History

Hart Memorial Primary School opened its doors to pupils for the first time on 1st October 1935, after being named after Sir Robert Hart who was born locally and achieved fame and was renown for his work in China in the latter half of the 19th century.

The Hart is a large school situated in a residential area to the west of Portadown. Built around a quadrangle, it is set in mature well kept grounds with four playgrounds, a grass football field and a multiuse games area.

In our school the pupils always come first; each individual child's achievments and attainments are valued and celebrated.

Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911), Inspector General of the Imperial Customs, Peking, 1863-1908, is a key figure in China’s 19th century history and its foreign relations with the West. He was the only Westerner in the latter half of the nineteenth century to occupy an official post in the metropolitan bureaucracy, a position which gave him daily access to China’s highest officials in the Grand Council and Zongli Yamen. He built the first modern institution in China, the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs (CIMC), played a crucial role in China’s imperial politics, and significantly influenced its internal reform and diplomatic policy. It is impossible to write a history of the late Qing Empire without reference to Hart. The Hart Collection at Queen’s University Belfast is a key source of information about Sir Robert Hart and the Qing period.