Having successfully passed the 11+ examination in 1976, I became a pupil of Fort Pitt Technical School for Girls in Chatham. On 6th September, in the still oppressive heat of that infamous summer, I set out for the first time wearing the distinctive uniform of pink and white check blouse, navy blue jumper, blue wool blazer and pleated navy-blue skirt. Long white socks were regulation wear; however senior pupils were offered the option of American Tan coloured tights.
Around our waists we wore a navy-blue money belt which contained only small change and a green cloakroom ticket, allowing access to the school canteen. Instead of using a bag to carry our books, we were instructed to buy a briefcase. This, and the uniform, made us something of a target for the local secondary school pupils. I felt nothing short of relief that the obligatory bowler hat had recently been removed from the list of requirements.
My walk to school took half an hour each way. The route to Fort Pitt took me along Ordnance Terrace, where on a daily basis I would pass the former home of the writer Charles Dickens. Dickens lived at No.2 (now No.11) between 1817-1821, and mentioned Fort Pitt in his first major work, “The Pickwick Papers.”
Fort Pitt was a very unusual school site. Firstly, we had “the ramparts.” These were broad-topped brick walls, forming part of the school perimeter. We were forbidden to walk along them; however, the instruction was loosely policed and we were frequent visitors, often strolling their length during our lunch breaks.
The ramparts date back to the original fort, which was one of three constructed when the British were made aware of the Emperor Napoleon’s plans to sail an armada up the River Medway and capture the dockyard at Chatham. The site was only used as a fort for a relatively short time, however, between 1810 and 1814. With the defeat and exile of Napoleon, the threat of invasion from France was reduced and a hospital was set up on the site the same year to house wounded soldiers.
The Crimea Wing, retrospectively named, is the oldest of the original buildings remaining. It was one of two purpose-built wards, originally configured in the shape of an “H,” and was constructed after the conversion of Fort Pitt from a fort into a permanent military hospital in 1824. Patients were housed here in large wards and were able to sit outside in the shade of a long colonnade at the front. The plinths are still visible today.
The Crimean War, fought between 1853-1856, began when a clash between Russia and the declining Ottoman Empire led to a major conflict between Russia, Britain and France. As the war progressed, casualties from the battles of the River Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman began to arrive at Fort Pitt. Many were severely wounded; some had lost limbs or were suffering from shell shock or mental breakdown. Queen Victoria visited the wounded in 1855 on three occasions: March 3rd, June 19th and 28th November.
According to Cooper (16) a fact-finding mission brought another famous visitor, Florence Nightingale, to Fort Pitt in November 1856. ** Photograph/ illustration ** Her aim was to establish an Army Medical School to train young surgeons, and Fort Pitt became the school’s first choice for its home. Five intakes of students were trained at Fort Pitt from 1860 onwards, before the Army Medical School was transferred to the new Victoria Hospital at Netley in Hampshire.
Crimea Wing was also home to my first form room when I started at the school. Each classroom had tall windows placed high along the far wall, and each contained a roll-up blackboard and boxes of chalk. Old-fashioned wooden desks with lift top lids and ink wells were arranged in rows facing the front. We would sit alphabetically in lessons according to our surnames. Biros were not allowed; we had to supply our own ink pens and blotting paper. Alternatively, we could use a fountain pen, into which you could insert an ink cartridge.
As mentioned, supervision was minimal outside of lesson time, and we were allowed a great deal of freedom in the grounds. In front of the school’s main entrance sit three large, black cannons, all remnants of the Crimean War. We were permitted to climb and sit upon these during our lunch breaks. Our school buildings were set amongst a vast grassy area with plenty of shrubs and trees for shade. These were inherited from the days when, as described by Cooper, planting took place “ to transform the stark features of the fort into an attractive area for convalescents.”
Our school day was divided into three forty-minute lessons followed by a morning break, two further forty-minute lessons followed by lunch, and three final lessons finishing at 3.50pm. We were alerted to lesson changes and breaks via a tannoy system. Each classroom housed a wooden box, which issued a series of bleeps at the required intervals. As we progressed through the school, it became common to have double and even treble lessons. The longest of these by far was treble mathematics on a Friday afternoon.
We studied mathematics on the ground floor of West Wing, which was originally known as the New Crimea wing when building commenced in 1913. The new building was added on to the remaining wing of the old Crimea Block and had just been completed when WW1 broke out in autumn 1914. A new electric lift had been installed along with X-ray rooms; all the floors and ceilings had rounded corners to be dust free, and the windows opened inwards to protect patients from drafts. At that point, the hospital was able to accommodate 550 patients and was separated into two main divisions, surgical and medical. The surgical division, with its new operating theatre and 400 beds, dealt mainly with bullet and shrapnel wounds. The operating theatre, with its large windows and skylights, became our fifth-year form room in September 1980.
Further along the corridor was a large hall. Here, in what would have originally been one of the long Nightingale wards, we would dance twice a week to musical compositions, such as Pier Gynt, wearing our black regulation leotards. Upstairs, and directly above, was another of the long wards. This had been divided into three large interconnecting classrooms where we were taught History and Geography The main corridor connecting West Wing to the Crimea Block was widely rumoured to be haunted. Our school caretaker, who lived on site, would tell us that when he did his rounds, walking the corridor in the evenings with his dog, the animal’s hackles would rise, and he would growl even though there was nothing to be seen.
There was a further large classroom situated off this corridor, where we would study Milton and Shakespeare as part of our A-level English Literature course. The room had previously been known as Ward 22 and was where the officer patients had been treated separately to their men.
West Wing hosted an elderly and unreliable heating system which regularly failed during the cold winters. On those occasions we were allowed to wear our coats and scarves in class to avoid being sent home when the mercury dropped.
The detached building where we were taught Domestic Science stands on the north-western flank of the site of the old fort. It was originally known as the asylum, since its purpose when it opened in 1857 was to house soldiers suffering from mental illness and shell shock. Cooper states that the building could house 34 patients and had a colonnade and verandah as well as a garden (18) ** Years later, during renovations, workmen found some old handwritten letters in the rafters, penned by a patient but never posted. These were retained in the school archives. The majority of our cookery lessons were supervised by Mrs W. She took great pride in giving a detailed explanation, once spending an entire treble lesson teaching us how to boil an egg. During our first three years at the school, we tackled among other things the making of a roux sauce, scones and a Victoria sponge.
Presentation was everything and Mrs W would regularly encourage us to “titivate” our creations upon white paper doilies. On discovering weevils in her giant tin of flour, the resilient Mrs W insisted this was an extra source of protein and we proceeded to make biscuits.
Next to the main school building, accessed by a slope, were the sports fields. Here we would wade through mud, grasping hockey sticks in the winter, or plod around tracks painted onto the grass during summer. The tennis courts were to one side of the fields and directly adjacent to a high brick wall. Hidden behind the wall is a network of tunnels, the entrance to which has been bricked up. We were instructed not to go looking for the entrance and as I recall we complied, having been assured that the tunnels were full of old barrels of dynamite which could blow us up. In actual fact, as confirmed by Cooper, some of the underground chambers beneath the school were used by staff and pupils as air raid shelters during World War 2, when the Germans carried out bombing raids on Chatham Dockyard.
On occasion we would be taken for a run across the fields, passing Jackson’s Gardens and skirting the Medway College of Art and Design on our way back. This was all land which originally belonged to the old Fort. Sadly, a cross-country run would be impossible these days, as the route would take a path directly through a new housing estate.
I recall having music and sewing lessons in two single-story, prefab style buildings separate from the main school. I assume these must have been demolished and replaced by a building known as “the old science block’ after I left the school in 1983. The classrooms were accessed via one of two sets of stone steps and seemed to be built inside a large dip in the ground. I remember this as a pretty area, surrounded by trees, shrubs and flowers.
Here we would learn to read music and play the recorder; the more musically inclined were then encouraged to take up the clarinet or cello. Should anyone be unfortunate enough to play a bum note when the whole class practised together, each pupil was made to play the tune alone in turn. In this way, our formidable music teacher Mrs J could discover the culprit. Mrs J also had an important role to play during school assemblies. It was she who banged out hymns on the school piano each morning while we sang along; a particular favourite was our school hymn, “Jerusalem.”
The sewing room was next door. Mrs C was the sole member, and therefore by default the head, of the Needlework Department. Her classroom was full of long tables topped with sewing machines, over which we toiled week after week, making pink and white cookery aprons which were to be worn when we started Domestic Science lessons. This, and a school summer uniform dress (never worn), were the only items I have ever produced using a needle and thread. I still recall Mrs C’s look of despair when I broke one of the sewing machine needles whilst hemming my apron, and her efforts to untangle my cotton spools. We were both relieved when the third-year options provided me with an opportunity to drop sewing classes.
The single-story science block, where we experimented with Bunsen burners and wire wool, dissected pigs’ eyeballs, and memorised the periodic table, has gone. It has been replaced by a new art, design and technology block. Meanwhile, a vast new science building has claimed the open space behind West Wing. A new sports hall stands in the area where once there were netball courts, and the Domestic Science Block (the old Asylum) is now known as the Music House. The Crimea Block gym has been turned into a school library; it seems very much smaller than our old library, which occupied the entire top floor of the school’s more modern Sackett Wing. There have been many changes since I was a pupil at Fort Pitt School, yet returning in 2023 for an Old Girls Association Open Day brought back good memories.
The last word goes to John Cooper, on whose meticulous research I have relied quite heavily. He says of Fort Pitt that “no other site has left behind so much fascinating evidence as to how the new incumbents, with great ingenuity, utilised the facilities left behind by their predecessors.”1
Banner Image credit ILN staff, The Illustrated London News, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Works Cited
Cooper, John. “Fort Pitt in War and in Peace. Chapter Two: The Army Hospital.” Blogspot.com, 17 Apr. 2024, https://fortpittinwarandinpeace.blogspot.com
Cooper, John. “Fort Pitt in War and in Peace. Chapter Eight: Fort Pitt School in the Second World War and the Latter Half of the 20th Century.” Blogspot.com, 21 May 2024, https://fortpittinwarandinpeace.blogspot.com
Cooper, John. “Fort Pitt in War and in Peace. Chapter Nine: The Site of Fort Pitt in the 21st Century.” Blogspot.com, 27 May 2024, https://fortpittinwarandinpeace.blogspot.com
Cooper, John. “Fort Pitt in War and in Peace. Chapter Nine: The Site of Fort Pitt in the 21st Century.” Blogspot.com, 27 May 2024, https://fortpittinwarandinpeace.blogspot.com
Cooper, John. Fort Pitt: Some Notes on the History of a Napoleonic Fort, Military Hospital and Technical School. Wellcome Collection, 1974. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fzuucb44.
References
Cooper, John. “Fort Pitt in War and in Peace. Chapter Nine: The Site of Fort Pitt in the 21st Century.” Blogspot.com, 27 May 2024, https://fortpittinwarandinpeace.blogspot.com ↩︎