2014

TF1405 : Arthur Mellows Village College, Glinton

taken 10 years ago, near to Glinton, Peterborough, England

Arthur Mellows Village College, Glinton
Arthur Mellows Village College, Glinton
Arthur Mellows Village College (AMVC), located on Helpston Road, currently numbers around 1,700 pupils, having undergone significant expansion over the years. In addition to Glinton itself, its catchment area includes several neighbouring villages plus the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Wittering.
AMVC opened in September 1949 and was one of the first new secondary schools to be completed in the United Kingdom after the Second World War. It was named in memory of Colonel Arthur Holdich Mellows (1892-1948), who served as mayor of Peterborough from 1935 to 1937. The school converted to comprehensive status in 1972 and became an Academy specialising in technology in September 2010.
AMVC was built at a time when tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviet bloc during the Cold War were reaching their height. The school was reputedly designed with wide corridors and spacious classrooms in such a way that it could be relatively easily converted for use as a hospital in the event of a national emergency. If this was indeed the case, it was thankfully never needed for this purpose.
Born on March 5th., 1892, as the son of Peterborough's Town Clerk, Arthur Mellows studied classics and philosophy at Oxford University and later qualified as a solicitor. (Some sources state Mellows' date of birth as March 2nd., 1892). He enlisted with the Huntingdonshire Cyclist Battalions in the First World War. After the war, he served as Labour Controller in Baghdad when Iraq was a League of Nations mandate under British control.
During his tenure as mayor of Peterborough, Mellows oversaw the opening of the city's Lido. He later served as commanding officer of Peterborough's Home Guard during the Second World War. As a city councillor, he was heavily involved in expanding the city's educational facilities and was appointed as the first chairman of the Peterborough Joint Education Board in 1945. Mellows was killed on October 16th., 1948, when his car was struck by a train at an unmanned level crossing at Conington.
The concept of the "village college", which is unique to Cambridgeshire, was the brainchild of the educationalist Henry Morris (born 1889 in Southport, Lancashire; died 1961 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire). Morris served as Cambridgeshire's Secretary of Education and later Chief Education Officer from 1922 to 1954.
The village colleges were intended significantly to improve the wholly inadequate provision of secondary education in rural areas of Cambridgeshire after the First World War and during the global economic depression of the 1930s. The concept was also aimed at integrating secondary education and community education, with college buildings and facilities being made available for adult education classes and other community-based activities outside school hours.
In addition to providing a high standard of secondary education, Morris intended the village colleges to promote life-long learning. He believed that this would help to stem the economic decline of rural areas and the migration of the population away from the countryside as well as contributing to the regeneration of the rural communities served by the colleges. The "community education" ethos propounded by Morris was subsequently adopted elsewhere in the United Kingdom and abroad.
The very first village college was opened at Sawston in 1930, followed by Bottisham and Linton in 1937 and Impington in 1939. Their growth was interrupted by the Second World War but, by the time of Morris' retirement as Chief Education Officer in 1954, the county boasted six village colleges. Their number was substantially increased in later years, most recently with the opening of Cambourne Village College in September 2013.
When it opened in 1949, AMVC in Glinton became the first village college located outside Cambridgeshire as the Soke of Peterborough was at that time a separate administrative county in its own right (it was merged into the county of Huntingdon and Peterborough in 1965 and then became part of the non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire under the major local government reorganisation of 1974). Since 1998, Glinton has formed part of the Peterborough Unitary Authority Area - which is autonomous of Cambridgeshire County Council - although it remains within the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire.

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Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Paul Bryan and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Village Colleges were Intended Significantly to Improve [10] Title Clusters: · Arthur Mellows Village College, Glinton [6] ·
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TF1405, 28 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Paul Bryan   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Sunday, 24 August, 2014   (more nearby)
Submitted
Saturday, 30 August, 2014
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TF 1492 0580 [10m precision]
WGS84: 52:38.2672N 0:18.1917W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TF 1493 0581
View Direction
Southwest (about 225 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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