ABSTRACT
Three northern cities—Bradford, Sheffield, and Manchester—were pioneers in the higher-grade school movement, and were very proud of what they had achieved. Bradford's first such school, Feversham Street, had been opened as an ordinary board school in 1874. Shortly afterwards an HMI report recommended that the fairly small number of older children in all the board's schools should be concentrated into a few schools in order to provide them with a better education. As the Feversham Street building was not fully used, it was decided to adapt it for that purpose (Bradford Education in 1970:19). Other schools were opened during the following years. The most important of them, catering for both boys and for girls, were Belle Vue, opened in 1879, and Hanson, opened in 1897 and named after James Hanson, a former chairman of the board.
