Chelsea School of Chiropody - Ephemeral matters

Two pieces of ephemera were recently offered for sale on a well known auction website, surprisingly from two completely different sellers. They both relate to the Chelsea School of Chiropody in the 1930s.

The Chiropody School was part of Chelsea Polytechnic located in Manresa Road, near Kings Road, Chelsea. It formed in the mid 1920s. In 1945 one of the founders (A J R Bride) published the book shown below. In this he covered how the School was formed and how it functioned. It also had details of staff and students, as well as interesting details of lessons. These included:

• the use of animal parts from a local butcher for dissection
• access to living subjects for study from the zoology department such as trout embryos and axolotls.

A J R Bride, Treasurer of the Chelsea Association

Arthur John Robert Bride was Treasurer of the Chelsea Association as well as a member of the teaching staff. He was born in 1874 and died in 1962. He married in 1909. Online documents show him joining the RAF in 1918. He was described as a 5ft 8” man with dark brown hair, brown eyes and a sallow complexion.

His obituary in the February 1962 edition of The Chiropodist reads as follows.

The following is a flyer from the School dated 1946-47:

So let's return to the recently purchased items.

The first dates from 2 July 1931 and is a postcard addressed to a Miss Price, The Bullring, St John's, Worcester.  The main face of the card reads ‘remembrances and all good wishes’ and has a list of signatures.

Having undertaken some research on the names it seems like a mix of students and staff.

With regard to the staff the following are represented:

• Miss Olga Ruth Montgomery (1902-1986): she was a clinical supervisor and mentioned in A J R Bride’s book on the Chelsea School
• Frederick Robert Wilkie (1897-1970): a co-founder of the Chelsea School. He qualified in 1926 and was granted a Meritorious Award in 1963. He was one of the clinical teachers at the school and there was a prize named after him.

With regard to the student body I found the following in the membership lists for the Incorporated Society of Chiropodists in 1948:

• Antoine, Berthe: had a private practice in Wembley
• Barker, W C: had a practice in Upminster
• Johnstone, J: had a practice in St Ninians
• Paterson, Miss W S: had a practice in Muswell Hill
• Price, Miss J E: recipient of the postcard, had a practice in Bromsgrove
• Webster, Winifred: held a practice in Bradford
• Whibley, Miss R I: held a practice in Marston

The archive already holds a copy of Wilkie’s Chelsea Chiropodists’ Association certificate. Sidney Skinner was Principal of the Chelsea Polytechnic. He was a Cambridge Don and physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory. However, despite not being a member of the medical profession, it seems he was very sympathetic to and supportive of the Chiropody School.

The second item is a receipt for chiropody course fees, dated 22 October 1934. It lists a payment on account against fees of £16 for the Autumn Term. It is hard to make out the name of the student – A M Penny perhaps?

And finally, the archive holds an original mock-up of the Chelsea School of Chiropody Coat of Arms.

It shows a quartered shield with black boar heads and lions rampant. This seems to tie in more with London civic heraldry than with the style of Society of Chiropody coat of arms. For example:

• rampant lions show authority and guardianship
• black boars’ heads show guild tradition and skilled craft
• the quartering suggests institutional maturity
• a circular seal format is in the London municipal style
• strong primary colours are typical of a classic London palette.