Monday 18 May 2015

Francis Balvaird Lowe (Head Master 1941-19??)


In 1941 Beach Road School (boys department) Second Headmaster was said to be Joseph Lowe (former head master of) Lander Road School AND Walter Franklin Tomkins mentor, while Walter trained to be a teacher & a headmaster.  But you know.. as info goes.. or to coin the phrase.. hey joe, wha do ya no...  I know his name wasn't Joe or Joseph.

His name was Francis, we can confirm that (besides from the news article here) because on his postal mail it says Mr F. B. Lowe, not a J in sight..

Factual Proof
I did consider the news paper article stating F. B. Lowe could of been a Typo, and as so much wrong information is going around i had yet to dig any deeper on that F. B. Id well wasted enough time months ago looking for Joe Lowe and Joseph Lowe.. Getting this photo of the envelope is the only reason i took the search any further.

So again we bring it here first in this odd hunt for information
Lander Road School former head master & beach roads 2nd head masters Real Name was Francis Balvaird Lowe (his mothers maiden name was Ross) He took over at beach road in 1941 (when beach roads first headmaster) Walter Franklin Tomkins died.

I then also found a Letter, it could of been the letter that was in this envelope (who knows) This letter was from an architect, after a bit of research & even finding a photo of the architect, a little deeper research sadly showed this specific architect wouldn't be old enough to of designed beach road, though he was pretty famous none the less.

We know Mr Lowe came to the school after walter passed away, so we no for sure he started in beach road in 1941, but we have yet to determine when he left. We know from another news article that when Miss Sheila Allen retired, she had been at the school for 34 years, from the retirement date we range that from from 1937 to 1971 (she had replaced mr lowe as head of the whole school) The article also said and head mistress for 26 years. The issue we face is she was a head mistress for 26 years (but a large chunk of that was just as the girls department head) While Lowe was still head of the boys department.

We have a rough date of January 1964 that the girls & boys departments merged, that's as near as we got. So we have yet to pinpoint his leaving date.

He was a keen gardener and used to have the boys working in the council allotments up beach road.

To Be Updated Soon..


2 comments:

  1. I attended Beach Road school from 1945 to 1949.
    Everyone knew the headmaster as "Joe Lowe".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can confirm that. I attended from 1951 to 56. It was always 'Joe' Lowe

    ReplyDelete