In 1855 the first part state funded school was established in Hanwell. It was a National School, which meant that both the Anglican Church and the taxpayer funded it, and control was originally vested in the Church’s representatives. It was for both boys and girls and at first each pupil’s parents had to pay a few pence per week for their child’s education. The school’s Christian ethos was made clear by a prominent inscription beginning ‘Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom’.
Once when the headmaster was ill, the rector of Hanwell (son of the famous poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge) took charge of the school for a week. A later headmaster was Charles Neaves, who was also a historian who wrote The History of Greater Ealing in 1931. It was renamed St. Mark’s school after the church. In the 1970s and 1980s it was a primary and middle school and is now a primary school for ages 3-11.
