England, Cheshire, School Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

England Cheshire

What is in the Collection?
This collection consists of school records from the county of Cheshire for the years 1796 to 1950. These records contain about 1.9 million names from 120 schools. For a list of the schools included in this collection see the wiki article Schools Included in the Online Collection: England, Cheshire, School Records, 1796-1950.

Schools for the working class were organized by churches in England, primarily by the Church of England in the early nineteenth century. In 1870, the British government took responsibility for education, and by 1880 school was required for children between 5 and 10 years old. The age of mandatory attendance was raised to 12 in 1899, to 14 in 1918, and to 15 in 1948. Between World War I and World War II, working class children attended elementary schools, middle class children attended grammar schools, and upper class children attended public schools.

The school registers for Cheshire were used to keep track of children who were admitted. They tracked age, name, and address of the parent; name of the previous school the child attended; the child’s academic progress; and the date and reason for the child’s withdrawal from the school. The school admission and discharge registers were highly reliable sources about a student’s admission and discharge, and, where recorded, his or her academic progress. The child's name, parent’s names, and place of residence should also be highly reliable. During the indexing process some indexers used the information in the age column for a birth date. Therefore, some information that was entered in the birth field may be incorrectly listed in the index.

One of the 39 historic counties of England, Cheshire is a coastal county in northwestern England which shares its western border with Wales. For a list of the parishes which historically made up this county with links to more information about each of them, see the Cheshire Parishes page.

Collection Content
School records may contain the following information:


 * Admission number
 * Date of admission or re-admission
 * Date of birth
 * Surname
 * Given name of child and parent
 * Address
 * Name of last school attended
 * Academic progress
 * Date of withdrawal
 * Cause of withdrawal

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search, you should know the following information:


 * Name of child
 * Approximate year of birth
 * Place of residence

To search this collection by name: Fill in the requested information in the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the ancestors in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to look at several images and compare the information about the individuals listed in those images to your ancestors to make this determination.

For tips about searching on-line collections see the wiki article at FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks.

Tips to Keep in Mind

 * Use these records to find ancestors’ birth dates, name of a parent (usually the father), and where the family lived.
 * These records will also reveal how long a person stayed in the school and possibly what school he or she attended previously.
 * Use different names in your search. Your ancestor may have gone by an alternate or nick name throughout their life.
 * Search for another child if the child went to the same school with the sibling you are looking for.
 * Search for the parents instead of the children.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):