Jenny Judelson, who obtained a scholarship to go to secondary school.

(Courtesy of Jerry White and Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives)

Transcript of Jenny Judelson's interview

"Scholarship was at 11, to go to grammar school, like the 11-plus here. I think everybody had to be entered at a certain age…There were only two of us got it: I don't know if three got a scholarship. "

Did any boys get a scholarship?
 "One did yes and one went to, if you didn't get a scholarship you went to what was called the Central School which they must have been very good to get to a Central School because if you only got one [who] got a scholarship so it was the next one on the list got to Central School… "

 
Did anybody else [from the Rothschild Buildings] get a scholarship?
 "No that's it, you see if you got a scholarship you were regarded as somebody, you know, quite special. And then, of course, one of my friends who got a scholarship wasn't allowed to take it. It may have been that three of us got it that year. She wasn't allowed to take it because her parents said, 'Why should you go, we can't afford to [have you] go on after 14.' The idea was that you stayed on after 14. And her parents wouldn't allow her to go."