Plaque: Chauncy Hare Townshend Schools
Erection date: 13/9/1876
The Chauncy Hare Townshend Schools
The Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the Revd. Thomas Helmore, executors and devisees of the Revd. Chauncy Hare Townshend erected these schools as a memorial of friendship and in furtherance of his pious wish.
This corner stone was laid by their friend Hannah, widow of William Brown Esq. MD. on the 13th day of September 1876.
Site: Chauncy Hare Townshend Schools and St Stephen's extension (3 memorials)
SW1, Rochester Street
The central, rather cotagey, building has both CHT plaques, the terracotta plaque to the left of the entrance and the war damage plaque to the right.
The church extension is to the right of the school in rather cleaner stonework with the plaque below the Gothic window.
The website of the school helps us to understand the school plaques. "In the early 1840s, the Bishop of London informed the Dean and Chapter of Westminster that Miss Burdett-Coutts had approached him with a proposal to build a church and school in Westminster in memory of her father and that she would like this memorial to be the centre-piece of a new parish bearing the name of St. Stephen. The area he had in mind was then one of the worst slums in London; an area bounded by Rochester Street, Rochester Row, Vincent Square, and Bell (now Elverton) Street.
There were originally three schools: a boys school, a girls school and an infant school (called Townshend Foundation). In 1849, the main school was built and on 21st August, 1907, the combined schools became the Burdett-Coutts and Townshend Foundation School, Rochester Street."
It's not clearly stated but we imagine that the cotagey building was the Townshend Primary school, and that the large, tall building to the left housed the boys and girls schools.
