St Paul's Whitechapel CE Primary School                     school website

In the 19th century, St George-in-the-East and its various mission churches were active in building and running schools for the children of the area. With the coming of the Board (county, now 'community') Schools, this involvement was gradually lost. But in 1971, when the parish of St Paul Dock Street was joined to St George-in-the-East, and we became the parish of 'St George-in-the-East with St Paul', we were glad to acquire responsibility once again for a voluntary aided (VA) church school, whose history is told here in connection with its founder, Dan Greatorex - including his claim that it was at this school that the first-ever free school dinners were served.

We greatly value our links with the school, and take seriously our involvement with its governance. Alongside church members,

LBS Number: 206336     Date Listed: 27/09/1973    NGR: TQ3432080791 Listing Text: WELLCLOSE SQUARE E1   4431 (Central Area)  St Paul's Church of England Primary School  TQ 3480 22/800 1869. Brown brick with white stone dressings. Red arid black brick window dressings. Tiled roof. Gothic style. Western facade has 4 gables, outer 2 above staff houses. Central clock tower with spire above entrance which has 6 cloister arches, centre 2 with stone string course gabled above, and with trefoil finials and tablets marking "Boys" and "Girls" entrances. 2 storeys, 4 windows, Gothic glazing bars and stone tracery. The listed buildings and the road surface of Wellclose Square form a group with Wilton's Music Hall, Grace's Alley. [The listing does not mention this group of carved figures [right], now painted over, in the eaves of one of the classrooms, presumably from Cibber's Danish Church.]

ISAAC ROSENBERG

The poet Isaac Rosenberg was the son of Barnett and Anna, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who had settled in Bristol, where he was born in 1890, before moving to the East End. From 1897-1900, when they were living at 47 Cable Street, he was a pupil at St Paul's School, but then they moved to Jubilee Street and he attended Baker Street School, where Winifreda Seaton was an inspiring teacher. He showed great talent for drawing and painting - the head Mr Usherwood arranged art classes at Stepney Green Art School - and he began writing poetry. Morley Dainow, the librarian at Whitechapel Library, encouraged him and guided his choice of reading. But money was short, so he left school at 14 and became an apprentice engraver at Carl Hentschel's firm in Fleet Street. However, he managed to attend evening classes at Birkbeck College, winning prizes for his nude studies in pencil and then in oils. Aged 21, he won a scholarship at the Slade and was able to study full-time. Ill health, exacerbated by London smog, forced a rest cure, first in Bournemouth then with his sister Annie in Cape Town, whence he returned when war was declared, earning the £15 fare from a painting commissioned by Sir Herbert Stanley. Most of his paintings were lost overboard in a storm in Cape Town harbour, and back in London he struggled to make ends meet, despite finding increasing fame as a poet. Just before he signed up in the army in 1915 he published 'Youth', a small collection of poems. Having continued to write poetry in the trenches, Private Rosenberg 22311, 1st King's Own Royal Lancasters, was killed in action on a dawn patrol on 1 April 1918. He was the only one of the major war poets to come from a deprived background. Here, here, and (from the War Poets Association) here are further accounts of his life and significance. The group of local Jewish writers and artists, which included Mark Gertler, is now known as the 'Whitechapel Boys' - see here for another member, the painter David Bomberg.

Here are three self-portraits - the first from 1915 now in the National Potrait Gallery, the third sketched in France - and three photographs (one with his brother Elkon in 1917) from the Imperial War Museum.

Below are manuscripts of the poems Spring, and (written on Salvation Army notepaper) Daughters of War.

Rosenberg's poem The Jew describes the racism he experienced, not at school, but in the trenches:

The blue plaque is on the outside wall of the Whitechapel Gallery. In 1995, when the British Library was relocating, a bundle of 34 letters and 18 draft poems was discovered among the papers of former curator and fellow-poet Laurence Binyon, who had been Rosenberg's mentor; they were published as Poetry out of my Head and Heart.

I WAS A FIREMAN

When the Second World War broke out, Docklands was a prime target and many children were evacuated (though many of them later returned). The school was used as a fire station. Some scenes from I was a Fireman, also released as Fires Were Started, were shot in 1942-43 around the school. It is the story of a day in the life of an Auxiliary Fire Service unit (a volunteer service set up in 1938) tackling a Docklands munitions factory at the height of the Blitz, and was the work of the innovative director Humphrey Jennings (1907-50) [right], who used AFS members (including Cyril Demarne) rather than professional actors. Although it was produced for the Ministry of Information by the Crown Film Unit (until 1940 the GPO Film Unit), as propaganda, it has acquired iconic status in the annals of social realism. Dilys Powell in the Sunday Times called it moving and terrifying. Lindsay Anderson wrote in 1954 that Jennings was the only true poet the British cinema has yet produced.

Year 6 pupils made a DVD for parents with ideas and suggestions to help parents get involved with the children's reading skills. It was distributed throughout the borough, and to church schools around the diocese.

Each year Trowers and Hamlins sponsor a competition to design a Christmas card, and give prizes for each year group, with an overall winner whose design becomes their corporate card which they send out to all their contacts. The winner in 2010 [left] was Zarin Ahmed of year 6 (who also played the central role of 'Innkeeper's Wife' in the school Christmas production); the firm made donations to Macmillan Cancer Support and Red Crescent. The 2011 winner was Fahmid Ahmed of year 4, and donations were made to Macmillan Cancer Support and Médecins Sans Frontières.


January 2011

God of past, present & future In your presence in our world you offer us the wild hope, against all the odds, of human flourishing. Thank you for this school, for its presence and engagement in its community, for its people & its purpose.  Thank you for all who have worked so hard to make the refurbishment of this school possible. We give thanks for the community that has inspired it,   for the architect’s eye that conceived it,   the designer’s hand that developed it,   the craftsman’s skill that brought it to birth,   the manager’s experience that has overseen it   and for every gift, freely offered, that has given it life. And now we ask you to bless this building as a place of   welcome & hospitality   education and development   creativity & imagination   meeting & encounter   justice & human dignity   fun & laughter. In this place may individuals be cherished and communities renewed; may young people be valued and foundations for living be laid carefully and well. So may God bless, consecrate and make holy all that happens here  † In the name of the Creator, Redeemer & Sustainer of us all. I now declare this building blessed, rededicated, and fully open for business!

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