ONE OF THE GREAT social occasions in Bourne during the early 19th century was the National School Ball, a glittering charity event held at the Town Hall and attended by the great and good from town and country who danced the night away until their carriages arrived at dawn to take them home. 

But it was all in a good cause because the money raised from these glittering events went to help build and run Bourne’s first elementary school. 

Prior to the Education Act of 1870, the building of elementary schools was left to voluntary organisations, principally the churches, and the National Society for Education, which was an Anglican organisation, started planning a National School on a site in North Street where the foundation stone was laid in 1829.  

The new school was financed by subscription and money raising events and the most important of these were the annual balls which were held to maintain the flow of funds for its upkeep. It was the town’s most important charity and therefore attracted the support of many important people, both titled and landed gentry, notably the Marchioness of Exeter whose husband was Lord of the Manor of Bourne, the Countess of Lindsey, Lord Willoughby d’Eresby, the Hon Mrs Heathcote, Dr Francis Willis, Sir John Trollope and the curate [later the vicar], the Rev Joseph Dodsworth, one of the prime movers of the project.  

Tickets were expensive but much sought after, especially by mothers seeking husbands for their daughters. Around 170 people usually attended and a guest list from one of the balls that survives is reminiscent of a scene from a novel by Charles Dickens or Jane Austen, providing not only a glimpse of the pecking order in Victorian society, but also illustrating how young ladies were paraded at such events in the hope that they might catch the eye of a prospective marriage partner. 

Imagine the scene in the ballroom at the Town Hall, the largest open space in the building and in later years converted for use as a court for the petty and quarter sessions. The scene would be lit by dozens of flickering candles, repeatedly replenished as the night progressed, the musicians tucked away in the tiny gallery above with a Master of Ceremonies on the dance floor below conducting the proceedings. 

The ladies would be dressed in their finest crinoline or velvet gowns with tight corseted waists, their hair parted in the middle and often with ringlets or braids, while the men wore tailcoats and tight trousers, tall collars, cravats and embroidered waistcoats. The dancing would be energetic with the quadrille, mazurka and Scottish reel popular at that time although the daring intimacy of the waltz was just beginning to make an appearance after centuries of dancing at arm’s length from one’s partner. 

A truly grand occasion for a small market town such as Bourne and as guests had to pay 7s. 6d. for their tickets, which included tea or coffee, this was a considerable amount that excluded the less well-off people of the town, but apart from the pleasure and prestige of attending such a select social event there was always the satisfaction of knowing that is was all for a good cause. 

The support for these functions by wealthy patrons and those townspeople who could afford it was such that they always raised a tidy sum and in 1831, for instance, the amount was £90 (£8,000 at today’s values). 

The dances continued for twenty years and raised sufficient money to maintain the school for much of its early life although finance later came from Harrington’s Charity, a legacy that still benefits the town today, which paid the master’s salary, and from the church which financed maintenance and repairs to the building and other expenses. 

The school finally closed in the summer of 1877 when it was replaced by the Board or Council School that had been built in Star Lane, now the Abbey C of E Primary Academy in Abbey Road. 

The building continued in community use for various functions, notably during the Great War of 1914-16 when it was adapted as part of the temporary Red Cross hospital based at the Vestry Hall next door where soldiers were brought to convalesce after being wounded in France. By the time the war ended in November 1918, the hospital had forty beds and had cared for almost 950 servicemen during a four year period and the work of the staff was subsequently acknowledged by the British Red Cross Society and the War Office. 

After the war, the building was again used for educational purposes with the opening of Bourne Grammar School. The premises in South Road were still being prepared in 1920 and so the new headmaster, Mr Charles Pask Matthews, fifty pupils and a staff of three teachers, assembled at the Vestry Hall in North Street which was to be their headquarters, to be used for assemblies and P E lessons, while three forms used the old school premises next door, an arrangement that continued for several months. 

Since March 1987, the building has been the constituency headquarters of the Grantham and Stamford Conservative Association. The South Lincolnshire Conservative Club also opened on the premises in November that year when the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor John Wright, pulled the first pint, but it closed down ten years later because of continuing financial problems. 

The old school building, however, continues in regular use by the association and many of the town’s social and community events are also held there. But the future of the Town Hall is uncertain, and despite those grand occasions of the 19th century, it now stands empty, having been vacated by our town and district councils who have departed for the new Community Access Point at the Corn Exchange and the Grade II listed building is now likely to be sold on the property market, perhaps to become a coffee bar, carpet warehouse or even a night club, and so the grand dances of yesteryear are unlikely to return.