This history of the school, including the line drawings, was produced by Mr Cyril Green M A, a former lecturer in history at Goldsmiths College, London. Cyril was very active at the school in the early nineteen-eighties. His widow and son still live locally.
I have not attempted to update the content in any way, except of course to render the illustrations more suitable for website use by enhancing the quality, getting rid of some imperfections, and introducing text to replace hand-writtenwording in order to make it more legible.
Not really such 'good old days'
This is the story of our school and the children who used to come to it.
The story begins over a hundred years ago, in the time of your great, great grand-parents. Children's lives were very different then. There were no cars to bring you to school; no cosy sitting rooms and television to watch after you had walked home; no comfortable bedroom all to your self, or shared with one brother or sister. No water from taps, no bathrooms; the toilet out in the garden and no water to flush it. As you read about their lives, I am sure you will agree that things are much better for you now.
Can you imagine going to school in the bedroom of a cottage? Well, that's what some children did before our school was built. The cottage stood beside the road, just in front of our biggest classroom which is the oldest part of the present school, The children were taught in an upstairs bedroom. The teacherlived in the other rooms.
Next to the 'School House', as it was called, was a smaller cottage. Behind it an orchard, as you can see from the plan to the right.
It was the new vicar, the Rev. Charles Sweet, who decided the village must have a school. This was in l835, just before Victoria became Queen of England.He was a very wealthy man and had just built himself the big house which we call 'Broadleigh'. He first rented, and later bought, the School House cottage.He also paid the teacher.
At this time many more people lived in Sampford Arundel and many were farm workers and very poor, they had large families and earned very low wages,and their children had to work as soon as they could earn any money, as one Somerset man said, 'I went to work when I was nine years old. I had a shilling a week and three cups of cider a day'.
Most boys began regular work at ten, They worked on the farms, as their fathers did. They often began work scaring the birds from newly planted seed or the ripening crops.
Sometimes they watched cattle or led the horses.
As plough-boys they walked up to twelve miles a day across the muddy fields. Later they were taught to plough and all the farm jobs they would have to do as men. Everyone in the family had to help with hay and corn harvests.
Girls helped their Brothers until it was time for them to work as servants.This often meant leaving home when they were only twelve, to work: as a servant in a big house, sometimes many miles away from their home and family. This is what you might be doing when you leave school here, instead of going to a secondary school until you are at least sixteen.We know very little about the children who did come to the vicar's school, or what they were taught there. There is an amusing story about one of the boys,
who was kept in by the teacher. To stop him leaving when she went downstairs,she is said to have tied him to the drawer of a chest in the school room. As soon as she left it, he opened a window and climbed down one of the orchard apple trees, the drawer still tied to his back.
In time the government decided that many more schools must be built so that every boy and girl could go to school until they were at least ten years old.This was just over one hundred and thirty years ago, in l870. Ten years passed before this happened at Sampford Arundel, Then they pulled down the old School House cottage and built a new school on the site.
This school had only one classroom, the big classroom in which the older children work, and in which you have your midday meal. From the road it would have looked exactly as you see it now. except for a little turret on the top of the roof. This was for the bell which they rang when it was time for school to start. It was later taken down.
When the school was first opened, in March 1860, the children sat in long rows, the infants in the front rows, the oldest children at the back. The desks at which they sat, were fixed to platforms, each higher than the one in front,as you can see from the picture below. This was called 'gallery' seating. The gallery were placed so that the children had their backs to the windows. The teacher's desk, her blackboard, and the fire which heated the room, were all placed against the opposite wall which has no windows, as you can see on the plan of the classroom.
The village didn't have any electric light until fifty years ago, when your grand-parents were children.Many people in Sampford Arundel can still remember when water was first brought to their homes in pipes. Until then they had to draw all the water they used from wells or springs. The school had its own well. It's still there, under an iron cover at the end of the cloakroom, just by the door into the library.On the wall outside, you can still see where the pump was fixed so that water could be drawn from the well.
From time to time the well or the pump gave trouble. Soon after the school was opened, men had to be called in to unblock the well, into which the children had been throwing stones. Whenever the pump was out of order, the school had no water. On more than one occasion men had to clean the well out because the water was so unpleasant to drink. Aren't you lucky to have good water from taps, and much of it as you want.?
We know from the teacher's record, or Log Book, that there were only thirteen children present when she began school on Monday, March 8th, l880. Very soon the numbers grew, first to fifty, later to just over a hundred. By this time the teacher was complaining that she couldn't find space for them all to sit.So it was decided to build a separate classroom for the infants. This was built at the end of the big classroom and is now used as a teachers' room and office.
The infants sat in rows on 'gallery' seats, just like the older children,To reach their new classroom they had to pass through the door at the end of the big classroom. This was the only door into the room. If there had ever been a serious fire in the big room, the infants would have been unable to escape.The school inspectors pointed out the danger but nothing was done until ten years later (1908). It was then decided to build our present cloakroom.
Up till then all the children had been hanging their clothes on pegs between the main doors into the big classroom. A door leading into the infants' class-room, was placed at the end of the new cloakroom, beside the well. The infants
could now go in and out of their room without disturbing the teacher in the big classroom. They could also escape if fire broke out there.The play shed was built a little earlier in the boys' playground. As you can see on the plan, the girls had a separate playground on the other side of the main classroom.Going to the toilet
When our present school was built in l880, the toilets were against the playground wall, just behind the back wall of the classroom and close to the school well. There seem to have been five of them, two for the boys, two for the girls and one for the teacher. They were just like cottage toilets, or 'privies'
and had no system for flushing them with water. Later a water tank was placed above them into which water was pumped for this purpose.When the new infant's classroom was built,the playground wall was moved further back into the farmer's orchard. There were still only four toilets for the children, two for the boys and two for the girls. How they managed when there were up to a hundred children in the school, over thirty of them infants,heaven alone knows I Our present toilets were only built some fifteen years ago.
Most of you come to school by car or bicycle. You must find it difficult to imagine what it was like when children had to walk to school. A few children lived at Wrangway, Red Ball and over the Devon boundary. They must have walked the best part of six miles each day, walking to and from school in all kinds of weather.
Getting ready for school in the morning is so much easier for you. As in the case of the Radford family, shown below, there might be five children at school
aged from four to eleven. There was no bathroom or wash basins in bedrooms. There were no taps. Water had to be drawn from the well, or taken from the rain water tank. They could only wash in a basin or bucket. Even in winter the water might be cold water. In very dry weather every drop of water might be needed for cooking or washing clothes. If they had a warm water bath once a week, it would be in the same water as their brothers and sisters, and in a small tin bath by the fire.
Few if any, children would have a cooked breakfast. Many of the poorer children would only have a piece of bread and dripping before they set out on their long walk to school.
Walking to school, the older children had to look after younger brothers and sisters. Some of the children were under four years old. All would wear boots
rather than shoes. Many wore boots which their older brothers or sisters could no longer wear but which were too big for them. Often these strong, leather boots were hard because they had been put to dry by the fire when they were wet so the long walk was made harder because boots were uncomfortable and caused blisters. In winter many children had painful chilblains, especially painful when they broke. In our warmer houses hardly anyone gets them.Children often got wet on their way to school. The teacher found it difficult to dry so many children's clothes in front of the classroom fire. Many children must have sat through lessons with damp clothes or wet feet. Sometimes heavy rain , snow, or icy roads, made it impossible for them to reach school.When it rained heavily, several roads were flooded. As one of the teachers wrote in the school Log Book when this happened, "Water very high. A great many of us had to walk through water to get home."
For the first eleven years children had to pay, 2d. for children over 5,1d. for children under 5. This was much more than it seems, especially for poorly paid farm workers with large families. Children were sometimes sent home to fetch the money. The Radford family, with five children at school, had to pay
School started at nine o'clock in the morning, and finished at four o'clock inthe afternoon. In winter it finished at half-past three, so that the children could get home before it was quite dark. The children marched into their seats,when the school bell was rung, and the teacher called the register to find out whether any children were absent. This happened again before afternoon school,As we shall see, each child's attendances were carefully counted. Those who attended most regularly were given prizes.
The day's lessons often began with Scripture, sometimes taken by the vicar.Most of the day was spent on the three 'Rs', Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.The children were grouped by 'Standards', not in classes, though they all had to work in the same room and under the same teacher. The youngest children were in Standard I. All children had to reach Standard V before they could leave. A few of the oldest and cleverest might reach Standard VI of VII. You had to pass the exam set for each Standard before you could move up to the next one.The very youngest children used sand trays when they were learning to form their letters. Later they used slates which could be cleaned by wetting then the older children wrote on paper in exercise books.
We still have the exercise books used by the first head mistress, when she was at school. This gives us a very good idea of the work children were then expected to do.The reading books they used would seem very boring and dull to you. They had to practise reading aloud from the book set for their Standard. They had to do dictation and write compositions. They were taught to write very neatly in what was called 'copper plate' hand. They had to learn their tables by heart. Often the whole class said them out loud, 'Twice two are four, twice three are six...'They had to learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Often they were set long and difficult sums to do. You must try some of them.
As time went on, more subjects were added - History, Geography, Nature Study and what they called 'Object Lessons', a kind of General Knowledge. In the afternoons the boys often did subjects like drawing while the girls did needlework. Ladies from the big houses, who visited the school from time to time were especially interested in the needlework. One of them offered prizes for best garment (won by Hilda Hutchings) , the best pair of knitted stockings (won by Elsie Rowland) , and the best woolly cap (won by Anne Sailer).
Morning school ended at twelve o'clock. Afternoon school began at two o'clock in summer and half-past one in winter. Those living nearest to the school could go home to eat whatever their mothers had for lunch. Ada and Ethel Goodhind, who lived at Peacehay Farm, sometimes did so and were late back for afternoon school Most of the children had to stay at school. There were no school meals then they ate whatever they had brought with them. For many of the poorer children this might be a slice or two of bread, some cold potato or an apple. Cheese was usually kept for their father's midday meal in the fields. Meat was a luxury,eaten perhaps on Sunday and on special occasions like Christmas Day. Many children must have been very hungry when they reached home after school but then had to wait until their father returned from work before they could have their evening meal. This was often a vegetable stew and the only hot meal of the day.It wouldn't have taken a hungry boy or girl long whatever lunch_they had brought to school, this left plenty of time to play, as we saw, the boys and girls had separate playgrounds. From time to time the boys climbed over the playground wall to steal apples from the orchard just behind it or turnips from the fields across the road. Both belonged to Sampford Farm and Mr Burge came in to complain to the teacher. The local policeman came in, once to stop the boys playing in the churchyard, another time to question William Harcombe,who was said to have stolen a ferret.
Though the teachers were women, they did not hesitate to cane boys and girls who mis-behaved, were rude, impudent, or 'answered back', even so it must often have been difficult to control so many children, especially the older ones who just wanted to leave and start work.
The first teacher to take charge of our school was Andy Tucker's great, great grandmother. She was only twenty one at the time and had still to pass her teacher's certificate examination. Soon she was teaching nearly fifty children aged from three to eleven. A year later she had a monitor to help her Monitors were girls of fourteen, who had just left school after reaching Standard VI or VII They heard the children read, say their tables or taught the youngest children.
Much later a second teacher was appointed to look after the infants, and for a short while there were three teachers. Then the numbers, which had reached a hundred started to fall and there were only two. Just before Mrs Hitchcock came,Mrs.Everett was the only teacher. since there were at one time less than thirty children in the whole school. Mr Brodie is the first headmaster the school has ever had.
When our school was first opened, some of the money came from the children's parents,some came from the rates, but most of it came from the government, so much for each child,how much each child could earn depended on good attendance and passing the examination set for their Standard in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. By making a certain number of attendances during the year you earned a third of the governments twelve shillings for each child. To earn the other two-thirds you had to pass the examination in all three subjects. For each failure you lost two shillings and eight-pence for the school.
You can well imagine how much teachers and children dreaded the day when the Government Inspector came to carry out the examination on which so much depended, Sometimes the children could hardly understand what he was asking them because he spoke in such a different way. Sometimes they were too frightened of him to give the proper answers. Sometimes they just couldn't do the sums, read the piece he had chosen from their reading book, or write down the words he gave them for dictation. Everyone was very pleased when the government gave up
When our school started, the children were only given short holidays at Christmas and Easter. Their longest holiday was in August but this was a working holiday. It was called the 'harvest holiday' because most children helped the farmers harvest the corn and other crops. The extra money they earned helped their families to buy clothes and boots.
From time to time they had a day's holiday from school. This happened when Queen Victoria had her Golden Jubilee (after being queen for fifty years), and her Diamond Jubilee (for sixty years). There were special celebrations in the village, tea for the children, games and races. Sometimes the whole schoolwas invited to play games and have tea in the grounds of one of the big houses or was taken in horse waggons to the Wellington Monument for a picnic.Occasionally a traveling circus, or a wild beast show (a kind of traveling zoo) would come to Wellington and some of them would walk there to see it.Very few children went to the seaside for a week or a fortnight's holiday though they might go there by train for the day, none of them would have been to a foreign country, as some of you may have done.
Children had to amuse themselves
They didn't, of course, have television, radio, films, discos or computer games. Country children had to make their own amusements, both indoors and outdoors In many homes there was only one living room. In this their mothers had to cook, iron and hang the washing to dry or air in winter. Bedrooms were so small, cold and overcrowded that you couldn't go there to play. Candles oran oil lamp were all they had to light the rooms when it grew dark. In any case children had very few games, toys or books.
Being ill
Children are much healthier today. If you have anything wrong with you, your parents don't have to pay the doctor or hospital to help you get better. If you are ill at home, you have a warm bedroom to go to, and plenty of good food and modern medicines to make you well again.
A hundred years ago many children died before they were your age, especially when they were babies. Though children then were vaccinated to protect them from smallpox, they were not protected from catching other dangerous diseases, as you are by innoculation. Some caught and died from diptheria, many had scarlet fever,diseases which you hardly hear of today. Measles, mumps and whooping cough were much more serious diseases then. On two occasions our school had to be closed for five weeks because so many children had measles.
Of course, they had colds and sore throats, as you do, but often because they had to sit through school in damp clothes and with wet feet. Because there was so little water for washing, it was difficult for mothers to keep their children's hair free of fleas and lice, especially the girls' long hair.Children were sometimes sent home from school because they had 'dirty heads'
How different it was to be ill in those days', The doctor had to be paid to come and see you, or if you went to see him at his surgery in Wellington. You had to pay for any medicines he gave you. Children were born at home, usually without any doctor or trained nurse to help the mother. Another woman in the village would give what help she could.
In many cottages there was only one bedroom for the whole family. If there was a second bedroom, it was usually small. Often you had to pass through it to reach the other bedroom.. As you can see in the picture below, there might be as many as seven people sleeping in the same room. Brothers and sister might have to sleep in the same bed. There was a chamber pot in the bedroom for the family to use at night since the only toilet was in the garden.
As the only fire was downstairs in the living room, bedrooms were bitterly cold in winter. Their windows were usually small. In summer they did not get enough fresh air in. They would be closed in winter when it was cold. So cottage bedrooms were often stuffy and unhealthy places in which to sleep.The poorest people might not have enough blankets to be warm in bed it wasvery difficult to keep sheets and blankets clean, especially in winter when it was hard.to wash and dry them. Can you wonder that diseases spread so quickly or that so many suffered from lung diseases like bronchitis, pneumonia and consumption, (tuberculosis). Many died from these diseases, which doctors today can cure.
Life is better for children now
This is how things were a hundred years ago, when our school was first opened since then there have been great improvements. Families are much smaller and very few are as poor as farm worker's families then were. Thanks to bicycles,and later to cars and motor bikes, those who still live in the country can find better paid jobs outside the village. They can afford to give their childrengood food, nice clothes and so many other things their great great grand-parent never had when they were children.
| FROM THE SCHOOL LOG BOOK | ||
| The first entry | ||
| 12.5.1880 | I began school on Monday, March 8th, with thirteen scholars and found them backward but willing to learn.(written by Miss Anna Maria Cording, the first school mistress.The number of children soon increased to just under fifty) | |
| Some reasons for children being absent | ||
| 9.6.1895 | Fearfully wet morning. Very few children came and they were very damp so I sent them home again. | |
| 19.9.l892 | School closed, Deep snow. | |
| 8. 3. l889 | Very few children present owing to the flood. Many of us had towalk through water to get home. | |
| 1.7.1891 | Many boys helping the farmers with their hay. | |
| 15.6.1885 | Charles Radford absent Monday and Tuesday. Keeping sheep forMrs.Sweet (she was the vicar's wife and lived at Broadleigh) | |
| 25.8.1884 | Poor attendance, partly due to the harvest not being over.(the boys should have returned to school at the end of the harvestholiday but stayed away to help the farmers with a late harvest) | |
| 16.7.1880 | Several children at Red Ball stayed away as there was an anniversary at their Sunday School (to and from school thesechildren would walk eight miles each day) | |
| 19.4.l895 | Only 30 out of 48 present. The great number of absentees went to see the menagerie (traveling zoo) at Wellington.Sickness and other troubles | |
| 25.4.1890 | School closed. Epidemic of measles. (On this occasion the Medical Officer of Health for the Wellington area told the head mistress to keep the school closed until the epidemic was over. It remained closed for five weeks. It was closed again for the same time in 1896). | |
| 9.2.1885 | The Stevens family has the 'hitch' (a catching complaint). The father blames the school, Mrs Braddick calls, Her husband does notwant his children to sit next to the Stevens. | |
| 17.9.1906 | The Chairman (of the Governors) sent four children home to be thoroughly cleaned, (their heads were 'dirty' - they had fleas,in their hair). | |
| 28.4.1884 | Sent home two children called Hartnell for school money, Brought 1d. instead of 2d. Said their mother wouldn't pay any more.Naughty children | |
| 8.4.1885 | Caned Ellen Authors, a IVth Standard girl, for being rude. | |
| 22.7.1891 | Caned Wilfrid Russell for disobedience. | |
| 12.1.1888 | Mr.Vicary, P.C. (police constable) came to enquire for William Harcombe who had stolen a ferret (kept for catching rabbits). | |
| 12.10.l895 | Policeman called to forbid children playing in the churchyard. | |
| 25.6.1880 | Two boys during the dinner hour got into Mr.Burge's orchard stealing apples (his orchard was just over the playground wall). | |
| 24.9,1891 | Mr.Burge (from Sampford Farm) complains of children pulling turnips in his field (to eat, or to make Halloween lanterns?) | |
| 28.1.1908 | Several boys brought up (before the teacher) for rough and wilful mischief - timetable dragged from the wall and soiled - other school property injured.(the mistress who wrote this was only in charge of the school while a new head mistress was being chosen. She had to ask the vicar to help her restore order) | |
| Things like this happen in schools | ||
| 13.3.1881 | While I was away at dinner, one girl pushed Martha Hitchcock intoa stream of water and she was so wet she had to go to a neighbour's house to be dried. | |
| 15.5.l88l | A little boy came to school. He couldn't open the door so he lay down on the step and went to sleep, Mr John Burge saw him anded him to me. | |
| 9.12.81 | Amelia Osmond squeezed her finger very badly in the school door during the dinner hour. | |
| 9.12.1881 | Two little boys, lifting up their desk lids instead of reading.One squeezed his finger in the desk. | |
| Trouble with the well and toilets | ||
| l8.5.l88l | Mr.Jones called and examined the pumps, There is water in the well but children had thrown stones into it and no water couldbe obtained. | |
| 15.5.l88l | Three men digging the well deeper. | |
| 5.12.1897 | Strong wind broke a pane of glass in the large window. The pumpis again out of repair so that we could get no water this week. | |
| 20.1.1882 | Drain leading to the cloaks (toilets) blocked. Mr.Edmund Burgecalled in (he was a School Governor living at the Home Farm). | |
| Things for the school | ||
| 6.11.1891 | Permission sought to order new slates. The slates obtained recently for drawing will not answer for writing. | |
| 24.6.1898 | The gallery desks arrive today (for the new Infants classroom). | |
| 1908 | During the holiday the gallery in the (main) classroom has been removed and 20 new dual desks and a museum cupboard added to the school furniture (much later these were replaced by tables and chairs) . | |
| School treats | ||
| 51.7.1906 | Children taken to Sampford Hill for a picnic by the vicar. | |
| 29.9.1907 | Children taken to the Monument for a tea given by Mrs Marsh. | |
| 1.9.1910 | Mrs Sweet invites the children to tea at Sandfield. | |
| 15.4.1912. | School closed in honour of Mrs Sweet's 80th birthday. (Her twounmarried daughters, who lived with her at Sandfield | |
   
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