Church School, Stourton

In 1829 a charity school was established for the education of twenty boys and twenty girls living in Stourton and Gasper, who were members of the Church of England. The school was supported by voluntary contributions from the parishioners.

By early 1858 Mrs. Coles’ Charity was paying £11 a year. This paid a master and a sewing mistress to teach 40-50 children in one room on the upper floor of a cottage at Gasper. At the same time the school managers were contemplating the building of a proper school able to take up to 80 children. The rector gave one of his glebe fields and the foundations were laid on September 7th 1858. The school and playground were completed in December and the total cost was £338.6s.3d. Sir Henry Hoare gave £139 and the rector and members of his family gave £157.17s.9d. The school was formally opened on June 29th 1859. In October 1860 another classroom was added on the south side and there were other alterations and improvements. This work cost £84 and was paid for by the Rector and a relative named Henry Bicknell. In 1878 a new infant’s room was built, and in 1902 new closets were built and the drainage system was repaired. The school room for the older children measured 33 feet by 17feet, the room for the middle class was 15 feet by 11 feet inches and the infants’ room was 20 feet by 11 feet 8 inches.

In 1880 the pupil numbers reached their peak of 100; the average attendance was 80. At this time Thomas Sparkes was the headmaster, assisted by his wife Elizabeth and two monitors. For 66 of the first 69 years that this school was open, Stourton had just three headmasters. Henry Turner and his wife Hannah stayed until 1874, and in 1875 Thomas Sparkes arrived and stayed for 13 years.

The school logbooks have survived from 1873 and Sparkes’s entries are dominated by the subject of attendance. This was because the government grant paid was dependent on attendance and also the children’s annual exam results. One of the main reasons for absence was bad weather, as the children often had no protective clothing to wear. During the winter there were the usual minor illnesses causing many absences. There are also many references to children being sent home because they had not paid their school pence (a weekly contribution from the parents). Another problem faced by this headmaster was the estate gamekeeper, who constantly took the older boys out of school to help with the shoot. Sparkes resigned in 1888 due to his poor health during the winter. His successor Robert Singleton stayed for just two years after which he gained promotion to a bigger school. He also cited attendance as his biggest frustration.

In 1890 Frank Morgan arrived. He was to stay for the next 36 years and was very popular with the whole community. In 1909 his class presented him with a pipe and a pocket book as a birthday present. During his time the first pupil teacher was appointed and in 1903 she was promoted to assistant mistress. School lessons focussed on the ‘3Rs’, as these were the subjects the children were examined in. They were also taught singing by note, grammar and repetition. Every term each of the seven grades were given a poem to learn. In 1883 Standard I was set a poem called ‘The Two Kittens’ while Standard VII had to learn a scene from Macbeth. Geography and history were taught to the boys, while the girls learned needlework. In 1883 the school inspector was very impressed with the children, saying they showed ‘sound and intelligent teaching’. This was a great achievement, as attendance was always a major problem.

In 1877 the Rector tried to encourage good attendance by giving an annual prize. He awarded 1 shilling to the older children and 6d to the infants. Other prizes were also given by the rector and the ladies of the parish, for singing, drawing or writing a letter. Sometimes the prize was money, sometimes a half day off school. Another form of encouragement for the boys was a football purchased in 1899. Any boys who managed full attendance during the week were allowed to play for one hour on Friday afternoons.

If the ‘carrot’ did not work, there was always the ‘stick’! Unfortunately some parents did not view school attendance as a priority, nor did they want to pay. In 1873 a girl of eight years was taken out of school to work in the silk house at Mere. In 1889 a nine year old boy left school in July to go out to work and declared he would not be back at school until the winter. As a last resort, parents were occasionally taken to court. In 1892 two men were each fined 5 shillings and 3 shillings each for their children’s poor attendance. In 1898 another man was fined 10 shillings.

Every winter the school coped with the usual coughs and colds, but occasionally the illness was more serious. In November 1892 there was an outbreak of scarlet fever. The school was closed to prevent the disease spreading further and remained closed until January. In May 1902 it closed for six weeks due to whooping cough, and in October it was struck by diphtheria. This time the closure lasted twelve weeks and unfortunately two girls died. The following February 70% of pupils were absent with influenza. In December 1903 the school closed again for four months. This must have been a very difficult two years for both staff and pupils and at the beginning of the next school year it was not possible to move the children up a standard. In September 1913 there was another case of scarlet fever. This time the School Medical Officer took drastic action. He ordered that all books and stationery used by the children should be burnt. The walls of the classroom were to be distempered and he advised a new system of closets and drainage. Other general health measures were the introduction of an annual inspection by a doctor in 1908, and by a dentist in 1917.

School holidays were usually a week each for Easter, Whitsun and Christmas. The summer break was dependent on the harvest and could be as late as September. It usually lasted four weeks. Sometimes the children had to miss one of the other holidays if the school had been closed due to illness, or if bad weather had seriously affected attendance. There were, however, other treats to look forward to. Lady Hoare entertained the school every September at Stourhead. Nearer Christmas time the boys and girls were separately invited to tea at the Rectory. In the summer of 1893 the rector gave the children an afternoon off and took them all to see ‘Wombell’s Wild Beast Show’ in Mere.

In general, the 20th century saw many changes to the national school curriculum. There were new subjects such as gardening and home economics, plus activities in the form of school visits, plays and nature walks. At Stourton the first mention of garden plots for the boys is in 1905. Fifteen perches of land were acquired to grow vegetables. The plots were regularly inspected and to encourage the boys a prize of 7 shillings and sixpence was given to the owner of the best plot and all the boys were given 1 shilling.