Rushden Research Group: Misses Smith's Farmhouse School

Misses Smith's Farm House School

A picture of Marriott's Farm now demolished

A postcard of High Street North c1920-1925. From the right are:
Phillips (draper), River Plate Meat Co, the thatched farm house school of
the Misses Smith. On the left, Haighs (furniture), Electricity Showroom.
In the distance the old railway bridge.

Wellingborough News, 5^th September 1890

Notice of Removal

Farm House School, Rushden
(Ladies School)

Conducted by the Misses Smith
(late of Rose Hill School)

Class for little Boys; advanced class for Painting; evening class for French.

Terms Moderate.

Next Term to commence on Monday 8^th Sept.

Wellingborough News, 22^nd January 1892

prospectus

This little card is all we have seen from Misses Smith's Private Ladies' School.

Inside the fees suggest they also taught little boys! The subjects were: English, French, Music, and Drawing.

Daily or Weekly Boarders.

Miss Lizzie (b 1846) and Miss Matilda (b 1850) Smith were both born in Huntingdon, daughters of William (an ironmonger's assistant and Elizabeth). They had three brothers, and two other sisters. By 1861 William was widowed, and in 1881 he had his three eldest daughters, all spinsters, living with him in Derby; Jane the eldest was housekeeper, and Elizabeth and Matilda were teaching.

In the late 1880s Lizzie and Matilda came to Rushden and established their school in High Street. The Farm House was at no 102 High Street, and the school continued until at least 1919, when Elizabeth died. Robert Marriott, kept the farm, and had moved a little further towards Higham, and was moving into the building trade as the village was growing into a town. The land was being developed as a High Street, to serve the growing population, but farmhouse remained until 1937, when it was demolished.

The Rushden Argus, 10th January 1919, transcribed by Kay Collins

The Blind—The National Institute for the Blind have written thanking the pupils of Farm House School, Rushden, for their subscription of 10s. 6d. to the fund.

Private Schools