Church of England School, Fosbury

Fosbury Church of England School was built in or soon after 1810 in what was then part of Shalbourne parish, though this was later incorporated into Tidcombe and Fosbury. The land and financial support for the school were provided by Silvanus Bevan, then lord of Fosbury manor, and the first school building stood on the Oxenwood road near Fosbury House. It seems that Bevan intended the school to serve children living in Fosbury and Oxenwood, though by 1888 children were coming to the school from as far away as Buttermere; the long distances across country that many pupils had to travel would later cause considerable difficulties in winter weather.

              The 1810 school was taken over by the County Council in October 1903, and continued to operate until March 1904 when it was closed. The pupils were transferred to a temporary school (officially Tidcombe & Fosbury Temporary County School) in April 1904, where they remained until September 1905 when a new school was opened in Oxenwood village. The new school was located on land sold to the County Council by A. Huth, then lord of Fosbury Manor. The land set aside for the school was originally to be ¼ acre, for the price of £20, which was considered sufficient for a school, a house for the master and grounds for both.

However, the County Council declined to pay for the construction of the master’s house and so the plot was reduced to a frontage of 99 feet and a depth of 16 feet, for the reduced price of £16. Huth appears to have agreed to finance the master’s house himself, and the headmaster moved into his new residence in March 1905. The name of the new school was Oxenwood Council School.

              From at least October 1955, but probably much earlier, pupils over 14 years of age were transferred to Great Bedwyn School – there was an intention to eventually send older pupils to a new Secondary modern school at Hungerford, however it appears that this plan did not come to fruition before the school was closed.

              As a result of falling pupil numbers the first discussions regarding the closure of the school began in October 1966, and a closure decision appears to have been made at some point between December 1966 and May 1967. In common with other remote rural schools subject to closure, the council appears to have contemplated turning the building into a field studies centre; this centre is still present as of 2016.

The school was finally closed on 20 December 1967: the remaining children were sent to Shalbourne School, as was the school stock and furniture; some of the Physical Education equipment was sent to Great Bedwyn School.

              The school’s log books run from 1887 until its closure in 1967 and provide a good deal of information regarding the day-to-day running of the school, including alterations to the fabric of its successive buildings. The 1810 school building had three teaching rooms, and these appear to have remained largely unchanged until the building’s closure in 1904. In August and September 1889 two new bedrooms were created in the master’s house to accommodate his larger family, and a new set of stairs rising from the kitchen to reach these rooms was also added at this time. The school cloakroom was enlarged during the summer of 1897 by removing the partition between the original cloakroom and the cellar, which was by that point disused, and a new opening window was added to the cloakroom to improve ventilation.

The final alterations to the 1810 building came in the summer of 1901, when new stoves were fitted and a new floor was laid in the boys’ porch.

              The temporary school building used between April 1904 and September 1905 was the source of many complaints during the short time it was in use: it had no fireplace in the main room and until October 1904 it had no stove either, and the building was so cold that in May 1904 the children were taught Physical Education and marching solely in order to keep them warm. Nor was the building dry: the parents were concerned that the building was too damp and refused to send their children to the new building during its first week of opening, fearing for their health. In November 1904, the master recorded in the log books that rain was running into the school room, and that throughout 1904 the school yard became very muddy and slippery during wet weather.

The building was just as unbearable in the summer, and throughout July 1905 the log books record that the school room was “almost unbearable” due to the heat despite all the windows being open and that the children were “almost covered with ‘Thunder Flies’” making work “almost impossible”.

              The new school building in Oxenwood appears to have needed little work, at least not sufficient to record in the log books, from 1905 to 1935, when asbestos sheeting was added to the area surrounding the oil stove so that it might be used for cookery classes. In 1937, new stoves were added to the classrooms to replace the old heat sources, however when they were lit for the first time in 1937 at least one stove filled the classroom with fumes “and the smell of burning paint”, so much so that the Seniors class had to be taken outdoors for their lessons. Larger stoves were added to the main room in 1944, and the rain water pump was repaired at the same time. A new kitchen and scullery were opened around October 1949, the school was wired for electricity during the 1956 summer holidays, a letter box was added in October 1956, and a new stove was installed in the infant room during the 1959 summer break. In November 1959 electric water heaters were fitted in the cloakrooms, and the canteen roof was resurfaced.

The water heaters proved to be problematic as the water pressure at the school varied considerably throughout the year, causing the staff to worry that they might overheat should the pressure drop too low. As a result, the heaters were eventually connected to the hot water tank in the roof over the course of the 1960 summer holiday. The final alterations to the school building were undertaken during the half term holiday of October 1961 when a new cooking range was installed in the school kitchen, replacing the existing cooker and water boiler. The school was not connected to mains sewerage before it was closed in 1967.

              In terms of staffing, the school had a head teacher and an assistant teacher (though for a time in the early twentieth century there were two assistants, one for infants and one for standards). In addition, there was a school cleaner from at least the late nineteenth century, a cook from the mid twentieth century, and numerous monitresses in the 1890s.

              Given the remote location of the school, it appears to have been somewhat difficult to attract and retain teaching staff at the school, and towards the end of the nineteenth century the quality of the teachers appears to have been rather variable, as the HMI reports attest.

Head teachers at the school appear to have either stayed for significant periods or left very quickly. From February 1875 to September 1889 the master was James Hood, however after this long tenure the school went through three heads in the period between September 1889 and September 1891: John Parkinson, August 1889 to September 1890 (Parkinson appears to have left in response to an extremely poor HMI report); Matthew Stannet from October 1890 to September 1891; and C. Carpenter from October 1891 to June 1892. From then until 1907 the school went through a period of stability, with Richard Parkinson master from June 1892 to November 1900 and his successor Mr Greenwood master until October 1907. After Greenwood resigned due to ill health the school again had difficulty in attracting a new master, with four heads in the period October 1907 to February 1908: J Morris (less than one month), Albert Kerridge (six weeks), an unnamed temporary master for four days in December, and Catherine Staunton (one month). John Hedges took over from Staunton and remained master until March 1925; after Hedges left due to ill health Frances Thomas took over until June 1925. Thomas was succeeded by Rose Butler who was mistress of the school until her retirement in October 1930. E Brown took charge as head teacher until February 1935 when R. Marshall took over.

Marshall’s tenure was the longest of any head at the school: she remained with the school until July 1956 when she took a sabbatical to attend a course at the London University Institute of Education on “the teaching of educationally sub-normal children”. She was due to return to Fosbury at the start of the 1957-58 academic year, however she resigned in June 1957 to take a post elsewhere. A. Foster took over as head master upon Marshall’s sabbatical, remaining with the school until the end of 1961 when he was succeeded Miss M. Jones. Jones left to become head of an Army school in Singapore in December 1966. The final head of Fosbury School was named Warde, who took the school from January 1967 until its closure in December of that year.

              There are 37 assistant teachers named in the school log books, and as with the head teachers many of them remained at the school only briefly. Annie Foord was infant mistress from 1875 until her death in service in July 1889. She was succeeded by Miss Humphries, who left in September 1889; Mary Pratt took over teaching of the infants September 1889 to August 1890. Annie Parkinson (wife of the then master) taught the standards from August 1889 to September 1890, and the infants from August to September 1890. A.

Stannett, daughter of the head, took over the infants’ class from October 1890 to September 1891, after which Kate Carpenter (wife of the new head) became the infant mistress until March 1892. She was succeeded by Miss Hetherington until June 1892, who in turn handed over to Alice Parkinson until September 1898. Miss Apstead took over from Parkinson as infant mistress until October 1900, when Miss Moss took charge. Moss left one month later when Mary Greenwood took over as assistant teacher. Greenwood was the longest serving member of staff to serve at the school, remaining in post until October 1929. She appears to have taught both standards and infants until 1910 when Miss Moody took over teaching of the infants. In April 1913 Miss Coleman took over from Moody, remaining in post until December 1921 (although she left for four months in 1919 during which time she was replaced by Mary Greenwood’s daughter).

 The school was then without an assistant teacher until January 1923 when Mrs Massey began work at the school as an uncertificated teacher, remaining in post until May 1928 when she was replaced by Rose Hedges. Hedges remained at the school until August 1930, after which she was replaced by Miss Bush in January 1931. Bush married in August 1936, becoming Mrs Maber, before leaving in April 1937 as a result of staffing cuts by the County Council.

Miss Greenwood returned to work as a supplementary teacher in October 1929 and married in January 1930, becoming Mrs Percy, however she fell ill in early 1931 and went on sick leave in April before dying in September. During Percy’s absence she was replaced by Miss Stagg; she appears to have been made permanent after Percy’s death and left in April 1933 at which point she was replaced by Irene Ward In December of that year. Ward remained with the school until May 1937. After this point and until the middle of the Second World War the assistant staffing at the school becomes a little unclear: in June 1937 Mrs J. Brittain joined the school, however it is not clear when Brittain left; in September 1937 Mrs Tucker joined the school to teach infants and Standard I before resigning in December 1941. In June 1940 Mr MacGregor took charge of the juniors: MacGregor appears to have been a teacher brought in with the evacuee children, and he was transferred to Ramsbury at some point in August or September 1940, at which point Miss S. Benson took over the juniors.

In the later war years and post war period the school seriously struggled to attract and retain experienced teachers, and there was an average of a new assistant teacher every two years at the school. Benson left in May 1942 at which point she was replaced by Grace Lansley, who remained with the school until February 1947.

Lansley had no previous experience of teaching and her appointment appears to have been one of necessity rather than choice on the part of the managers. Initially only a temporary appointment, she was made permanent in November 1943 when no other teachers could be found to fill the vacant posts at the school. In March 1947 Lansley was replaced by Miss Eatwell, who like Lansley had no prior teaching experience. It was not until September 1948 that the school gained second experienced and qualified teacher to work alongside the head, when Mrs R. Foster replaced Eatwell as infant teacher. Foster remained at Fosbury until May 1956, aside from a one year leave of absence to attend a training course during which time she was replaced by first by Kenneth Shaw and then by Eileen Groves. Between September 1950 and July 1951 the only teachers at the school were the head and Miss M. Rhodes, another inexperienced teacher who had only just left Grammar School. After R. Foster left she was replaced by Mrs Foster, wife of the then head master, until July 1959 at which point she was replaced by Miss R. Newman until December 1961. In January 1962 another unqualified teacher, Mrs Unwin, who the head reported had “virtually no previous teaching experience”, took over the infants’ class.

Unwin left in December 1962 and was replaced in January 1963 by Miss Howarth, who was in turn replaced by Mrs Barnes from April 1963 until the school’s closure.

The supplementary staff at the school appear to have been much more stable than the teaching staff. There appears to have been a school cleaner for much of the twentieth century, although their names are not always recorded. In October 1935 it was recorded that the cleaner, a Mrs Ward, came into the school whilst the children were still present and “was very abusive and refused to leave”. The school correspondent wrote to her suspending her from her duties and asked her to give up the keys to the school, which she refused to do, and the next day the door at the Girls’ entrance had to be forced open. Ward’s successor, from October 1935 to February 1961, was Mrs A. Gilbert, who was then succeeded by Mrs Dennis (March-December 1961), Mrs Dow (December 1961 – September 1962), Mrs Hope (September 1962 – November 1964) and Mrs Bond (November 1964 – December 1967). The first recorded appointment of a school cook came in September when Mrs Bird, a Hungarian, was given the job. Bird does not appear to have been successful at the school: in December 1950 the School Meals Organisers visited Fosbury to ask that the cook be dismissed as “the costs of the meals was too high, the menus were not sufficiently varied, and the kitchen utensils were not clean”.

Bird was replaced by Mrs Mason from January 1951 to April 1959, Mrs Murray until October 1960, Mrs Miller until September 1963, and Mrs Matthews until the closure of the school.

The number of children on the school roll appears to have steadily decreased over the period covered by the log books, although the number on the registers was only sporadically recorded making it difficult to determine the true figures. In 1887 there were 93 pupils on the roll, rising to an all time high of 101 in 1898. From here the numbers appear to have steadily decreased to 68 in 1907, before rising again to 84 in 1913. From here there was a further general decrease until the closure of the school: there were 65 pupils on the roll in 1924, 52 in 1934, a small peak to 87 in 1940 (although this includes evacuee children), 37 in 1943, 30 in 1954, 22 in 1964 and only 19 when the school closed in 1967. It’s often unclear how many of these children actually attended the school regularly – the attendance appears to have been reasonable at least after 1945, however the 1880s and 1890s were marked by very poor attendance. On a good day, the school might achieve 60% attendance during the 1890s, although the reason for this is often not recorded.

One constant factor in poor attendance at the school was the weather.

Rural schools in Wiltshire often suffered poor attendance when the weather was severe, and as a remote and isolated school even by Wiltshire’s standards Fosbury appears to have suffered more than most. In common with other schools in Wiltshire many children, particularly infants, at Fosbury did not attend in wet weather. On 15 November 1888 the rain was so heavy that only 11 of 89 pupils were present in the morning, though this had risen to 16 by the afternoon. Snow was also a concern for the children at Fosbury: in mid-February 1887 the school was closed for a week due to snow blocking the roads, and in February 1889 the school was closed due to a heavy fall of snow (on this occasion even when the children did come back to school “no paperwork was attempted through cold fingers”). The worst period of weather-related absences and closures appears to have been c.1880-c.1910, however the weather proved hostile even into the 1950s: in 1958 a heavy fall of snow during the day meant that three children were unable to get home at the end of the school day and had to spend the night in the village before going home the following morning; many of the children who were able to go home could only do so in a farm lorry.

As with any school, Fosbury had its share of sickness and illness. There were several severe outbreaks of illness between 1887, when the school’s log books began, and the outbreak of the Second World War.

(There were far fewer mentions of sickness in the period 1939-1967, although it seems that this is because the head teachers of the time did not record such events in the log books in addition, perhaps, to improved vaccinations and medical care.) In June 1887 the school was closed for more than two weeks due to an outbreak of measles, and there was another outbreak of the disease in 1929 which closed the school for over a month. In July 1889 a ten year old child from Tidcombe village, Mary Jane Wheeler, died of consumption. Influenza also often plagued the parish: there was a three-week outbreak in February 1890 and a second, much longer, outbreak from December 1891 to February 1892. An outbreak of Whooping Cough closed the school for five weeks in the spring of 1939, and there were a series of outbreaks of Scarlet Fever between 1893 and 1907. This first lasted five weeks between December 1893 and January 1894, causing the managers to close the school. A prolonged outbreak the following winter lasted from December 1894 to March 1895; the school was not closed but the infected children were excluded from the school, and the school was cleaned and fumigated over the Christmas holiday. The final outbreak was in October 1907, though the extent of the disease was not recorded.

The other notable issue of poor health and wellbeing that stands out from the school records is that of parasites: there are periodic references by the head teachers and the school medical officers to children who “have vermin in their heads”. This was sometimes severe enough to cause the school medical officer to visit the parents of the child in question.

The children at the school appear to have been broadly well behaved, at least as much as can be expected, however there are several instances of punishment that stand out from the school’s records. Aside from canings in the 1880s for more minor offences such as talking too loudly and so on, the master recorded that on one occasion a local person called and asked him to “speak to the Henley children respecting lighting fires on their way home”; the children were “duly punished”. There were two instances of theft from the school by pupils, both of which resulted in court action. In the first incident, in December 1931, a child stole seven shillings from a cupboard in the main room – after the police were called by the boy’s mother (who believed her son to be innocent) the child confessed to the theft. The head teacher and the boy’s mother attempted to avoid a court summons by intervening with the police, however the case seems to have gone to court as the head appeared as a witness in the case at Marlborough.

In the second case, in April 1947, a boy stole two fountain pens belonging to the teachers and a Hornby train from the school; one pen was returned but the second and the train were broken. In July 1947 the head attended Marlborough Juvenile Court, where the boy was given twelve months’ probation for the theft.

A somewhat less severe but nevertheless bizarre episode of poor behaviour occurred in December 1932: the head gave two girls 40 lines each for arriving late, and when these had not been done by the end of the day the head cut the required number of lines to 20. Instead of finishing these after school, the two girls ran from the school when the head was distracted, leaving their coats behind. The head teacher then locked the doors and refused to let them re-enter, and after “much verbal abuse” of the head, the girls went home. Later that day the father of one of the girls came to the head teacher’s house, but the head turned him away; soon after this the mother of the other girl “came, entered my house, and demanded to see me”, and then refused to leave until it became clear that the head would not see her. The matter was only resolved when the vicar visited the head to collect the school keys and escort the girls’ parents to the school to collect their clothes.

In January the girls wrote letters of apology to the head, but it is unclear whether they were otherwise punished.

The final incident occurred during January 1957. The head recorded that he had been visited by the local police, who had “been investigating alleged cases of indecent behaviour by the children of this district and that the school was involved”. The head informed the managers and a meeting was called the following day, at which it was decided that “the police had acted wrongly in questioning all the schoolchildren without first consulting me” and that the managers would contact both the police and the county council. The end result of this communication is not clear from the school’s records, however three weeks after the managers’ meeting an Inspector visited the head at home to inform him that the Chief Constable had decided that the only action to be taken was that the children of the school (and the surrounding neighbourhood) were to be given a warning in the presence of their parents.

Like many rural schools, Fosbury School often closed or extended its summer holidays to allow the children to participate in the harvest. Other closure days included a day’s holiday for the Queen’s jubilee in 1887, the 80^th birthday of the lord of the manor in 1889, two days for the diamond jubilee of 1897, the end of the Boer war in 1902, and the wedding of Princess Margaret in 1960.

The school also regularly celebrated Empire Day, often with special lessons on the British Empire, and in the 1930s there were trips to Weymouth in the summer. More sombrely, the school was also closed for half a day in 1908 to allow the children to attend the funeral of Mr Greenwood, the former master, and in 1910 for the funeral of Mr Huth, the lord of the manor.

              The subjects taught at the school were typical for its time, type and location. In the nineteenth century the emphasis was on reading, writing, mathematics and scripture, with some additional subjects such as geography, physical exercise, needlework and singing. By the 1920s the school taught Domestic Science, and in 1945 the boys were given woodwork classes whilst the girls took cookery. In the 1880s, many of the children seemed to leave school at 13, the girls to help their mothers at home and the boys to go to work.

              The attainment of the pupils at the school was often not as high as it should have been, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though it did improve over time.

The teachers appear to have been inclined to blame this on either poor attendance, or on the children themselves: in October 1890 the new master described the children as “very backwards, so much so that I hardly know how to deal with them”, whilst in 1892 the master wrote that those children who were “blessed with ordinary abilities are making better progress”. Even in 1925 the children were still described as “obviously backward”. The HMI reports, particularly in the nineteenth century, paint an altogether different picture, however, of poor or uneven teaching hindering the children’s achievement.

During the 1880s under James Hood the school received fairly good reports from HMI, with the attainment in need of improvement but otherwise fair. However, in the first report after Hood left the school the inspector was scathing of the state of the school: “the Reading has fallen off, and the imperfect teaching of writing has produced an ill-formed and untidy style. The spelling is unsatisfactory, especially in the third and fourth standards ... while the teaching of Arithmetic needs to be thoroughly revised, as very few of the children have a satisfactory knowledge of the required rules. English is a failure, and needlework has fallen off”. The school then lost its grant on account of the poor results and the headmaster, John Parkinson, left the school shortly after the report was received.

The results improved somewhat under Stannet, but the 1891-1892 report notes that “the instruction is not very satisfactory at present. Perhaps the changes of teachers have interfered with it”. Despite this, the HMI report of the following year noted more improvement, but the school’s grant was not restored until the 1893-1894 academic year.

By 1907, however, the situation had deteriorated again: “there has been a considerable falling off in the work of this school during the last two years. Allowance should be made for the fact that the master has had to teach all the standards unaided, but when has been done the state of affairs cannot be regarded as satisfactory”. There were no further HMI reports recorded in the log books until that of 1922, which noted that the head had to teach 52 children in standards I-VIII alone, “a much too difficult task”, and recorded that it was hoped that deficits in the children’s knowledge would be fixed once additional teachers were found. The 1924 diocesan report again criticised the teachers, complaining of the “deplorable attendance which seems to show lack of interest on the part of the teachers” and that the infants’ syllabus contained “2 miracles and 3 parables - very little for a year’s work”. This report seems to have caused some upset at the school, with the head teacher asked to attend a managers’ meeting to discuss the report.

The head later resigned, though he recorded in the log book that this was due to his ill health; the HMI report of 1925 certainly ascribed the school’s failings to the declining health of the previous headmaster (who passed away a few months after his resignation).

The school was given a further poor report in 1926, again due to the teaching. The report stated that “it was necessary to point out to the Head-Teacher that neither in Class I nor Class 2 were the children being trained in habits of punctuality, attention industry, & painstaking effort” and that “If the school is to be regarded as efficient, improvement in the discipline, & in the quality & results of the teaching” would be expected. In response, the teacher wrote a letter to the Director of Education at the County Council claiming that “the explanation of the bad impression given to Mr Purdie is that on the morning of his visit I was five minutes late in arriving at school, which put everything to start with on a bad footing; & every explanation of mine seemed to make no difference” and that the children’s poor attainment was more due to persistent absences than poor teaching. She also argued that she had been in ill health for some time, but that “if the Council will give me a further chance, they may depend on the most strenuous work being done by me to entirely reverse this most unfavourable report”.

There is no record of the Council’s response; however the report of 1927 was much more favourable, noting that the teaching was now “more effective” and that the children’s attainment was increasing. The headmistress remained at the school until 1930.

Following this, the HMI reports show that the school improved significantly after the issues of the 1920s. The 1933 report recorded that “a distinct improvement has taken place in the discipline and the attitude of the children towards their work since the present Head Mistress took charge”. In 1960, the report claimed that whilst “few if any of the children are gifted academically”, the head and his assistant were performing well and “the school makes good provision for the development of each individual”.

In terms of wartime activity, little appears to have occurred at the school during the First World War. Soldiers were billeted at the school on the night of 22 November 1915, however little else in the way of military activity took place at the school.

Between December 1916 and April 1917, there were several instances when the school fires could not be lit as the school had run out of coal, presumably because much of the nation’s supplies had been diverted to the war effort: in December 1916 the head reported that “we have only coal dust to burn” and that the temperature inside the school was only 45°F (7°C); by the end of February the coal had run out completely, and ran out again in April.

During the Second World War the school and surrounding villages received a large number of evacuees: 3 evacuee children were admitted to the school on 15 September, with a further 37 arriving from Dagenham on 18 June 1940 and 8 more on 25 June. The evacuees slowly began returning home from December 1940, until in April 1942 there were only 18 evacuee children on the roll. To accommodate the increased number of children now at the school the village hall was used as an extra classroom and desks and cupboards were transferred there. During July 1940 the children had a considerably shorter school week with each Monday and Friday taken as a holiday, giving the children a long weekend. The school was also prepared for the possibility of air raids, with the children being given training in the use of gas masks and the windows lined with brown paper (and later netting) as a precaution against flying glass in the event of an explosion.

The children were also encouraged to take part in the war effort: in December 1939 the school bought £10 worth of wool to knit “woollen comforts” for soldiers at the front, with most of the knitting being done by the girls in their spare time. Later, in May and November 1941, the children made a series of posters encouraging others to take part in the war effort, first for War Weapons Week and later for Warships Week.

A number of prizes and awards, offered by wealthy local families, were available to the children of the school. To incentivise attendance during the 1890s the Bevan family offered annual prizes for pupils with good attendance: the girls received material for a dress and the boys were given a new coat, although the impact of these prizes on the children’s attendance seems to have been limited. From July 1938 a Mr O. Gross, then living in Tidcombe, agreed to give any pupil who was eligible to attend Marlborough Grammar School a grant of £15 per year, for at least the next ten years. A number of children appear to have taken up this opportunity during the years that the grant was available.

Fosbury also seems to have suffered a number of breakdowns between the head teachers and the school’s managers. Beyond the fallout over poor HMI reports, one severe incident stands out. In October 1898 the school correspondent, A.

Lowe, and Mr Westmacott (Superintendent of the local Sunday School) visited the school and spoke to the master regarding discipline at the school, recording in the log book that the “managers had been much grieved to notice a lower tone” and “requested the Master to exercise a careful supervision over the scholars during the play hours and dinner time”. The triggering incident appears to have been in some way related to “the separation of the sexes at playtime”, but no further details are recorded. The master, it seems, did not take kindly to this accusation and registered his objections at length in the school’s log book. He wrote that “I have felt bound to express to the managers my conviction that the association of the Day School children, both boys and girls, with the rough lads of the village ... must be very injurious” to their behaviour. He also noted that with regard to the separation of the sexes “no child has shown any symptoms of a desire to break the rule – infants of both sexes are allowed in the girls’ play-ground and the big boys have permission from Mr Briant to play in the field close to us”.

Finally he wrote that Westmacott’s impression of the school’s tone was derived from the Sunday School and that none of the teachers at Fosbury Church of England School were employed in the Sunday School, which was “attended by several very disorderly working lads”, and that therefore the managers’ impression of school discipline was incorrect.

There the matter appears to have rested, however one week later the breakdown of relations flaring up once more. Lowe and Westmacott returned to the school

“In consequence of the fact that several of the boys used very obscene and filthy language to the nursemaid and children of one of the managers, the manager complained of this to the Master, and requested him to correct those boys who were known with the cane. The Master refused and then on the children denying the accusation told the aforesaid manager that his nurse was not a credible witness.”

This, they felt, only reinforced their earlier concerns about the master: “the managers are sorry to say that this bad conduct is only what they suspected and confirms the opinion expressed to the Master before”. Further, they wrote, “as to careful supervision in play hours they are sorry to say they are of opinion that has not been exercised.

The whole tone of the school displays the want of it”.

Once again, however, the master (Richard Parkinson) expressed his disagreement with the managers’ assessment, writing “I have always found the accused boys very well behaved, and I declined to punish them on the evidence of the nursemaid, a girl of 12, who left this school last year, and whose record is not nearly so blameless as that of the boys she accuses, as I believe, falsely”. He also noted that the assistant teachers, the monitress, and some of the older girls witnessed the alleged incident and were unanimous “in declaring that the nursemaid’s story is an entire fabrication”. Parkinson also declared that discipline at the school was such that “no such misconduct as that complained of could have occurred amongst the children of this school without my being immediately made acquainted with it” by the witnesses. The master then wrote to the lord of the manor to ask him to try to resolve the dispute. Bevan’s agent, Mr Matter, exonerated one of the boys but found that the other had used bad language on the road and that “no censure is passed by Mr Matter upon any individual concerned in this dispute”. The managers and the master appear to have returned to a more normal working relationship after this, without further disputes.