About the 1952 Panoramas
We have two panoramas for 1952 due to the convoluted history of the Greengate Street buildings and the various school bodies (staff and pupils) that passed through it. In July 1951 the old East Oldham High School body vacated the building to reform as the brand new Counthill Grammar School in September. The new occupant of Greengate St was the old West Oldham High School (at Ward Street) which now became Greenhill Grammar School. The two images therefore represent the two bodies associated with the building over the period 1949 to 1952.
The fist one to be posted on the site was the Greenhill panorama labelled simply 1952 Panorama was loaned by James Slater (702). It was completed, with all slices activated in July 2007. There are 373 cameos in total, with individual names and positions incorporated into the FolkFind+ database.
The image shows the people only. The original prints have a surround with a central shield showing "GREENHILL GRAMMAR SCHOOL, OLDHAM, March 1952.". The original photo is 41” wide x 8” deep overall.
The second panorama is labelled 1952 EOHS Panorama and was scanned for us by Norman Colbourne (position 115) who provided the completed image for the site. He also provided a higher definition scan for use in the individual cameos. There are exactly 570 people in the photo, with individual names and positions incorporated into the FolkFind+ database.
The image shows the people only (42½” x 5¼”). The original prints have a surround with a central shield showing "COUNTHILL GRAMMAR SCHOOL, OLDHAM, April 1952". The original photo is 44” wide x 8” deep overall.
Although the photo was taken at the newly opened Counthill school, the majority of the pupils and staff had transferred from the Greengate St building (then the East Oldham High School) in July 1951. The Counthill blazer was striped and it seems reasonable to assume that the majority of the striped blazers in the pan are new intake (Starting secondary school Sep 51). The EOHS blazers were a solid (green ?) colour and not easily distinguishable in the panorama. Some EOHS badges are visible in the high definition scans, the one at position 408 probably being the best defined