We are very proud of our rich heritage and connections with the Maritime industry. Following the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, there was a recognition that improvements in seamanship were required and a number of nautical training schools worked to improve standards. London Nautical is the only one of those training schools that remains with a nautical and maritime ethos.
As an institution the academy has been in existence since 1915. Originally known as Rotherhithe Nautical School, the school occupied just three rooms in Rotherhithe New Road Boys School. By 1937 the nautical training section of the school had outgrown its premises and was moved to Galleywall Road School – coincidentally, this is now the home of Galleywall Primary, one of the three primary schools that forms part of our City of London Academies Trust. The school was evacuated during the Second World War, eventually returning to our next home on Broadwall in Southwark.
Finally, in 1965 London Nautical School arrived at our current location on Stamford Street, still maintaining its focus on supplying recruits for the Navy and Merchant Navy well into the 1970s.
To this day, our academy offers maritime qualifications to our students who aspire to pursue a career in the maritime industries.
Our archive, artifacts and memorabilia
The academy has generously allocated a room to preserve a collection of some wonderful old artifacts of the schools days gone by: from charts to tin whistles, thank you letters from Royalty, maps and plans of the lost buildings on the site, legal documents, innumerable photographs of the pupils and a good number of the staff and a few, but by no means all we are sure, trophies awarded as a result of the sporting excellence of the boys.
We are always on the lookout for artifacts or personal recollections that relate to the local area, school or maritime industry (especially in respect to relationships to the Alumni) to add to our collection.
In particular we have gaps in our collection in the following areas:
- Memorabilia, documents or artifacts relating to the pre war existence of the school as the “Rotherhithe Nautical School”
- Information about TS Exmouth
- Information about London Nautical School & our relationship with Woolverstone Hall School in Suffolk
- Information about the evacuations of the school to Hailsham, Ferryside and then to New Quay in Wales
- Pictures from the school history, especially the John Rennie Primary School (Broadwall site), Silwood Street, Galleywall Road, Rotherhithe New Road school and Comber Grove in Camberwell
- Information about Ethelm House (Waterloo) & a second Annex site in the London Bridge area possibly at the John Harvard Primary School on what was then Orange Street
- Text and pupils exercise books from days gone by.
- Trophies, artifacts and memorabilia we can add to our collection
So please do contact us with anything you may feel will add to our archive and we will preserve your contributions.
If you would be interested in accessing the collection please contact Rob Melia: sbm@lns.org.uk.
A timeline of our history
Sixth Form
The latest addition to the school was in 2003 when our sixth form block was built at the same time as the school gave up some of its land to the North that originally formed the footprint of the Unitarian Chapel for development.
In 2018 the school teamed up with Volenti Football Academy to create an academic pathway that would combine with the aspirations of young men to become professional football players.
61 Stamford Street
This ‘temporary’ home on Broadwall lasted the school for 18 years until 1965. The School Bulletins around this time record relief as the school planned its move to the building at number 61 Stanford Street. Numerous memos exist in the school archive from the 1963/64 period detailing the progress of the building and renovation works just prior to moving into the building of what was the Lambeth School of Printing and Kindred Trades directly across Broadwall.
The site was originally dissected by Broadwall the remainder of the site contained residential properties and the John Rennie primary school. The rear of the Stamford Street Unitarian Chapel was demolished in 1964 leaving just the Portico as the entrance to the yard of the school, and Broadwall no longer existed south of Stamford Street as the current site grew.
As the school enters its 105 year as an institution and 54 years on its current site the Nautical focus is no longer so prevalent, but LNS still offers courses for all age groups to become qualified on the water thus supporting the fledgling careers of new mariners. We still enjoy the support of various organisations within the shipping and maritime industry for which we remain enormously grateful and benefit from strong support of our Governors many of whom enjoyed long and distinguished careers in the maritime industry.
The current 6th form continues to flourish in conjunction with our football academy partners attracting pupils from pan London and the boys in years 7 to 11 still wear a Nautical themed school uniform but alas not the “square rig” of years gone by.
Broadwall
Toward the latter part of the 1940’s the amalgamation of the Rotherhithe Nautical School and the School of Engineering and Navigation (SEN) took place. The pupils from SEN in Poplar came to be schooled with the boys from Rotherhithe Nautical School in an old primary school on Broadwall SE1 and a smaller number of boys arrived from the Woolverstone Hall residential school.
Hatfields Road School was built in 1876 following the purchase of land and properties in both Hatfields and on Broadwall by the LLC.. The School Board of London was the elected body that was set up after the passing of the 1870 Education Act making it compulsory for all children to attend school from age five to thirteen. The Board employed their own architects and many of the schools of the time were designed in an Anglo Dutch style known as Queen Anne; numerous examples of this style of school still stand but unfortunately not the Hatfield Road school. In 1937 the school was renamed the John Rennie Primary School.
It was closed as a primary school in 1939; but then was used as a fire station during the Second World War (and still contained stables). The London Nautical School moved into this building in the summer of 1946/47 during a time of a post war shortage of suitable buildings. The role was expected to be 250 pupils.
Around this time, with Mr FJ Fuest taking his Headship the school yard had been equipped with a boat deck, davits with lifeboat, a mast and derrick and also a spar for the breeches buoy.
Comber Grove
Briefly following the war the school moved to Comber Grove in Camberwell (1946-1947) still known as the Rotherhithe Nautical School a name it retained after 1946 when located on Broadwall as the seminal School Bulletins (newsletters) record. The archive of School Bulletins first record the use of the name London Nautical School on its Easter 1948 edition, but retained “Rotherhithe” in brackets – somewhere between Easter of 1950 and Summer of 1950 the “Rotherhithe“ was dropped from the Bulletin header and the school became known as the London Nautical School. Comber Grove school is still in existence today.
Hailsham, Ferryside & New Quay
The school was evacuated during the conflict of WW2, firstly to Hailsham then to Wales; initially Ferryside and then to Newquay. The pupils occupied private homes and hostels and then the school took over three hotels whilst some boys remained billeted at local houses. Mr FJ Fuest was the Headmaster and oversaw the evacuation and eventual return to London. During the period of evacuation the Silwood Street site was bombed (7th September 1940) the shell of the building remaining visible till the 1950’s.
Silwood Road School
Standing between New Cross and London Bridge Stations Silwood Street School was almost directly behind the school’s first location at Rotherhithe New Road and hosted the school from 1937 to 1939. This site provided much needed additional space for the school with two full floors of classroom space and two yards, large and small – preferable to sharing with the under eleven pupils at Rotherhithe New Road. Headteacher Mr TJ Stead lamented the move from Rotherhithe New Road principally because of the lost benefit to the pupils of being adjacent to Surrey Commercial Docks and of no longer being able to see the ships at port.
Galleywall Road School
By 1937 the nautical training section of Rotherhithe New Road School had outgrown its premises and the “Rotherhithe Nautical School” became a separate institution which moved to Galleywall Road School in Rotherhithe. The stay at Galleywall was just six months before moving onto Silwood Street also in Rotherhithe.
Founding the institution
As an institution the school has been in existence since Monday 29th March 1915 as the Rotherhithe Nautical School as it was then known; based in three rooms at the Nautical Department of Rotherhithe New Road (Higher Grade) Boys School.
The “Nautical Training Department” had been set up by the Education Committee of London as a three year “experiment” to up skill the merchant sailors of the time possibly in response to the sinking of the Titanic. The school was to run alongside the School of Engineering and Navigation (SEN) based in Poplar which was inaugurated in 1906 and catered for boys of fourteen years and above who were bound for the Officer Class and the TS Exmouth, which was finally based in Woolverstone Hall in Suffolk. Post World War II all the schools came together on Broadwall SE1 as the London Nautical School.
The honour of being the first “apprentice” placed from this “experiment” was recorded (according to the records of 1948) as going to Bob Spalding who came to the Nautical School from Childeric Road School, New Cross and found apprentice employ with Messer’s Furness Withy in 1916.
The Rotherhithe Nautical School stayed on at Rotherhithe New Road till 1937.
Benevolent Society of St Patrick
Originally the building was used by the ‘Benevolent Society of St Patrick’ dating from 1820 and utilised as a school for the “object of educating, clothing and apprenticing poor children born of Irish parents in or near London”; the building was designed by James Mountague and built by J&H Lee.
As the lease expired in the early 1920’s the site was then acquired by London County Council who added a new wing to the existing building (which is now our Malone Hall) . At the time and until 1965 the building was the Lambeth School of Printing and Kindred Trades.