Experiences of learning within a twentieth‐century radical experiment in education: Prestolee School, 1919–1952

Abstract

Prestolee School, at Kearsley, near Bolton in Lancashire, UK, was the site of an experiment in education between 1919 and 1952 under the leadership of head teacher, Edward Francis O’Neill (1890–1975). The school attracted much national and international attention over three decades owing to the unorthodox methods practised by O’Neill and the extraordinarily rich learning environment set amidst the industrial poverty of this small mill town. However, we know very little about the experience of learning within such a radical experiment in education. This article examines the experiences of the pupils through two main sources: archive documents produced between 1925 and 1945 and oral testimony recorded in 2008. Consideration is given to the methodological challenges and opportunities of mixed method research—in this case, combining cross‐disciplinary enquiry with oral testimony and documentary analysis. Reading the school building as a text, the changes in the design of learning spaces over time are foregrounded. Neither a history of school architecture and design nor a social history rooted in memory and the documentary record, the article represents a methodological departure from architectural history and the social history of schooling.