St Peter's College, Saltley
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St Peter's College, Saltley was a school and teacher training establishment located in Saltley, Birmingham, England. Today the former college building has now been refurbished and sub-divided into a multi-use facility, combining homes, offices and meeting rooms.
History
Founded in 1852 in part with help from Charles Adderley, 1st Baron Norton as modern Saltley developed, it opened as Worcester, Lichfield & Hereford Diocesan Training College and then Saltley Church of England College for teacher training. Designed by Gothic Revival architect Benjamin Ferrey, it was built in a Tudor Revival architecture style format of a University of Oxford college, created around a quadrangle at the top of College Road. It housed only 30 trainee teachers initially, which quickly rose to 300 students.
The college had its own school, known initially as the Worcester Diocesan Practising School, it followed the college in naming and changed to St Peter's school. Located on the junction of College Road and Bridge Road, on opening in 1853 it had two classrooms, one master and 185 boys. A new school room allowed pupil numbers to rise to nearly 500 by 1871. Hit by a Nazi Luftwaffe bomb during World War II, the school closed in 1941 and was never reopened.
The college reopened after World War II, and latterly known as St Peter's,[1] it expanded quickly in the mid-1960s to cope with falling teacher numbers and rising school rolls, with the first female students admitted in 1966. The college closed in 1978.[2] The Old Salts' Association (OSA) has an annual reunion on the first Saturday in July at College. The OSA also has a vibrant 'closed group' Facebook page. This Facebook page now (2017) has over 230 members, who actively share old photos, anecdotes and stories from their days within the College walls. Another Facebook page, 'Saltley College 1964' also shares memories from men who attended the college from 1961 ~ 1964. Roy Smith (AKA Rae Ellingham) in Vancouver, Canada administers this page. The current Reunion Secretary is 1975 leaver John Hyslop, who can be contacted via the OSA website, his personal Facebook page or the OSA group page. Sue Walton also a 1975 leaver is the current Membership Secretary and can be contacted similarly[3]
Redevelopment
The Church of England owned building was sold to the local authority in 1980, and then used as a hall of residence by Aston University. The funds from the sale of the buildings were used to create the St Peter's Saltley Trust in 1980.[4] The trust has three objectives in its work across the West Midlands of England: lay Christian education; further education; and religious education in schools. The trust generally makes funds available to enable projects which meet its objectives to take place.
After the university vacated the building, it was redeveloped by the authority as homes, community centre and as local authority offices.[citation needed]