Church of England School, Berwick St James

Berwick St James Church of England School was founded in 1856 on land provided by Lord Ashburton to the northwest of the village church, to accommodate 50 pupils. The Pinckneys, a prominent local family and later owners of Asserton Farm (formerly Asserton Manor), provided the school’s funding. In the 1870s a teacher’s house, now called the Old School House, was provided near to the school. At around the same time, the Board of Education began to assist in the cost of educating the children of the school, but only if the school’s standards were sufficiently high; where this was not possible, the Pinckneys made up any shortfall in funding. The school’s first headmistress is recorded as a Miss Anne Fussey; four other headmistresses are recorded by Kelly’s Directory of Wiltshire for the nineteenth century: Mrs Lucy Herrington in 1885, Miss Smith in 1889, Miss Kate Kingston and Miss Effie May Wilkins in 1898.

The average attendance for the nineteenth century appears to have fluctuated between 30 and 45 – Kelly’s Directory records that the school had 47 pupils in 1871, 30 in the 1880s and 45 in 1898. 

School log books for Berwick St James only survive from 1904, but run through to its closure in 1992. The overall history of the school was fairly unremarkable. A playing field was added to the 1856 school in the summer of 1934, with the first year’s rent paid for by the Women’s Institute, and in January 1936 the school became a council school with the school number 363. In January 1937 the school transferred to a new building designed to accommodate 85 pupils constructed on land donated by the Rank family.

This new building was situated outside Berwick St James, in Stapleford Parish, but was sited close to the village of Berwick St James and intended to be used by both the children of Berwick and of Stapleford.  

The next major change came in 1975, when the school transitioned into a first school and twenty-four children left for middle school; it was at this point that the eventual closure of the school was first raised, owing to the reduction in pupil numbers. In May 1976 parents met with the school’s managers and representatives of the Education Department to discuss the future of the school, with the outcome that the school was to stay open for at least three years, on the condition that the school’s Pratten hut was to become a centre of environmental studies and that the top playing field be converted into a campsite. At a review of the school’s situation in late 1979 it was decided that the school was to remain open as a two teacher school for a further five years, provided that the number of pupils on the roll could be maintained at twenty-five or over.

The promised review of November 1984 was not recorded in the school’s log books, but it is evident that Wiltshire County Council felt that the school remained viable as there were no further discussions of closure until the early 1990s.  

The question of closure was revisited in early 1991, by which point the number of pupils at the school had reduced to eleven. At a governor’s meeting in April 1991, attended by representatives of the Council’s Education Committee, parents and members of the local community expressed a strong preference for the school to remain open, and over the next month a determined local campaign to save the school sprang up. The local MP, Robert Key, visited the school on 10 May followed by two television crews on 21 May. Unfortunately for the staff and parents on 20 May the Council’s Education Sub-Committee recommended the closure of the school, and this recommendation was endorsed by the Education Committee on 7 June. The official closure notice was published in November 1992, and no objections were received before the deadline of January 1992; the parents had, reluctantly, accepted that the closure was in the best interests of the pupils.

The final six pupils of Berwick St James School were transferred to other schools, after parents had won an agreement that the County Council would provide free transport for those who would otherwise have remained at the school. Two pupils went on to Wilton Middle School, three went to Steeple Langford First School and one went to Great Wishford First School. The final day of school was 6 July 1992 and the school officially closed on 18 July, whilst the campsite and environmental centre were sold in order to fund improvements at a county rural studies centre near Marlborough. 

Aside from the addition of the playing field in 1934, any changes to the original 1856 building were not recorded in the school log books or other records. The new 1937 school, however, underwent several alterations and expansions over the course of its life, though in common with the wider parish these were somewhat slow to arrive. Hot water did not come to the school until the summer of 1959, when a single hot water sink was installed in the children’s cloakroom, at the same time as a water sterilization system was installed. Up until the summer of 1960, the school did not have flushing toilets, relying instead on peat toilets.

The new flushing toilets were outside the school and indoor toilets were not installed until October 1982 after more than five years of lobbying by the head teacher, whose requests were repeatedly turned down by the County Council during the 1970s. A new ‘Pratten’ classroom (a prefabricated hut) for the use of the lower juniors was built on the school grounds in early 1966 – the then head teacher favoured a Pratten hut over an extension to the school building as any extension would be “bound to encroach on the tarmac playing area and the danger from broken windows is going to increase”. The school’s first telephone was installed in 1966, followed in 1967 by a second hot water sink, and in 1969 by an outdoor swimming pool and a new playing field. During the 1970s the heating and water systems were updated, with the school transferring to oil rather than coal-powered heating in 1971, and gaining access to the mains water supply in 1973.

From 1980 onwards Berwick St James School, like many others across the country, began to feel the effects of funding cuts and the economic recession and far fewer alterations or repairs (unless serious) were made to the school; the installation of two shower units to the outside toilet block in 1981 appears to have been the last major work undertaken at the school before its closure. 

The school went through numerous staff changes during its life, with a detailed record of twentieth century staff surviving in the school log books. From 1903 to 1907 the head mistress was Miss Louisa Langley and from 1907 the head mistress was Mrs Louisa Adlam-Eyres; it is possible that Miss Langley had married rather than left the school. Adlam-Eyres was to remain at the school, with a short eleven-month break, for thirty-one years, finally leaving the school in December 1934. Adlam-Eyres briefly resigned from the school in March 1922 and was succeeded first my A Williams from May to December 1922, and then by A M Edwards from January to February 1923, at which point Adlam-Eyres returned. From January 1935 until late 1938 the school had a high turnover of head teachers, with two temporary and one full head mistress during that time.

Edwina Beatrice Greening took temporary charge from January to August 1935, followed by Ethel Wingar from September 1935 until December 1937, at which point she resigned owing to ill-health. M E A Hake then took temporary charge of the school from January to September 1938; Hake was succeeded by I M Jones from October 1938 to July 1953. Mrs Ada Beatrice Gething then became head for eleven years, from September 1953 to March 1964, and was succeeded by Cyril James Marsh until April 1976. The school then went through a second phase of successive temporary teachers: Miss S E Bowden from April to July 1976, Miss E M Shore September 1976 to January 1977, Miss Elizabeth Hawthorne From January 1977 to December 1979, and Miss Smith, previously at Qualified Teacher at the school, who became acting head in January 1980 before returning to her more junior post in April 1980. Mrs Jean Coats, later Jean Briggs, took over from April 1980 until July 1985. The final permanent head teacher was Mrs Linn Tedman, who was at Berwick from September 1985 to March 1991; it appears that it was Mrs Tedman’s decision to leave the school that brought the by then tiny school to the attention of the County Council, who then began the closure process.

Tedman was succeed briefly by Jan West, acting head teacher from April 1991 to April 1993, and by Mrs Day, acting head from April to July 1992, when the school finally closed. 

Until the early 1920s, Berwick St James appears to have been a single teacher school, with the head taking both the infant and junior classes. In October 1920 the school acquired its first recorded supplementary teacher, Miss Conduit. After this point the school was, with the exception of very brief periods of staff changeover, never without an assistant teacher until its closure in 1992. With the introduction of school meals at Berwick in 1953, the school also took on a meals helper, with additional helpers being required by 1960 when the school was taking in 50 dinners per day. By the 1960s and early 1970s the number of pupils at the school had reached its peak, with 71 pupils in 1971, and the school was forced to take on a third assistant teacher in the early 1960s (although for at least part of this period the third teacher appears to have been employed for only two days per week). This system lasted until at least 1977, when the transition to becoming a first school had resulted in a drop in pupil numbers and therefore a reduction in the number of staff required at the school.

Certainly by the early 1980s Berwick St James was once again a two teacher school. By the time of its closure, the school also had additional part-time staff such as Midday Supervisory Assistant, a Secretary and a caretaker, Mr Mustill, who had worked at the school since 1958. 

The number of pupils attending Berwick St James School was largely consistent during the first half of the twentieth century, with between 24 and 40 pupils on the roll. In 1908, the first year for which the log books record attendance figures, there were 37 pupils. This dropped to 28 in 1915 and stayed in the high 20s until 1922, when it settled in the low 30s, increasing to 41 in 1926 before dropping to the mid-30s until the early 1950s. At this point, possibly as a result of the post-war baby boom, the number of pupils began to rise significantly: from 27 in 1952 there were 50 pupils by 1959, 68 in 1964 and 71 – the all time high – in 1971. From here the numbers steadily fell, 64 in 1972, 59 in 1973 and 51 in 1974, until the school became a first school in 1975 at which point a large number of its pupils went on to a middle school. The school maintained a respectable number of pupils on its roll during the 1980s (28 in 1981, 22 in 1985, 27 in 1988), but by the early 1990s the number of pupils was declining rapidly.

Possibly a result of fewer young family in the area towards the end of the twentieth century, fewer and fewer young pupils were joining the school each year whilst relatively large numbers of children left to attend middle schools. The number of pupils fell to 14 in 1990 and to 6 in 1992, of whom only 4 would have continued at the school in 1993 had it remained open. 

Overall attendance at the school was largely good. Incidences of absence for reasons other than illness or poor weather appear to have been rare, with few incidents recorded in the school log books. In 1907, the children of the parish were said to have been distracted by the ongoing army manoeuvres, with roughly half the pupils missing on the worst day of absences. In May 1925, the school’s children went to Stoke Hill “to see some huts on fire, and did not return in time to receive their mark for the afternoon”. Only one case of severe repeated absence was recorded in the logbooks, from the summer of 1955. On 6 June 1955, nine children from Stapleford were marked absent for being 40 minutes late “because the bus service has been altered and they were not allowed to walk”.

Although the children were warned that this must not occur again, the same children were late until 10 June, and after this a core of 5 children were late every day until the end of the school year, and a further 6 children were late because of the bus at the start of the new school year in September. It appears to have become accepted that these children’s school day was to be bound by the timetable of the school bus, as an HMI report of February 1956 drew attention to the fact that a number of children arriving by bus were persistently late, and left early, illustrating some of the problems faced by small, remote rural schools such as Berwick St James. 

As with all infant and junior schools, Berwick St James School had its fair share of illnesses amongst the children, and a few of these incidents were severe enough to require the closure of the school. There were closures due to outbreaks of influenza in March 1919, February to March 1922, February 1927, and March 1934. Whooping Cough forced the closure of the school in April 1930, whilst the school was closed for the majority of July 1837 due to an epidemic of Measles. Five children were withdrawn from the register from September 1938 until they had been successfully treated for their Scarlet Fever.

Perhaps the most serious outbreak at the school occurred in the winter of 1960-1961, when a prolonged epidemic of sickness at the school prompted the head teacher to call in health inspectors from Salisbury to try to determine the cause; the issue was eventually traced to the water supply tank in the roof, and restrictions on washing and other uses of water were implemented until the end of January 1961. 

There were few incidences of punishment severe enough to warrant recording in the school log books, however a few cases do stand out. In June 1926 one boy “received corporal punishment for holding a little boy over the water and pretending to drown him going home from school to Stapleford”, whilst a second child was also caned “for interfering with the same boy”. In April 1936, a thirteen year old boy who was being reprimanded for encouraging others to misbehave struck the head teacher in the face, smashing her glasses.

One of the school managers was summoned to the school to deal with the boy, and the incident was later referred to the Body of Managers. 

Like many other rural schools, Berwick school was regularly closed to allow the children to participate in the harvest. Other closure days were granted for the wedding of the Duke of Gloucester in November 1935, the death of George V in January 1936, for the coronation in 1953, and for the wedding of Princess Margaret. There were also a number of special annual holidays, above those for Christmas, Easter and summer. Throughout the 1920s, the children were taken on an annual outing to the seaside – this was usually Bournemouth however in 1923 the children went instead to Southsea, and in 1928 they went to Weymouth. During the 1970s and the 1980s there were also regular trips to the theatre at Salisbury Playhouse.  

Given the relatively remote and exposed location of the school, on the edge of Salisbury Plain, there were predictably regular closures and attendance difficulties owing to poor weather.

Throughout the history of the school, the log books report numerous incidents of children not attending school owing to wet or snowy weather, though a few severe incidents stand out. On 30 January 1940 no children were able to attend the school, despite it remaining open, due to the inclement weather, whilst only tree managed to attend the following day. On 29 January and 1 February 1954 there were again no children, despite the school being open, due to heavy snow and blocked roads; the decision was then taken to close the school until 8 February. Closing the school because of poor weather was a frequent issue in Berwick St James, often out of concerns for the safety of the children – given that so many travelled long distances, from Stapleford to the south or Druid’s Lodge to the east, the teachers were often forced to close the school during the school day, as it was considered unsafe to keep the children in school until the usual closing time. 

The school syllabus was typical of its type, with subjects such as reading, writing, arithmetic, PT (now better known as PE), history, geography, scripture, painting, drawing and nature forming the mainstay of the learning in the school.

Owing to its position on a main road the school also consistently ran Cycling Proficiency and Green Cross Code lessons, particularly after the late 1970s after a number of serious accidents near the school, including one that resulted in the tragic death of a pupil. The school also provided swimming lessons for its pupils; these were at first paid for by the school, with increasing contributions from pupils’ families as time went on and the school’s funding gradually reduced. The school also regularly arranged for authors to come to speak to the children during the 1980s, including in November 1984 when John Ryan, author of the Pugwash books, visited the school. A head teacher’s report from 1933 gives some insight into the additional subjects that the children were taught: the teacher recorded that so far as careers were concerned, the girls wished to enter the domestic services whilst he boys were “mostly fitted for farm work”.

To this end, the school ensured that at least some of its subjects were vocationally tailored for the children – the boys, for example, were given courses in agriculture in which they were able to learn about soil types, crop rotation and so on. 

The school was inspected regularly by His (or Her) Majesty’s Inspectors, however these were only regularly recorded in the school log books during the 1920s and 1930s, and they were not recorded at all after 1956. Nevertheless the overall picture of the school painted by these reports was largely positive. The early reports stress that whilst the teaching was of good quality and the children were attentive, the building itself was preventing their full potential being reached. A report from 1904 noted that “to secure really good progress, a classroom is needed” and that the building in general was in a poor condition. In 1924 the school’s “good tone and discipline” were praised, though it was pointed out that the children’s achievements had suffered under the period of temporary head teachers in the 1922-1923 academic year.

In 1928, the report stated that the children continued “to be taught under very cramped conditions in the same room” but that the children “apply themselves quietly and steadily to their lessons and respond well to their teacher’s efforts”. In the 1932 inspection HMI continued to complain of “the unsatisfactory teaching conditions” in the school, again emphasising that the single classroom for children ranging from five to fourteen years was a significant problem, though again the head teacher had managed to secure “a creditable level of attainment” from the pupils. The issues with the fabric of the school were rectified by the move to the new building in 1937, and the 1940 report gave a broadly positive picture of the school, stating that whilst “attainment is rather low the children try hard and are interested in their work”. The final report recorded in the log books said that the children “appear interested in their work” but drew attention to the disruption to the school day caused by the late arrival and early departure of the children who came to school by bus. 

There was very little in the way of wartime activity at the school in either the First or the Second World War.

The only direct references to the First World War come from 1919, one from the head teacher’s annual report in which it was recorded that the school had no School War Savings Association, and one from the school log book recording poor attendance during the week of 21 July 1919, owing to the peace celebrations. Subsequently, the school appears to have marked Armistice Day throughout the late 1920s and the 1930s. 

During the Second World War the school hosted a number of evacuees from Hillside School in Portsmouth. The 1939 reopening of the school after the summer vacation should have occurred on 4 September, however owing to the declaration of war, and the arrival of a number of evacuated children, the reopening was postponed until 11 September. On this day, five self-evacuated children were absorbed into the school, and 16 government evacuated children were accommodated in the infants’ room, and twenty-nine juniors and seniors were sent to the reading room. The Portsmouth children were initially accompanied by three teachers, however two of these were transferred to other schools by 1 April 1940. Seven evacuees also left on this date and by 21 June 1940 the school’s log book records that only eight evacuees remained in the school.

The date that the final evacuees left is not recorded, however the school did close for victory celebrations on 8 & 9 May 1945 and for a VJ excursion on 14 September.