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Go back through the years

  • 1870 – Education Act
  • 1889 – Creation of Kent County Council

Gillingham Technical Institute

  • 1889 – The Technical Instruction Act passed, which allowed for the setting up of technical institutes under local control
  • 1891 – Kent County Council funded the building of a technical institute in Gillingham
  • 1893 – School Board Established
  • 1893 – Gillingham Technical Institute opened

  • 1903 – Borough of Gillingham created. The borough had excepted status, meaning education was directly under the control of an education committee rather than Kent County Council
  • 1911 - A technical school, for students over the age of 11, opened in Rochester 

  • Rochester Junior Technical School established by Kent County Council and shared a newly constructed building in Eastgate with an art college
  • 1913 – Chatham Junior Technical School opened
  • 1923 – first secondary school in Gillingham

Rochester Junior Technical School

  • 1925 - The art college at Eastgate became the Medway College of Arts and Crafts. It continued to expand throughout in 1920s and 1930s, occupying other premises in Rochester
  • Rochester Junior Technical School continued on the site, and possibly others, but concerns were expressed about overcrowding
  • 1944 - Education Act established the grammar, technical and secondary modern model
  • 1945 – detailed development plan for a technical school in the borough
  • 1948 - Rochester Junior Technical School becomes Rochester Technical School for Boys

Gillingham Technical High School

  • 1953 - Secretary of State for Education approved a major building programme by Kent County Council for 1953-54, costing an estimated £1.2 million. £30000 was allocated for the adaption of the Gardiner Street premises for the new Gillingham Technical High School

An article in the East Kent Gazette, dated 4th December, reported that “The removal of Rochester Junior Technical School to new quarters in Gillingham next July will mean that the Medway College of Art will become a self-contained unit for future education.”

  • 1954 - A new technical college – the Medway College of Technology – opened on the site of a proposed Government Training Centre at Horsted in Chatham. Created through an amalgamation of the technical colleges in Gillingham, Chatham and Rochester. Rochester Technical School for Boys moved to the vacated Gillingham Institute building in Gardiner Street and became Gillingham Technical High School

From Gardiner Street to Pump Lane 

  • 1958 – plans for a new school, and £10000 scheme to build new classrooms over the dining room at Gardiner Street rejected. The committee passed a resolution requesting that Kent Education Committee erect a permanent technical school building in the town as soon as possible “to relieve the overcrowding” at the present technical school premises
  • 1960 - The East Kent Gazette ran the following story on 30th September: 

Scholastic Crisis at Rainham

Members of Gillingham Education Committee were warned at their meeting last week of an impending scholastic crisis at fast-developing Rainham and Wigmore because accommodation could not keep pace with demand.

The warning, given by Alderman J Mannering, arose from the Minister of Education refusing to include in his major building programme for 1962-63 any projects submitted for Gillingham

  • 1965 - An order was made by the Secretary of State for Education authorising the transfer of Gillingham Technical High School to a new site in Pump Lane, in Rainham
  • 1967 - In January, Gillingham Technical High School moved to the newly -constructed buildings in Pump Lane
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