the earliest records of schooling in watford are of a schoolmaster named george redhead in 1595, and of a free school receiving an annual donation of £10 in 1640. the school consisted of "a room over two houses belonging to the church estate, nearest the churchyard." in 1704, elizabeth fuller of watford place built a new free school for forty boys and twenty girls on her land next to the churchyard, with rooms for a master and a mistress. in the mid-19th century, the recorded schools in watford were fuller's free school, by now in a poor state, and the separate boys and girls national schools of st mary's in church street. all offered elementary education.