Just to add a little to the Hill Street conundrum....here's a bit about the National School in Pinfold Street....and a pic for reminders....
BIRMINGHAM NATIONAL SCHOOL, PINFOLD STREET. Established 1812. The lease of a site on the N.W. side of Pinfold St., between Lower Temple St. and Peck Lane (Birmingham Corporation, was obtained from the governors of the Grammar School by the trustees, of whom the Rector of St. Martin's was secretary. The rent of £15 was later remitted in exchange for permission to the governors to nominate 60 pupils. While the school was being built 2 rooms in Temple Row were rented and a master appointed. The temporary school opened Aug. 1812, and was visited and commended by Andrew Bell.
The ground floor of the new building (one room 80 ft. by 40 ft.) was opened as a Boys school in 1813, accomodating 500. The Girls school, over the Boys, was opened 1814 under a mistress especially trained in the National Society Central School
The sch. hours were 9–1, 2–4 in the winter, 8–12, 2–5 rest of year. The children attended church twice on Sundays. Pupils were nominated by subscribers. In 1814 it was said that 'no works of industry' were introduced, 'the children being taken into the manufactories at an early age'. In 1817 the G sch. was said to benefit from the assiduity of the lady visitors, while the B sch. apparently suffered from the irregularity of its visitors. The girls spent much time in 'plain work' which was sold; they excelled in religious knowledge. In 1818 there was a drop in attendance owing to the increased demand for children's labour, and to a decision not to admit children under 7 yrs. old. A Sunday sch. for girls was opened because the girls generally left the day sch. so young. Numbers continued to fall (n.o.b. 1824: 11 B, 69 G and 41 G in Sunday sch.) until 1826 when a new master and mistress were appointed. Fees 1835: 1
d. (Hutton,
Hist. Birm. (1835), 358). In 1837 the average time spent in the sch. was 10¼ months; n.o.b. 324, a.a. 150, with 3 teachers.There is no mention of the sch., except in maps, after a probable reference to it in 1845. It must have been pulled down
c. 1850 in the building of New St. Station: in 1867 it was said that £500 had been 'allocated for sch. building, to each of four districts in Birmingham, being half the sum paid by the Railway for the lease of the ground, occupied by the old Central School near St. Martin's'. It was also said that probably no inspected sch. in the borough was in so low a state as the 'old central school at St. Martin's' used to be: this may have referred to St. Martin's, Inge St.
Well, it looks like the clock says 11 and the shadows do suggest the middle of the day.
