Manchester School Board Competition (First Premium)
This Board has at length selected the designs sent in by Messrs. Royle and Bennett, of Manchester, for execution, and awarded three premiums of £30, £20, and £10 to Messrs. Horton, Bridgford and Walker, Mr. Henry Lord, and Mr. William Dawes, respectively. The designs number altogether about 54 sets, and show very varied modes of treatment in many respects.
Messrs. Horton, Bridgford, and Walker send a highly-coloured and elaborately, got-up perspective view, and show other signs of a deeply-laid and well-concerted scheme for assisting the judgment of the Manchester School Board. They append a lithographed plan to their report, copies of which have been, no doubt, duly circulated in the proper quarters. They provide a basement playground for infants, and also show an alternative plan for a covered playground in place of this upon the ground level. This would be the only way by which their design could be brought within the required limits as to cost. The general conception is not unlike the preceding, but inferior to it in many respects, and the view presents, to say the least, a very flattering portraiture of the design. [Building News 6 March 1874 page 250-251]