Before the Victorian period i.e.1837 onwards, when Queen Victoria came to the throne, there was limited access to formal education for most children because schooling was available only at grammar schools or private academies. In 1811 the Church of England founded the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church and encouraged the creation of schools throughout the country. The following year, the British and Foreign Bible Society supported non-denominational education through “British” Schools, also known as “Lancastrian” Schools in which older children helped to teach younger ones Legislative developments (including the Factory Acts promoting the establishment of education for children at work and the 1834 Poor (Amendment) Act requiring three hours of education per day for children in the workhouse) were limited until the Education Act (1870).

This Act established School Boards to build and administer schools where existing education provision was inadequate. Acts of 1876 and 1880 made education compulsory for children up to age 10 and in 1901 elementary education became free of charge.

So Reverend William Marsh was nearly 60  years ahead of what was generally developing in education outside Charlesworth.

Unfortunately, although the Rev William  Marsh established and taught at a day school for village children and a night school for older working children in a cottage on Back Lane near the current Manse, he died in 1821, two years before the new school was built.

The school cottage was on Back Lane directly facing the junction with Boggard Lane. Boggard Lane was originally named Boggart Lane, a boggart being a creature in English folklore, either a household spirit or a malevolent genius loci (that is, a geographically-defined spirit) inhabiting fields, marshes, or other topographical features. A lady living on Boggart Lane was not enthused with the name so changed it to School Lane, being adjacent to the Sunday School on Back Lane. Eventually it was renamed again to its current title of Boggard Lane which figuratively means bug-bear or thing of fear.

The school was continued by Rev.William Marsh's successor, the Reverend John Adamson, but due to its popularity it soon outgrew the cottage and plans for the new school building were drawn up and the site was selected at the “foot of the hill leading to the higher part of the village”. The plans were drawn up in the house of William Bennet and as we know the work was carried out in 1823.

In 1328 Charlesworth, or ‘Cheveneswrde’ being the original name, was granted the honour of holding a market and fair. The new school was bult adjacant to the market site and the pinfold (a pound for stray animals where you had to pay a fine to reclaim your lost animals). The Pinfold was sited further down Town Lane against the new school play ground.

Also the school site was near the stocks, hence Stocks Hill, the cobbled incline near the school. (The stocks are an instrument of punishment consisting of a framework with holes for securing the ankles and/or wrists.  They are as much a source of physical torture as public humiliation.)

Also the school was near the well at Stocks Well.