National School, Wootton Rivers

A Church of England School opened in 1845 and was endowed with £150 in 1848. A new school was built in 1864 and this provided education in the village until its closure in 1979 owing to falling numbers; it then became a Teaching Centre and is now a private house. In the Warburton census of 1859 the school is said to have ’90-100 children’ and they are taught by ‘a master and a sewing mistress in a very moderate room’. The highest monthly average attendance from the log books between 1894 and 1919 was 97 pupils in 1906. From the school log books we learn much about both the school and the community:

Between 1894 and 1919 the amount of holidays per year went up considerably, by the end of this period they had holidays for Christmas, Easter, Harvest, Accession Day and a Trinity Vacation. With one head master they even had an annual treat into Savernake Forest before their harvest holiday. In the time between 1919 and 1953 holidays became more regulated by the government, the church and the school managers, they had less holidays but they were longer and more structures; Christmas, Harvest, Easter, Whitsuntide and the occasional long weekend. They also had a fair amount of days off between 1893 and 1953 for severe weather, illnesses and other National events, such as the start and end of the two wars, the wedding of a headmaster, and occasionally they had a day off to celebrate a classmate making the grade and getting into a Grammar school. On the 27th of May 1895 Bertie Lovelock drowned in the canal and the school children had a day off on the 29th to attend his funeral. Twenty-one years later another boy, Sydney Alford, was found in the canal. In May 1935 the school closed for the Silver Jubilee of King George V and then not even a year later it closed again for his funeral. Three trees were planted between 1897 and 1953 to commemorate royal happenings; Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897, George V Jubilee in 1935 and Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.

In the list of subjects I mentioned gardening; the garden was opened in January 1913 and was tended to by the upper standards. In the harvest holiday of 1913 ‘the boys visited the gardens and have kept them in excellent condition’. Many plants and seeds were bought by the head teacher during the time of the garden and they had many ‘lantern lectures and talks’ about things such as ‘beehives’, ‘honey collection’ and ‘common birds seen in lanes and fields’.

Some of the lessons that these students participated in over these 59 years were Reading, Writing, Drawing, Needlework and Knitting, Religious Scripture, History, Geography, Physical Education, Gardening, Music, Spelling and Grammar, Elementary Science, Natural Science, Singing and, of course, Arithmetic. Some of topics covered by arithmetic include short and long division, subtracting, weight and measures, vulgar fractions, division and multiplication of money and compound addition. These lessons did not all happen during the same years but they gradually developed and changed the lessons to make them more up to date and ‘modern’. In the late 18th and very early 19th century the school master assigned ‘Object Lessons’ most months. Some of these consist of: pig and horse, signs of the seasons, ploughman, potato, milk, sheep, coal, cart, beggar man, ostrich, slates, lion, bread, camel, daisy, our hair, lighthouse, haymaking, squirrel and coffee, and honey.

Various events occurred between 1893 and 1979 to prevent the school children or teachers getting to school. In such a rural community as Wootton Rivers the weather played a major role in the life of the children and their parents. The schoolmaster had to report ‘thin attendance’ to the authorities on many occasions due to heavy rain making roads impassable or heavy snow making travelling unsafe. At one time, in November 1894, the children had to be taken home in carts because the road was ‘utterly underwater’. Later in 1913 the head master writes that there has been ‘very little recreation this week as the playground has been a quagmire’. Later on, in 1915 the head mistress records how ‘it was impossible to get the temperature in the main room to 45°F. The children were so cold that it was impossible for them to put forth their full effort’. Illness also affected such a small community greatly and the school had to be shut on many occasions because of epidemics of illnesses such as whooping cough. Other illnesses that affected attendance included colds, scarlet fever, influenza, diphtheria (though in the 1930 onwards the children were getting diphtheria immunisation jabs), ringworm, scabies, boils, mumps, measles and chicken pox. In July 1913 the school was closed for 3 weeks due to a measles epidemic.

Other absences that would probably not occur in an urban equivalent of Wootton Rivers School are the days and weeks when children are away helping their families on the farms. Most years at least a few older children would be away haymaking for a week or so. Other absences that occurred because of farming needs consist of potato picking and potato planting, acorn picking and hop picking. During the First World War the children were paid to collect blackberries and acorns. In 1917 the headmistress writes that ‘the children will have a holiday for blackberry picking the first fine afternoon’, in total that year the children collected 23 bushels (1.380 lbs) of blackberries from fields and hedgerows to send to the towns and cities. As well as collecting blackberries for the war effort the children performed lots of concerts to their friends and family, they raised quite a bit of money doing this and also by selling the honey from a beehive they erected during the Second World War. The money raised during WW1 went to various charities including: National Soldiers Society, Red Cross, Blinded Soldiers, and Wootton Rivers Boy Scouts; some money even went towards restoring their piano. The money that was raised during WW2 went to the Wiltshire Blind Fund, RAF Benevolent Fund, St. Wulstans US Army Hospital and the RSPCA (though in the log books it is called the R.S.P.C.Animals).

The longest serving headmaster was Richard E. Dixon who was head for 36 years, from 1876 till 1912 when he gave up the position to Harold Hopcroft, who only lasted three years. Mrs Bourlet was head mistress for 15 years (1920-1935) and Mrs Gibson, her successor, was head for 18 years. Mrs Gibson was followed by Mrs W. Ashley. Lucy Ann Gay, the head mistress before Mrs Bourlet held a sports event before a harvest holiday and gave prizes including two cakes, a book, some money and a tame rabbit! Some of the other people involved in the school during the 85 years include Mr Spratt (clock maker) and Mr Davis who were managers for a time, Mrs Norris (teacher for seven years), Miss Munday who taught the infants for a while, and Mrs Goddard the cleaner who refused to clean properly in 1917 unless she got a raise of salary. Mrs Smart was an infant teacher for 12 years and she often had days off to meet her husband who came home on leave from the navy. From about the 1910s onwards a doctor, nurse or dentist visited at least once a year and more often once every month, some of the regular medical visitors included Nurse Stagg, Doctor Beard, Doctor Collins and a dentist that was not named.

In July 1913 an army biplane ‘was to be seen in a field at the rear of the school and the children were taken to see it from 1:30 – 1:50’. Later, in August 1941 ‘a bomb fell in a field near the school during the night’, these two events were about as close to the war as the inhabitants of Wootton Rivers who had not gone to fight got apart from the evacuated children in the village. On the same day the head mistress writes ‘war was declared against Germany on Sunday September 3rd, school was closed last week’ and ‘15 evacuated children were admitted’. From 1939 till 1944 there were always evacuees present in the village and at the school. What I find curious is that they were never talked about as if they were the same as the villagers, in every month when talking about attendance the village children and evacuees would be talked about separately; for example, ‘97.6% attendance today, 100% evacuees’ and ‘on books 38 + 6 Evac.’

Events that happened during the WW2 years included: in April 1941 the head records that ‘we have had word from the R.S.P.Birds that Wootton Rivers School has been placed 1st in the open class, winning the shield for the 6 best essays’. In the winters of 1940 and 1941 the school was closed for a couple of days to allow it to become sleeping quarters for the ‘Military Authorities’. The Reverend Brodribb visited each day during his time as vicar, with the exception of when his wife died and when he was ill. His successors were not so often at the school but they did take scripture lessons for all the pupils and one HMI report really praises the religious education received by the students. The vicar during WW2 was also responsible for the checking of gas masks and carrying out regular gas mask drills, as well as this, the children also had air raid practices on a regular basis during the start of the Second World War.

Some events occurred regularly in this school during the late 19th and early 20th century that would nowadays be seen as strange or surprising. For example children were regularly described by Mr Dixon as ‘totally ignorant’ and one girl was said to be so ‘ignorant’ that she would have been put in the infant class only she was too large! In 1897 the head writes that ‘five sponges were stolen during a parish meeting last night’ and in 1896 he says how ‘every child in the school came with clean boots on Tuesday and Wednesday which is a great improvement’. Children were regularly sent home to ‘have their heads cleaned’ because of ‘vermin’. This implies that they were rather poor as they could not afford personal cleanliness; another example of poverty is in 1916. ‘Cyril, Fred and Cissie Rogers’ names removed from the register because they have been left by their mother and are now in the workhouse’. Despite this, they have returned a few weeks later and do not go back to the workhouse. In March 1914 a penny bank was opened in the school for the pupils and by the next March they had saved £23. Despite our perception of schools in the late 19th and early 20th century, the pupils were very rarely punished, in total I have found just seven instances of pupils being caned or otherwise punished in the 85 years covered by these three log books.

The first occurrence was punishment of a boy for ‘indecent behaviour’ the head teacher then went on to say that ‘this boy has since been expelled’. Later on another boy was punished, this time for ‘being continually late’. The next three boys were punished for ‘disorderly conduct’ the first time it was two of them and the second time there was a repeat offender but with a different accomplice, these boys each had ‘1 stroke on hand’ with the repeat offender having 2 strokes altogether on consecutive weeks. The last boy that I can find to be punished received 4 strokes on his back ‘for climbing up to a lobby window’.