Crescent House College - At No. 19 The Crescent Mrs Smith had run a boarding and day school for young ladies since the early 1860s. The 1871 Census shows that,with her son acting as assistant, she had a music and a French teacher and two governesses to teach 24 resident scholars.
Mrs Eleanor Carroll, wife of Charles Carroll of the British Consular Service, became Principal of the College in 1879. The 1881 Census shows that she, together with her sister and three governesses, taught 17 boarders and some day pupils. By 1885 she had realised the school needed to move to larger premises and she purchased land at the Conduit Road corner of Bromham Road and built two large houses and by 1890 the school had opened in Bromham Road with place for 160 pupils. These premises later became part of the Convent School.
The school had a resident French teacher (possibly the writer of this card - franked Bedford and Versailles in 1903 - the arrow points to her “petite chambrette") and the master who taught German at the two boys schools also taught German at the Crescent School. In 1913 Mrs Carroll retired (she died at Eastbourne on the 31st December 1940 aged ninety) and the school was taken over by Miss Flora Jane Fry, English teacher at the School, and Miss Laura Hammond, who had been a pupil at the school, and they re-located the school to 11 Linden Road. In 1925 Miss Fry retired and she died in Bedford in September 1941.
The School closed in about 1935 with Mrs Jarrett Lucas as the last principal.