Royal Naval School
A purpose-built school building was designed by the architect John Shaw Jr, and opened in about 1844 at New Cross in south-east London (close to Deptford and Greenwich, both areas with strong naval connections).[6] The Royal Naval School remained at Mottingham (in a building today occupied by Eltham College) until it closed in 1910.[7] Thomas Charles Leeson Rowbotham the artist also served as Professor of Drawing at the school in the mid 19th century.As stated on the dust jacket of the history of the school published in 1975, Williams ... realised that after the Napoleonic Wars there were hundreds of impecunious ex-Naval officers acutely in need of an economical means to educate their daughters to earn a living; entirely by the efforts of an influential group of distinguished Officers the necessary funds ware raised, the School established and Royal Patronage obtained... from Richmond, it moved on to the fine Kilmorey mansion beside the Thames, at St. Margaret's, where it grew and flourished until the building was destroyed by bombs in 1940.Difficult wartime moves first to Fernhurst and later to Stoatley Hall were a triumph for the headmistress, Miss Oakley-Hill, and paved the way for further expansion.