The education the boys received in the Victorian period was supposed to be better than that provided by the new National and British Schools.
This was because the boys had schoolmasters who had been to university, and because the boys stayed on at school beyond the age of 13 when the pupils at the other schools left.
A schools inspector, however, said that the education was if anything worse!

The school recovered from these dark days though, and a fine new building for the school was built on the site of the old county gaol. The photograph above shows the opening of the new building in 1899.

At the very end of the reign of Queen Victoria the school opened its doors to girls, giving them a chance for the first time of an education beyond the age of 13.

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