Portishead Nautical National School, Portishead, North Somerset
This school was built in 1905 and opened in 1906. It trained boys for a nautical career, usually in the merchant navy. It replaced an earlier school that was on board a ship, The Formidable, anchored on the river Severn. The ship had accommodated up to 350 young and often homeless boys from the streets of Bristol. Even in this new school the boys still slept in hammocks in the dormitories, to help prepare them for life at sea.
