FOR more than a century countless Southampton children have passed through its classrooms since the school in Foundry Lane, Shirley, welcomed its first pupils in 1902.

Recent stories in Hampshire Heritage have featured photographs and reminiscences from a number of former pupils who have all looked back at their time at the school with fond memories.

All this nostalgia is a chance to recall how the area originally got its name and the details of the hard times faced by local children in the early part of the last century.

The foundation stone of the school, which cost £17,607 to build, was laid on July 15, 1901, when it was called the Shirley Board School. A year later, when the first pupils answered the register on September 8, it had been renamed Foundry Lane School.

A century earlier a Southampton guidebook mentioned a foundry that could be found on the then winding lane through Shirley in the direction of Romsey.

In the 1830s a firm of steam engine manufacturers bought the foundry and in 1852 the London and South Western Railway had four locomotives, Giraffe, Antelope, Elk and Reindeer, rebuilt at what was called the Millbrook Foundry.

Just two years later the foundry that gave its name to the lane closed and all the work transferred to the Northam Iron Works.

The school has always been popular with Shirley families and was originally designed to accommodate 450 boys, but by 1905 there were 650 boys. This overcrowding reached its height in 1911 when there were 692 pupils and each room contained two separate classes.

The school's log book for the early 1900s often referred to the poverty that was being experienced by Shirley families. For instance, in 1904 the records state: "Free breakfast centre opened. Sixteen boys absent because of no boots.''

Gradually improvements were made and after the First World War the archives recorded 400 boys.

Many decades later local children are still educated in Foundry Lane but these days it is a pre-school and primary school.