Hitchin Flashcards
Describe modern Hitchin
Hitchin has a population of 30,000.
It has easy access to kings cross and attracts people who can’t afford London’s inflated prices
There are a large number of entertainment forms in Hitchin including indoor and outdoor swimming pools, three theatres, two good secondhand bookshops, Waterstone’s, and a film club.
There is also a large diversity in cuisine including Chinese, Thai, Italian and Indian.
Hitchin in 1851
The Corn Exchange was created and soon attracted merchants from as far away as Liverpool with grain moved by train. This was a further spur to the town’s growth and prosperity. Its status as a center for the trading of grain was enhanced.
Educaiton in hitchin
philanthropists set up a school in 1810
where children of the working poor could be taught cheaply and effectively through Joseph Lancaster’s ‘Monitorial method’, which involved one master teaching as many as 300 children in one large schoolroom.
the school thrived as even the poorest families were willing to pay the ‘school pence’ to help their children to gain an education and escape the desperate poverty in which they lived. This means
Free primary education for all wouldn’t be provided for another 80 years in the UK so Hitchin was a forward-looking town.
Today, the British Schools Museum charts the history of education from 1810 to 1969 and the 1837 Monitorial Schoolroom is the only one of its kind left in the world.
