However the schools found it difficult to meet their maintenance costs, and also suffered from competition with board schools.

Both were red-brick Victorian board schools, built in 1870.

Founded in 1875 as an elementary board school, it now has about 170 pupils.

There is also the board school and the town elementary schools.

It seems likely that once the board schools were well established for both sexes, by the 1880s, the same thing will have been true of girls.

Five years later the first scholarships were awarded to girls from local board schools.

In 1912 the elementary board school was extended and underwent building work to increase capacity.

Education was now compulsory from five to thirteen and many new board schools were built.

Religious teaching in board schools was restricted to non-denominational instruction, or none at all.

The school must have proved unsatisfactory, for in 1872 it was forced to become a board school.