely linked to the age of discovery when new ocean routes were opened up and the Mediterranean lost much of its earlier importance as a trading area. By the 17 th century Holland had replaced Spain as Britain’s main rival because the Dutch had become the largest overseas trading nation linked with control of the Spice Islands (now part of Indonesia) and trading bases in West Africa.

In 1667 during the reign of Charles II, a Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway and burned a number of ships of the British Navy anchored at Chatham Dockyard – at that time considered to be a key naval base.

EXTRACT FROM H.A.L. FISHER’S “HISTORY OF EUROPE” Whoever deserved to rule the waves in Charles II’s first Dutch wars, it was not Britannia. That slow moving lady was still entangled with the notion that a titled landsman might command at sea, and that any ne’erdo-well swept up by the press gangs was ripe for service in the King’s ships. After the four days battle in June 1666, when De Ruyter inflicted some eight thousand casualties on the English fleet, English sailors were floating in the water dressed in their Sunday black just as they had been caught after Church by the press gang. Pay was in arrears, food was short. So bad were the conditions on the lower decks that three thousand English and Scottish sailors actually preferred service with the Dutch. Stout and well built as were the English ships, valiant and experienced as were many English Mariners, that was not the way to rule the waves. Nor yet was it wise to leave an empty fleet lying in an undefended harbour as was done in June 1667, when the enemy sailed up the Medway, bombarded Chatham, and with little loss to themselves delivered a smashing (sic) blow to the English navy. London already scourged by the plague and fire did not soon forget the roar of the Dutch guns in the Thames.

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In spite of this disastrous attack, however, it was not until the end of the 18th century and the threat of invasion by Napoleon that the British Government began to realise the importance of creating a ring of defences to protect the dockyard in case of enemy attack. These defences included the Great Lines, and a ring of forts – Amhurst, Clarence, Delce and our own Fort Pitt.

The War Office bought Fort Pitt Hill and the surrounding land in 1780 but construction of a fort did not begin until 1805. Progress was very slow since all the bricks had to be pushed up the hill in wagons. The fortification was not completed until after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. The total cost of building the fort was £63,570.

In 1812 two auxiliary towers were constructed on the flanks of the fort called Delce and Gibralter towers. The fort was surrounded by a defensive trench, fifteen to twenty feet deep and lined with bricks – some of the floor still remains today. The top of the inner wall of the trench was lined with spikes and part of the original firestep along which the soldiers would have taken up their positions if there had been an attack still remains.

On each corner of the fort were bastions designed to give maximum crossfire against an enemy. For safety, the ammunition was mainly I two large underground chambers which were dome shaped and insulated as an extra precaution.

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Gun emplacements and earthen outworks (trenches) were constructed at the southern end of the fort to guard against landward attack. The only building above ground within the fort was a large brick tower, similar to the tower at Fort Clarence, built to protect the well which was 161 feet deep.

This tower was divided into two halves. The roof was flat with a parapet to allow the firing of muskets and small canon by the defending infantry. At the front of the tower were two small turrets which housed the stairways of the tower.

The roof of the tower could also be used to communicate with Delce, Clarence and Amhurst but there is no evidence to support the claim that originally Fort Pitt and Fort Clarence were linked by tunnel. On the north face of the fort, on the site of the present Art College, there was a large blockhouse constructed of brick and concrete which housed 500 men. Its protective walls were ten feet thick and there were casements or galleries built into the walls from which the soldiers could fire on the enemy if the fort was in immediate danger of being captured. Access to Fort Pitt was across a drawbridge.

The threat of invasion from France receded after the defeat and exile of Napoleon to Elba in 1814 and the garrison which was stationed at Fort Pitt was transferred. The Royal Marine Artillery was granted temporary permission to occupy the empty fort as emergency accommodation in order to avoid the necessity of billeting the Marines in Chatham and Rochester resulting, according to their commanding officer Major Minto, ‘in sickness and irregularities prejudicial to discipline.’ The Marines had to vacate the blockhouse in 1815 to make room for the wounded from the Battle of Waterloo.

Thus Fort Pitt’s existence as a fortification was short lived.

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Fort Pitt Table believed to have been carved by a French prisoner of war in the blockhouse during the Napoleonic Wars. This table is still in use at the R.A.M.C. Headquarters, Mill Bank, London. ___________________________________

THE HOSPITAL Fort Pitt was chosen as the site for the principal military hospital to replace York hospital at Chelsea because invalids from overseas could be easily transported by sea to the port of Chatham and Fort Pitt was considered suitable for conversion. In 1828 it became a depot for 172 invalided soldiers who were housed in the blockhouse until completion of the new hospital in 1832. It was originally built in the shape of an ‘H’ containing 9 large wards accommodating about 200 patients who could enjoy relaxing outside under a long verandah which ran along the front of the surviving wing and this is now known as the Crimea Block. Fort Pitt also became the depot where medical officers joined on first commissioning, and they spent a probation period receiving instruction on officer’s duties – very necessary according to a certain Dr. Fyffe in his ‘Reminiscences’. He describes most of his fellow officers as ‘pretty rough specimens from Scottish and Irish schools who badly required a course of mess instruction on how to use a silver fork or finger bowl at dinner’, and he commented ‘the time spent on meals was not the least part of their education’.

This instruction in the niceties of mess behaviour was I the hands of Inspector General James Forbes who founded the first medical staff officers’ mess. One of Dr Fyffe’s complaints was at its high cost when he was trying to live on a meagre salary of £128 per year. He praised, however, the excellent arrangement for professional study as well as the classes of operative surgery on dead subjects, and the facilities of the library and museum-work started by Dr D Macloughlan, the first Director of Fort Pitt and continued by his successor Sir James McGrigor.

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Dr Macloughlan took charge of Fort Pitt hospital in December 1814 and immediately established high medical standards – insisting, for example, on the building of a mortuary so that a full autopsy could be carried out on every deceased patient. He also employed a Mr James Miller to collect interesting, if often morbid specimens. Thus was initiated the anatomical museum which started Fort Pitt hospital on the path of immortal medical research especially concerning tropical diseases.

Sir James MacGrigor continued the museum and also founded the medical library to which he donated 1,500 of his own volumes. The museum was housed in the underground chambers of Fort Pitt and was divided into a natural history section and anatomical and pathological section. Here too was an anthropological collection of 458 skulls, 29 casts, 7 dried heads and 2 mummies. The museum acquired an important reputation and a medial journal of the period mentions visits by distinguished surgeons and naturalists.

An asylum for mentally ill servicemen was built in 1847 which was fenced off from the rest of the fort and had accommodation for 32 men and 2 officers. (The present day Music House).

In 1849 the fort became a general military hospital and during the Crimea War (1854 – 56) Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the hospital on three separate occasions in 1855.

ROYAL VISITS TO FORT PITT

By George Russell Dartnell, Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals (1855 – 56) Her Majesty on her first visit drove from the railway station to Fort Pitt and alighted from her carriage at the front entrance to the hospital; here she was met by the Commandant, myself and the Staff-Surgeons of Divisions.

Lord Hardinge presented the Commandant and myself, and after receiving the morning state of the hospital, she desired that I should take my place by her 6

right hand when she proceeded to inspect the convalescents from the casements (blockhouse), who were paraded under the verandah. She then passed into the hospital, taking each of the lower wards in succession. Each man stood, or sat (if disabled) at the foot of his bed with a card in his hand on which was written his name, regiment, age, service, the nature of the wound or disability, in what action he was wounded etc. She asked the wounded men several questions and seemed much interested in some of the cases…

The case of Pte. Thomas Walker, 95 th Regiment, particularly claimed her attention, and also that of a young lad named Barrett; the former had been dreadfully wounded /in the head by a shell which burst in the air immediately above him; the latter had been struck in the face by a canister shot, 13oz in weight, which had been firmly wedged in between bones of the face, but extracted a few days before in a very skilful operation…

Her Majesty having previously expressed a desire not to go upstairs, all Crimea men were paraded in the lower wards and in the verandah, but as she was about to leave the hospital I asked if Her Majesty would not look at the upstairs wards, as they were the best part of the hospital. Seeing that she hesitated, I said “We have an old soldier upstairs, Your Majesty, a Scotchman, who has been confined to his bed for thirty-six years, and who is quite a character; possibly Your Majesty might have some curiosity to see him”. She said, “Oh, I should like to see him very much”.

As the Queen and her suite passed up towards the farther end of No. 15 ward, old George raised himself as well as he could in his bed and, without waiting for her to speak, immediately addressed her with “God bless Your Majesty for deigning to come and see a poor helpless creature like me that has suffered for so many years with the asthmatics, and the rheumatics, and the pleuratrics, and the paratics; (sic) but I’m truly grateful to Your Majesty for your condescension, I weel remember Your Majesty’s father, the late Duke of Kent, and I ken weel the time that I often seen Your Majesty yoursel’ when you were a wee thing, eight years old, running about Kensington Gardens.

And this is Prince Albert and these are Your Majesty’s royal children, God bless them, and I make so bold to ask Your Majesty which is His Royal highness the Prince of Wales? The eldest I suppose” (a nod of assent). “Well, God bless him, too, and grant that he may be as good as everybody says his father is.”

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Queen Victoria’s first visit to her wounded Crimean soldiers at Fort Pitt

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Prince Albert: Well, George, I am told you have been a great many years here; I’m glad to see you have kept your health so well. How old are you?

George: I’m just 96, your Highness.

Queen: Is the true Mr Dartnell?

Mr Dartnell: I fear it is a little exaggerated, Your Majesty.

Queen: I should think so, (with a smile). He is very old though, no doubt.

Mr Dartnell: I believe he is above 90, Your Majesty.

Queen: How many years have you been confined to your bed, George?

George: Well, Your Majesty, I suppose I have been about five or six and thirty years.

Queen: Has he really been so many years as that, Mr Dartnell?

Mr Dartnell: to my certain knowledge, Your Majesty, he has been in bed since the year 1821 and I believe he was for some time before that.

Queen: Dear me, how wonderfully well he looks even now.

Mr Dartnell: Yes, wonderfully well indeed, considering, too, all his real or fancied ailments and I hope your Majesty will look on the fact as a proof of the care we take of Your Majesty’s soldiers in this establishment.

Queen: A very satisfactory one, indeed.

Her Majesty then quitted the ward, bowing graciously to old George,with whom the whole party seemed greatly amused.

On leaving the hospital Prince Albert said “May I ask Mr Dartnell, if the hospital is always as clean and nice as it is today?” I replied he would find it in precisely the same state every ay of the year. “Then it is very nice, indeed, nothing could be cleaner and more comfortable”; and the Queen, expressing gratification that no special preparations had been made for her, I said: “I thought I should be consulting Your Majesty’s wishes best if I permitted you to see the establishment in its real and everyday garb”. “And you were quite right,” she replied.

On the occasion of Her Majesty’s second visit to Chatham, early in June 1855, the whole of the convalescents at Fort Pitt were paraded for her inspection in the pleasure-grounds in the rear of the hospital. She 9

alighted from her carriage, as before, at the front entrance and went into the lower wards to see a few men who were unable tot leave their beds.

She then walked, leaning on Prince Albert, along the verandah and the front of the building, passing into the shrubbery by the ivied archway beside the Principal Medical Officer’s Quarters. Her surprise and gratification was very great at the beauty and neatness of the grounds and the tact that had been displayed laying them out.

Prince Albert said “Are all the invalids, Mr Dartnell, allowed to walk in these grounds?”

“They have unrestrained liberty to go wherever they please, but of course within prescribed hours” I replied, “in fine weather you would see them sitting under the shade of trees, reclining on the grassy slopes, reading, conversing, smoking and amusing themselves as they please”.

“Well,” she said, “nothing could be more beautiful or, I should think, better for their health. Pray, who was it laid out these grounds?”

“They were planned and laid by the purveyor, Mr Pratt, who resided here for many years and who found this fort, about thirty-five years ago, as I saw it myself, without a single tree, shrub, or green thing of any description within the walls”.

“Pray, Mr Dartnell,” said the Prince, “is not rheumatism a very common complaint with soldiers coming home from foreign service?”

I said: “Yes, Your Royal highness, a very common complaint, especially with invalids from the East and West Indies”.

“And, pray, what is your chief remedy for it?”

“Why, Your Royal highness, in these cases we trust chiefly to change of climate, generous diet, and the pure air they breathe here which, I am sure, is more efficacious in restoring them to health than any medicine they could get,” “I believe you are quite right Mr Dartnell”.

The Royal party now turning up towards the centre mound, Her Majesty found 200 convalescents drawn up at its foot in a double line, the wounded being on forms in the front rank, each man having an explanatory card in his hand. On approaching the line, I said: “Your Majesty will perceive that every man, by his card, tells his own tale. Her Majesty then walked slowly down the front rank, looking at every man’s card, speaking to or asking some question of almost every one, returning in the same way by the rear rank and recognising several she had seen on 10

her first visit. The day was beautifully bright and fine, the mounds and slopes were covered with spectators, and the whole scene – the Royal party, the staff and other officers in their uniforms, the maimed and weather-beaten warriors I their blue hospital dress, with their wooden legs and crutches – was peculiarly imposing and interesting.

The Hospital in 1859

The following lines of poetry were written by a patient at the time of the Royal visit: In hospital at Chatham on Medway’s banks they lay, Dragoon, hussar and lancer, survivors of the fray, One day there came a message, ‘twas like a golden ray – It lightened up each visage, it acted like a spell On Britain’s wounded heroes Who’d fought for her so well.

On the third visit of the Queen to Chatham – November 28 th 1855 – she drove as before direct to Fort Pitt and went round all the wards, above stairs as well as below, expressing herself much pleased with their cleanliness and cheerful and contented countenances of the men. Both she and Prince Albert asked several questions about the Medical Staff Corps, seeing many orderlies in the wards. On this occasion she did not speak to George Hayward which was a cause of great distress and vexation to him. On the occasion of Her Majesty’s fourth and last visit to Chatham she did not got to Fort Pitt as her chief object wad to the Crimea soldiers, and there were at that time but five or six in the General Hospital; she therefore drove direct to the temporary hospital at Brompton Barracks where the wounded from the Crimea were classified 11

in different rooms, according to the battles (e.g. Balaclava, Inkerman) in which they had been wounded.

Published in the journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps Vol 3 (July- December 1904) A year after Queen Victoria’s visits to Chatham, Florence Nightingale arrived at Fort Pitt on one of her fact-finding missions and chose it as a temporary site of the first Army Medical School which was opened in 1860 and housed in the building now known as North Block until the completion of the new Army Medical School at Netley in Hampshire.

The opening day at Fort Pitt, however, was disappointing as Florence Nightingale herself recorded on September 3rd 1860: “On Saturday I had a letter from the Professors of the Medical School quite desperate………the authority for the instruments and the money had not come. Ten of the students arrived. They stared at the bare walls and in the absence of all arrangements for their work concluded that the school was a hoax.”

Fortunately the initial problems were short lived and training courses were successfully run at Fort Pitt until the Army Medical School was moved to the newly built Victoria Hospital at Netley in Hampshire in 1863. Under new army regulations introduced in 1873 Fort Pitt became a Garrison Hospital and its medical officers came under the direct command of the Army Medical Service instead of the local regiment.

The latter part of the century saw a great rise in the number of casualties arriving at Fort Pitt as the result of the many colonial wars not only in Asia but in Africa. Tropical diseases such as yellow fever accounting for as many deaths as battle wounds.

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EXTRACT FROM ‘REMINISCENCES OF FORT PITT’

BY EDWIN HARRIS – 1936 ‘It does not seem to me a very cheering idea that about the same time that this military hospital was built, the Government should also make the soldiers’ burying ground within sight and in close proximity to the hospital. The late Dr Dartnell told me that when his father, Dr G R Dartnell D.I.G.H., was in charge of Fort Pitt he as a boy, with other sons of the surgeons, used to sit on the grass bank at the side of the trenches to watch the funerals, which were of daily occurrence, proceeding across the field to the burying ground. They were disappointed if it was only a private with a pipe and drum band. But if it was an officer’s funeral, with the regimental bras band and goodly following then they were pleased at the military spectacle’.

In 1898 the present day Royal Army Medical Corps was founded and in 1902 its headquarters were moved from Netley to Millbank in London.

In 1910 the tower of the fort was demolished together with the wing originally attached to the surviving Crimea block to make room for a new wing – now known as the West Wing. A great deal of work was carried out to modernise the facilities at the hospital – including two new operating theatres, an electric lift, x-ray room and a massage room.

Italian builders were employed to lay imitation marble (terrazzo) floors which helped save the West Wing from greater damage in the fire in 1973. All floors and ceilings had rounded corners designed to be dust free and windows in the wards which opened inwards to prevent draughts. The new extension was completed just before the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

Extract from the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham News October 10th 1914 THE KING AND QUEEN VISITS TO THE NAVAL & MILITARY HOSPITALS ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME For the special purpose of showing their sympathy with the wounded from the Fleet in the North Sea, and also some of the soldiers who have returned wounded from the Front, the King and Queen paid a visit to 13

Chatham and Gillingham on Saturday last. They first of all saw the disabled blue-jackets at the Royal Naval Hospital at Gillingham and afterwards the injured military men in Fort Pitt Hospital‌..where their Majesties passed through both the surgical and medical wards in the new block of buildings, and afterwards passed to the old wards on the south side of the hospital. Both King and Queen stopped at every bed and had a word with all the patients, many of whom were dressed, with arms or legs in slings, or heads in bandages. In conversation with the men their Majesties enquired as to the nature of their wounds and where they were sustained. They also asked each as to whether they were comfortable, and manifested special interest in examining he pieces of shrapnel and the bullets extracted from the wounds, and in inspecting the x-ray plates of certain patients. Both expressed the hope that the sufferers might make a speedy and good recovery.

In a separate ward in the old block, were five German naval officers from the Heligoland fight. These also received a visit from their Majesties, and were apparently much gratified with the pleasant words spoken. In another building, altogether separate from the main hospital, were sixty-five more German wounded prisoners, non-commissioned officers and men.

During the visit the King was presented with a bell from a German submarine by the five German Naval officers to show their appreciation for the care they received from the doctors and Nurses at Fort Pitt. The bell still hangs in the top corridor of the West Wing. After being nursed back to health all the German patients were held as prisoner of war in the Blockhouse until the war ended in 1918.

The wounded arriving at Fort Pitt

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Some of the wounded soldiers who arrived at Fort Pitt were from overseas, for example, from Australia and New Zealand.

Visitors continue to arrive at the school from time to time and are pleased to find that they an still walk along the old hospital corridors where members of their family were patients – some nursed back to health while others died at Fort Pitt and are buried in the nearby cemetery on City Way. The school is privileged to have received letters reflecting the inevitable mixture of joy and sorrow experienced by patients, relatives and medical staff in a military hospital during four long years of war.

EXTRACT ONE …..A reason why my daughter and her husband visited Fort Pitt was due to their having heard me often speak of the old place where I spent about three months as a patient when it was used as a hospital during the First World War. Actually I was one of the first wounded Australians to be cared for there. I was in Ward 19, which was a long narrow ‘hut’ and noted for the speed the wounded service-men went through the hands of the very efficient and kindly staff and progressed to convalescent homes.

Thus the ward was nicknamed the Twopenny (Tuppeny) Tube. I was a patient for the record period of three months (a record for Ward 19) and saw 500 men pass through the ward.

From Fort Pitt I progressed to a convalescent home at ‘Knight’s Place’ which is about five miles out of Chatham, in the country and about one mile from the Earl of Darnley’s home, Cobham Hall.

A R Ford – New South Wales – 1978

EXTRACT TWO My aunt entered the V.A.D. Service in 1916, having previously been a head parlour maid with Sir Henry and Lady Bellingham in Kensington. She was originally employed in the Pack Store as a clerical assistant. As the patients arrived from France their packs, containing their possessions, first had to be baked in order to kill the lice.

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They were then opened, often caked with mud and blood, and an inventory taken of each pack. She subsequently trained on the wards caring for typhoid and dysentery patients. Her nursing training was put to good use in the post was years as the remainder of her working life was spent as school matron at various schools including Repton Hall, Public School.

Margaret Buggy V.A.D. – Fort Pitt – 1916 – 1920

A TRAGIC WARTIME STORY No 3395 Private T P Rooney 59th Battalion 15th Brigade France

…..There is a big charge coming off tonight, we have got about 300 guns up here, they are starting a bombardment tonight, and after they have done strafing the Germans we are going in to finish them off. I have got my bag of bombs and if I get near enough to use them, I will send you some German scalps to hang up in the dining room. I went to confession the other day. I think I am lucky enough to come out of it alright. You will know, long before this reaches you if I was unlucky…….

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5 York Terrace Gillingham, Kent Nov 14th 1916

Dear Mrs Rooney, I have wanted to write to you for some time to tell you I had seen your son at the Military Hospital in Chatham. He has been very ill but would not allow anyone to write as he said you would feel nervous about him.

He had a most terrible time of it. First of all the Doctors tried to save his leg but it had to be taken off at last but he has still had a great deal of suffering. He has been wonderfully patient but could not be made to take much nourishment. I am a visitor for the Australian branch of the Red Cross…….we have been so interested in your son and have done what we could to tempt him with dainty things to eat and he knew we would do anything we could for him. I am afraid this must be a sad Xmas for you…. I will write again and sincerely hope I will be able to give you better news of him. You may rest assured that all possible will be done for him.

Yours sincerely Philippa Blanchflower 17

Military Hospital Fort Pitt Chatham, Kent Nov. 26th - 1916 Dear Madam, May I offer you and your dear ones our deepest sympathy, in your dear boy being taken from you, he was a patient with us so long, and we were very fond of him‌..

I asked your son if he would like me to write shortly before his death, but he said that it would make you think he was worse than he was and he hoped to write to you himself and he said to me once would it be possible to keep from you that his leg had been taken off, until he got home. The other patients in the ward gathered up and got a beautiful wreath as a testimony of their interest in him.

Wishing you God’s best blessing and may He comfort you, as only He can comfort.

Yours faithfully, Sister M Boyd

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The Convoy When at Fort Pitt a convoy is due, The orderlies all have their duties to do: Some march to the station, Some wait at the door, But all are employed in the Medical Corps.

The train doors are opened, the men go inside, And lift up the stretchers with no little pride; They carry them out to an ambulance near, As the crown up above raises cheer upon cheer.

Soon our brave soldiers are tucked up in bed, Away from the trenches, the battle, the dead, To be cared for and nursed, and once more made fit, By the Doctors, the Sisters and Staff of Fort Pitt.

Claude Hulbert.

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THE SCHOOL During the First World War the army needed clerical workers and the Chatham Institute began training girls for this purpose in 1916.

In 1918 the girls took up Residence in Elm House(New Road) and this wasthe beginning of a schoolwhich became known as the Junior Commercial School in 1919 with 133 Pupils.

By 1923 its Curriculum broadened and it became known as The Commercial and Trades School.

In 1926 the Medway Board of Education decided to turn the Trades School into the first Day Technical School for Girls in the country and Miss Moffat was appointed as the Headmistress. As yet the school was a makeshift affair with the girls sharing Elm House with the Education Office. Classes were also held in Navy House and the Technical Institute; games were taught at the Boys’ School at Holcombe and gym in the Drill Hall. The girls ate lunch in a building called ‘The Hut’ but by 1927 this became very unsatisfactory as the course had been increased from 2 years to 3 years and pupil numbers had increased to 270.

‘I was one of a batch of about fifty girls who joined the school in the Summer Term 1926. We were the first group under the newly appointed headmistress, Miss Moffat. Until then, the school had been organised by the headmaster of Chatham Boys’ Technical School. WE had the use of four or five rooms, including the Gym, at the Boys’ School in the High Street and four classrooms in Elm House on the New Road. This had a large lawn surrounded by trees and since it also housed the Medway Education Board Room and Office we were expected to be on our best behaviour there. Miss Moffat set about building a community and instilling in us that unknown word ‘tradition’ in a very enthusiastic way.

We had one whole afternoon when we crammed into the ‘hall’ at the Tech. and sang. How I enjoyed that!’

ROSE SEARS Pupil 1926-28

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Extract from the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham Observer, 18.11.27 SECOND PANDORA’S BOX *TRADITION CHEST FOR CHATHAM SCHOOL DEDICATED AT FIRST SPEECH DAY. On Thursday evening last week the Chatham Day Technical School for Girls held its first Speech Day and, for this important occasion, a large and distinguished company assembled in the Town Hall. Canon H. A. Hickin, chairman of the Education Committee, presided and dedicated a handsome school tradition chest in which are to be preserved the records of the School. Miss Moffat, the Headmistress, who was warmly received, traced the history of the school and said that discouragement was impossible owing to the girls – their bonnie irrepressible girls – who made one feel that they were the only things that mattered. The tradition chest symbolised their corporate spirit, and to her it was a second Pandora’s Box, with hope inside.

Mr. T. Roberts the vice-chairman of the Medway Education Board, said that although their school was a baby it was quite a vigorous baby. It was born out of necessities of the war, and it was fitting that its first speech day should be held on the eve of the great Remembrance. The Army Pay Corps had first asked the Board to train young woman to take the place of men, and as the age of enlistment increased so were the demands on them increased. It was then decided to inaugurate a two years’ course under the direction of Mr. Keen, who did excellent work in trying circumstances. He and his staff turned out some wonderful girls.

Mr Keen then had to take the boys to Holcombe, and this mean that he then had three separate schools under his supervision, and it was following this that they obtained the services of Miss Moffat. The school had started with service and sacrifice and he asked the girls to always keep this in mind.

*This Chest and its contents were rescued undamaged from the fire of 1973 and it now stands in the Entrance Hall of the school.

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Extract from the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham New 15.3.29 THE DUCHESS OF ATHOLL AT CHATHAM PLEADS FOR THE CINDERELLA OF EDUCATION GIRLS TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL SPEECH DAY An audience of nearly seventeen hundred filled the Central Hall, Chatham on Wednesday to hear an address from the Duchess of Atholl, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, who was the principal speaker at the Speech Day of Chatham Day Technical School for Girls…..

In the course of her revere of the School’s activities the Headmistress said she was very proud to be making a report on the School that people who should know said was the only school of its kind in England; moreover, it was the most difficult, for no other school carried on in buildings nearly a mile apart and they were overcrowded in all three.

MOVE TO FORT PITT In September 1929 the school moved to Fort Pitt which had been bought by the Education Board for £6,000 from the War Department. The conversion work at the school was carried out by Vincents of Gillingham. The school times were 8.45 a.m. – 12.15 p.m. - & 12.15 p.m. – 4.15 p.m. School dinners cost 6d and if a girl brought packed lunch a small table fee was charged. In the early days the girls could make use of the hospital baths. All girls had to pass the Entrance Examination and a fee of £2 a term was charged except for those girls who passed the Special Places Examination; the minimum age of entry was 12 years.

I joined the then Girls’ Technical School in 1928 when it was part of the Boys’ Technical school in Chatham High Street, although house in Elm House. We were divided into forms and had lessons sometimes in one building and at certain times in the other. You can imagine the 22

confusion if one forgot where one should be for a certain lesson on a particular day. Then it was a case of haring along the High Street, depending on which end one had to be, and arriving late for the first period. It must have been equally as bad for the staff but, of course, we knew nothing about that. Our numbers must have been increasing at the time for it was not long after this that Kent Education Authority procured Fort Pitt – which was then an unused hospital. This was much against the wishes of St. Barts. Hospital ….. however the School’s plight must have won the day, and I well remember the excitement of coming into the empty building and getting quite lost in the corridors. The grounds were very rough and were surrounded by a dry moat which was immediately ‘out of bounds’ so there was little space for play. We went swimming in the summer to Watt’s Baths….. here we learning to swim in a most undignified manner. I suppose were very deprived compared with today, but I was very happy at school, and did not want to leave when the time came!

DORIS RIPLEY 1928-31 Miss Moffat had the task of converting a semi-derelict hospital into a successful school where all pupils not only followed a general three year course of study but also added specialist studies in Needlework, Household Science or Commerce during the second and third years. The school was the first in Kent to start teaching French orally, using only the French language, and pupils went on several visits to France. Miss Moffat was succeeded in 1936 by Miss Younge who major task turned out to be organising the school in the first years of the Second World War.

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EXTRACT FROM A LETTER WRITTEN IN 1991 TO THE OLD GIRLS’ ASSOCIATION FROM ZIMBABWE It was 1932 when I started the Tech rather overawed by the large numbers of strange new faces, although I had both a sister and a friend already in higher classes. Four hundred pupils were there at that time and Miss Moffat, the headmistress, told us that was a very good number as it was possible for everyone to have some kind of recognition for everyone else.

The whole school would gather regularly in the Hall (now known as the Old Hall) where we sat in rows on the floor, black stockinged legs neatly crossed. We all faced the platform at the far end of the hall, so that the Head, teachers and visiting dignitaries always entered from the door behind us and it was a punishable offence for any pupil to turn her head to look at the new arrivals. We had to wait patiently until they were on the platform in front of us before we acknowledged their presence. Miss Moffat was a very capable head mistress, certainly she was very capable of inspiring fear in most of us as well as being able to reduce to tears the hardiest of wrong doers. She could also be an excellent mimic. I well remember a little act she put on for one drama class, as she pretended to be a scholarship applicant appearing for her oral examination before being finally accepted. The worst punishment possible was to be made to sit on a chair in the lift, which was like an ironwork cage, leaving the naughty one on view to the whole school as they passed up and down the stairs to and from classes. Many of them must have wished for that lift cage to be completely destroyed as I believe it was some year ago by fire.

Miss Moffat always wore dresses in shades of blue, which were made for her in the long needlework room on the first floor above the Hall.This was presided over by Miss Rubery who taught us all elementary sewing. I do remember that I once made a plaque on a small piece of material that went absolutely right so that it was held up by Miss Rubery to the whole class as an example. I never managed to reach such heights of glory again. The serious needlewomen went on to 24

produce beautiful things and we were told that they were much in demand by court dressmakers in London. I believe that a dress was once made there for a Lady Margaret Bonham-Carter who took an interest in the school and was a great example to us all of what it was possible for a woman to achieve in those days. There was also a large tapestry*, though what it depicted I can no longer remember, but every girl in the school had to put two stitches in it. It was taking years to complete, maybe it is still going on now. Occasionally a local quartet or small group of musicians would come and give a concert in an endeavour to impart some culture to the young philistines at the school. It was the day of the big bands, Henry Hall and Harry Roy, much more to our taste.

There was a music teacher, Miss Jones, who also tried to improve our culture level by a one woman outline during her lessons of various operas both Comic and Grand.

In my second year at the school a new branch of training was started in addition to the dressmaking and commercial subjects. It was called home economics. It was designed to prepare pupils to be cooks, nurses, children’s nurses and a variety of other careers. The country at that time was just pulling out of the great depression but there was still a great deal of poverty and unemployment. When Miss Moffat spoke to us about the new course she pointed out that when times were hard a company could manage without a shorthand typist fairly easily but everyone had to eat and that there were a great many jobs available in the food industry.

Sufficient numbers of us decided that this was just the course we needed and moved in to a newly renovated building in the far righthand corner of the grounds as one entered the gate. Upstairs several rooms had been equipped as a small flat and it was part of the training to learn to care for it as if it were our own. Downstairs we had a variety of ovens and laundry equipment. I think the latter was purely manual but we had gas and electric stoves as well as either an Aga or Esse. The whole set up was overseen by Miss Lucas who did her best with the unruly crowd that we were. She often had to prepare lunches for visitors to the school watched and occasionally helped by the class. It seems to me now that the menu was 25

always roast chicken, green peas and duchesse potatoes followed by either queen of puddings or lemon meringue pie. Very boring it sounds now that everyone is eating Chinese and Indian foods already to re-heat in the oven. I have never cared for laundry work so I am delighted that all the heavy washing is now a thing of the past, and even the ironing is kept down to a minimum.

I married in Singapore in 1948, after several years spent serving in Italy and Malaya with the uniformed branch of NAAFI, then came to what was then Rhodesia where we have lived ever since. We have brought up a family of three, now grown up and left the country.

Is “Pioneers! Oh Pioneers!” still the school song? Are the walnut trees still growing by the moat on the far side of the grounds? The walnuts were considered to be the property of the headmistress, but it was to try to pick one or two in the lunch hour if we could manage without being detected.

I have some lovely memories of the school.

Sincerely Joan Newton-Howes nee Haigh

*The completed frame tapestry now hangs on the wall opposite the headteacher’s room. A similar one, also completed by Fort Pitt girls, hangs in the entrance hall of the Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School.

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THE ORIGINAL SCHOOL SONG. Sung to the tune of Hymn No 304 ‘Songs of Praise’ still remembered with great affection by many former students!

PIONEERS! All the past we leave behind, We take up the task eternal, And the burden and the lesson, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing.

So we go the unknown ways, Pioneers! O Pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet, Not the riches safe and palling, Not for us the tame enjoyment, Never must you be divided, In our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O Pioneers!

All the pulses of the world, All the joyous, all the sorrowing, These are of us, they are with us, We to-day’s procession heading, We the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O Pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, we must never yield or falter, Through the battle, through defeat, Moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O Pioneers!

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THE SECOND WORLD WAR One of the first things which had to be done was to ensure the safety of the pupils and staff in the event of a bombing raid on Chatham. In the Upper Crimea building (now known as the West Wing) concrete blast walls were built along the lower corridors to give extra protection against bomb damage. In addition pupils and staff used the underground chambers of the old Fort as air raid shelters. These chambers were equipped with heat and light and were large enough to house the whole school in an air raid, although the number of pupils dropped considerably from 318 in September 1939 to 139 by April 1940 due to girls being evacuated – some to Wales and some to Sittingbourne.

The arrangements which were made for air raids stated that ‘if an alert goes during dinner time girls should take plate, if already served, and cutlery.

A two stream line should go down the front stairs leading from the back of the dining room to the Crimea classrooms. A two stream line should go down front stairs to protected places. All staff must help.’

Arrangements were also made to see that all parts of the school were supplied with sand bags, water buckets and stirrup pumps to be used in the event of fire breaking out. The plans for the Domestic Science Centre read: ‘Sand and water at each end of the upper and lower corridor. Stirrup pump at top of stairs. Trap door above stirrup pump.

Buckets can be filled in lower kitchen, laundry and scullery’.

Members of staff had to take turns as fire watchers during the night – this meant being on duty at the school between blackout and 7.30 a.m. One night the Army arrived to look for a German plane which was reported to have dropped down in the River Medway.

There were many occasions when bomb damage made it impossible for the pupils coming from outlying areas to reach the school at all. In the later stages of the war when the flying bombs began to fall there was never enough time to reach the shelters and staff and pupils had to put their heads under their desks for protection.

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I joined the Day Technical School for Girls (as it was then called) in 1937, having passed the scholarship at twelve years of age. In March/April of that year an examination was held at Fort Pitt. This was on a Saturday and lasted all day. We found this fairly stressful, but at the same time exciting. The result of this examination was announced on Empire Day (24th May) as we were filing out to the annual parade.

There was only to be two years of schooling in Chatham when war was declared and we were evacuated … When France fell we were sent to Wales. There we were to make lifelong friends, at least I did, and have very happy memories, especially of my host and hostess. School life was somewhat difficult – with the host school sharing its building with a school from Tottenham. Endeavouring to absorb Pythagorus’ Theorem in a small dressing room to say the least, a challenge! Although we were close, there still remained respect for our teachers. They not only taught, they were social workers, confidantes, and appeasers – the latter when trying to placate irate foster parents when girls had been awkward. They also had the sad task of telling girls of the loss of loved ones – brother killed on active service and once a mother killed by a bomb. I know that these teachers left a lasting impression on me and I’m sure I can answer for most of the other girls as well. There is no doubt we missed out on many things in our youth, but we gained a great deal in understanding.

PAMELA CHEW 1937 – 42 In 1941, with the approval of the General Nursing Council, pre-nursing course was started for interested Sixth Form girls and this course continued until the early sixties. In 1942 Miss Sackett replaced Miss Younge as Headmistress and continued in office until her retirement in1961. The School Certificate Education was introduced into the schools during the war years in spite of opposition from staff of local grammar schools felt that a technical school was not the ‘proper’ place for such examination work. In 1944 a girl called Marjorie Youngs made history at the school by being the first girl to take the School Certificate Examination at Fort Pitt. She passed in all five subjects to gain the certificate. By 1945 there were 4 girls taking the School Certificate at Fort Pitt as well as the pupils who were taking the existing R.S.A. (Royal Society of Arts) and Pitman examinations in typing, shorthand and commerce or City and Guild examinations in domestic science or needlework.

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The school changed its name, once more, in 1944 when it became known as the Medway Technical School to avoid confusion with the Chatham Technical School for Boys at Holcombe. The School Certificate and Pre-nursing courses greatly increased the number of girls staying on at the school after the age of 16. In 1945 there were 46 girls in the Sixth Form but by 1950 there were 107.

Shortly after the Second World War the School Certificate was replaced by the General Certificate of Education (O levels) and at Fort Pitt these courses were completed in four terms instead of the usual two years. By 1959, 11 year-olds could enter the school if they had passed the 11+ examination and the school became known as the Medway Technical High School for Girls. For the next few years girls entered the school at 11+ and 13+ and by 1962 the numbers on the school roll had risen to 888.

To overcome the problem of accommodation some classes were taught at the former St. Peter’s Junior School on New Road (now the Roffen Club) and as many girls as possible were encouraged to go home at lunch time.

The dining room at Fort Pitt was inadequate, so the overflow had to be seated at tables which stretched the length of the top corridor of the main building (now known as the West Wing corridor). The new building which was completed in 1964 was named the Sackett Wing and contained a new hall and dining room as well as a library and extra classrooms. The former dining room in the main building was converted into a typing room and the former kitchen became a craft room – both were destroyed in the 1973 fire. Miss Elliott was Headmistress from 1962 until her retirement in 1971. Miss Patton had a most dramatic start to her term as Headmistress since she had only been at the school a few days when there was a terrible fire in the main school building on January 21st 1973. Some classrooms, the staffrooms, administration offices and the Headmistress’ room were completely destroyed. What remained of the central part of the building had to be demolished leaving just the corridor joining the Crimea Block to the West Wing classrooms.

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THE FOLLOWING IS AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE AT THE SCHOOL IN 1973 BY ANN SMITH, MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY – FORT PITT OLD GIRLS’ ASSOCIATION. It was very unfortunate that as the school was preparing itself for the usual mock examinations there was a great tragedy – The Fire – just ten days after our new headmistress, Miss Patton, arrived. The school was devastated.

I recall the Sunday morning after the fire. I received a phone call from one of the girls in my class. She was a friend, but not one I would have expected to ring. I thought it was strange. When she told me what had happened I did not believe her because it is every school girl’s secret wish that the dreaded examination papers should be destroyed just in the nick of time – but she really meant. Lynda Gibson lived in Bourneville Avenue, Chatham, close to the football ground. She had seen the flames from her house. She told me that it had been on the radio, and that we did not have to go to school until further notice. I was stunned. During the week there were pictures in the local newspapers showing the horrified Miss Patton looking up at the school with disbelief. Flames engulfing the main building which housed her office, the secretaries’ office, stationery cupboard, art room and sick room downstairs, and upstairs the staff rooms, Miss Goodwins’ office and the main typing room.

Two weeks later we were back at school. Everything had that smoke smell about it which comes from burning books which were charred and soggy. Walls were black and floors were damp with water which finally quenched the flames.

Next came the examinations. We were more than surprised that somehow the staff had managed to prepare some new examination papers. There was an arrangement with John Fisher School in Ordnance Street, whereby we could use their free classrooms during our examination period. There was only one problem with this arrangement, the same room was not necessarily free for duration of each exam. This 31

meant that if you were in the middle of a paper and the change of lesson bell was rung, you had to pick up your examination paper in silence and walk to the next empty room, then continue until the examination had finished. During these weeks the routine was to go to Fort Pitt at the start of each day, go to John Fisher for the afternoon examinations, back to Fort Pitt for the final registration, then down the hill to go home. The examination results were poor, but we certainly got fit.

The recovery period was very drawn out. First of all large lorries kept arriving with halves of mobile classrooms on their backs. They looked like giant tortoises. Four were sited between the art block and the college next door. Between the art block and the science labs were another two and a toilet mobile. There was a problem with this too.

One half of this mobile was a boys’ toilet. Standing room only girls ‌.. still three cubicles were better than none at all.

The change of lesson pips could not be heard out in the mobiles, so a hand-bell was employed. The duty sixth-former had to walk round with the bell in all weathers, that was until someone had the bright idea of opening one of the windows at the top of West Wing and ringing the bell out of the window.

It was at this time that the school was given area names. Before the fire apart from the Sackett Wing, the main school was only known by classroom numbers. After the fire the names Crimea and West Wing were used to help new girls find their way about. The staff took over the first floor of the Sackett Wing and a new row of offices suddenly appeared along the corridor of the ground floor. Finally the Elliott Wing was built to the rear of the Sackett Wing.

During this period, the old building had been cordoned off for safety reasons. No one seemed to know what was happening to it. There were builders and painters everywhere. When the boards came down and it was evident that this was to be the extent of the restoration, I am sure that I was not alone in feeling that we had lost a very special part of the school. There was something about those stairs. They swept their way from the staff rooms, down to the ground floor opposite the sick room.

You could always imagine yourself as one of the movie stars in a fabulous gown as you glided down holding on to the carved wooden 32

handrail. At the bottom was the show case containing all the school’s top prizes and honours.

It still amazes me how the staff managed to get eight hundred girls back to school quickly and so organised. It must have been quite a feat with so much damage to the ‘heart’ of the school.

A number of mobile classrooms had to be used until the Elliott Wing was completed. Miss Patton stayed at the school until her retirement in 1984 when Miss Atkins, came to the newly renamed Fort Pitt Grammar School for Girls.

The past nine years have seen many changes at Fort Pitt with the introduction of GCSE examinations and the National Curriculum. Old style reports have also been replaced by Profiles and Records of Achievement. The school library has been moved to a more accessible position and funding was granted for the building of a new science and computing block. In addition, the former science laboratories have become technology rooms, the Centre is now ‘the Music House’ and the First World War operating theatre in West Wing has been converted into a fitness room. The Upper North Block has been refurbished and there are plans for many more improvements. Academically the school is now well established and the combination of old and new buildings helps to remind students, staff and parents that they are a part of the continuing story of Fort Pitt.

Fort Pitt Silver Eperigne Still in use at R.A.M.C. Headquarters Millbank, London

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THE SCHOOL BADGE

I. The heavy surround represents the River Medway that dominates our view from the school.

II. The battlements indicate the fortress of Fort Pitt that was built during the Napoleonic era to defend the approach up the River Medway.

III. The cross represents the Military Hospital built during the nineteenth century on the site of Fort Pitt; parts of which remain to the present day.

IV. The book represents the school which was established on this site in 1929.

V. The ‘Kent’ horse is taken from the original school badge.

VI. In colour, pink and blue predominate to indicate the particular uniform which has been worn for about twenty years.

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