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Before the state offered free education, Meriden was lucky to have charity schools.
Kenelm Digby, a resident of Meriden Hall who passed away in 1811, bequeathed shares in his will to help a charity school for females run by his sister Jane Mills.
A schoolhouse was erected in 1814 on land that was leased from Lord Ayelsford for one shilling per year.
The dividend from the shares, which came to 80 per year, was used to pay for the school mistress's clothing and the clothing of 24 girls (usually when they left school).
By 1833, the school was dependent on the Right's Land Charity, where Mrs. Elizabeth Dyall bequeathed the interest from 20 to provide money "for teaching and instructing impoverished girls in the parish to read." By that time, the dividends had fallen to 64 per year.
Although the females were no longer dressed and some students had to pay to attend, Jane Mills made up the difference.
When Charlotte Mills assumed the position of School Mistress in 1842, Jane passed away.
Henry Barnett, a wealthy but childless citizen, left a mystery 500 endowment in his complicated will in 1786 to "send boys belonging or residing in the parish to school and finding them books, pens and other things necessary in teaching," but oddly, it was not carried out until 1821.
Wriothesley Digby, Kenelm's brother, bequeathed four shares to Meriden Charities upon his passing.
The boy's school received two of these shares as donations.
The Meriden Hall family Digby persisted in giving to the school.
By the late 1830s, there were roughly 60 boys enrolled, and in November 1843, a new structure on the Main Road, partially funded by the Church of England's National Society, was inaugurated.
This structure, which serves as the village's health centre, is still an important landmark.
The school relocated to Fillongley Road in the 1950s as Meriden's population increased; it is still there now.