Mayflower Primary School, Poplar

The origin of the school was in 1843 when the Trinity Chapel Day School was established. It was financed by George Green, the wealthy owner of Green's Ship Yard, Blackwell and a philanthropist who had also funded the nearby Trinity Independent Chapel with which the school was associated. In 1857, new buildings for 591 children were built in Upper New Street. Following the Elementary Education Act 1870, the school was transferred to the London School Board, who renamed it Upper North Street Board School. In 1882, a new three-storey school building was completed on the site, designed for 800 pupils between the ages of five to fourteen years.[1] In 1895, the school board inspectors reported that there were 240 boys, 240 girls and 317 infants in attendance.[2]

On the morning of 13 June 1917 during the First World War, a formation of fourteen German Gotha bombers attacked the City of London. It was the first massed raid on London by aeroplanes, and there was no system of warnings in place. As the bombers began their return flight, any remaining bombs were dropped on the East End of London and the London Docks. One 50 kilograms (110 lb) bomb landed on the Upper North Street School at 11:40 am. It passed through the girls' department on the top storey and the boys' on the middle floor, killing a twelve-year-old boy before landing in the infants' department on the bottom floor, where 64 small children were in two classrooms separated by a wooden partition. Sixteen children were killed instantly and two died later in hospital. Thirty children were seriously injured, including one girl who was found unconscious in the rubble three days later. Only two of the dead were over five years-old.[3]

Fifteen of the children were buried on 20 June 1917 in a communal grave at the East London Cemetery after a civic funeral. Almost £1,500, equivalent to £96,000 in 2019, was collected door-to-door to pay for a monument, the Poplar Recreation Ground Memorial, with the remainder going to local charities.[4] Three female teachers who were in the infants' department when the bomb struck were awarded the Medal of the Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service for their "very conspicuous courage and presence of mind".[5]

After the war, the London County Council Education Department purchased sixteen old houses adjacent to the school site, where a new three-storey school was built at a cost of £26,631 (equivalent to £1,543,000 in 2019) while the site of the old building was made into a playground. The new school opened in 1928, with places for 632 pupils. The school was renamed the Mayflower Primary School in 1952,[1] after the Mayflower, the ship that took the Pilgrim Fathers to America in 1620 which is believed to have been built on the Thames, and symbolises the pioneering ethos of the school.[6]

On 15 June 2017, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited Tower Hamlets to commemorate the centenary of the bombing in 1917. After a memorial service at All Saints Church, Poplar, which was also attended by descendants of children involved in the bombing, the royal party visited the school and saw projects on the First World War that the children had been working on.[7]