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recently introduced Geriatric Clinics for the early detection of
disorders to which the elderly become prone.
Serving the Borough are 13 libraries, 9 main and 4 part-time,
supplemented by a mobile library intended to cater for the more
"remote" parts of the area. The main branches are admirably
adapted to enable private study to be undertaken in close proximity
to comprehensive reference sections and they afford access to
daily newspapers as well as weekly and monthly periodicals. Special
facilities are provided for children, hospital patients, homebound
invalids and elderly persons and, furthermore, opportunities for
the borrowing of gramophone records and original prints by contemporary
British artists have been made available to residents
over the age of 18 years. "Large print" books are stocked for the
particular use of the elderly and partially sighted. A museum at
Plumstead, an Art Gallery at the Tudor Barn, Well Hall Pleasaunce,
Eltham, and a Local History Section at the "Woodlands", Mycenae
Road, Blackheath, are all the responsibility of the Borough Librarian
and Curator.
Virtually first-class educational facilities are at the disposal of
residents, encompassing as they do the nursery and handicapped
children's establishments as well as the normal primary, secondary,
grammar, technical and comprehensive schools. Abundant opportunities
are also provided for further education whether vocational
or cultural or merely for enabling persons to indulge in a particular
hobby.
A women's residential training college located at Avery Hill
and opened in 1906 was the first to be established by the London
County Council. Today, it is a "mixed" training college catering
for upwards of 1,165 students and is a constituent college of the
University of London Institute of Education with an annexe for
300 mature students at Mile End. Woolwich Polytechnic, now
catering for nearly 700 full-time students and over 2,000 parttimers
released by industrial concerns, is unique in that it is the
only polytechnic in the London area which may be aided by the
local Council. Eltham College, originally founded in 1842 as a
"Home and School for the Sons of Missionaries", lies just beyond
the Borough boundary in Bromley and is recognised as a Public
School.
The name Rachel McMillan is internationally famous, for the
McMillan sisters were the pioneers of nursery schools in the
British Isles and their avant garde methods met with world wide
acclaim. To cater for an increasing demand for this type of
education, expansion and extensive adaptation has taken place at
the College of Education based upon the original Rachel McMillan
Training College at the Deptford end of the Borough.