Fittleton Schools

Fittleton’s history of formal schooling begins in 1712 when Henry Clark left £5 per annum in his will to the education of ten poor boys in the village. In addition to this Elizabeth Buckenham, the widow of rector John Buckenham, bequeathed, in her will in 1717, £50 to be invested, the interest of which was to be used to educate the poor of the village. A codicil to her will also specified that four girls must be put to school with the money. In 1718 the money from Elizabeth’s investment was given to the Beach family who made annual payments henceforth. Buckenham and Clark’s donations were part of a nation-wide educational expansion under Queen Anne, who favoured the use of charities for this cause, with voluntary agencies carrying out the schooling without state assistance. 

It wasn’t until 1722 that a school was built in Fittleton. Schooling in the village in the decade prior to this likely took part in the church house or another building in the parish. It was Roger Kay, Fittleton’s rector, who built the school, with the intention of providing room for the schooling of ten boys of the parish with accommodation for the schoolmaster above. The boys in the school were to be selected by Kay and after his death by the two biggest landowners in the parish.

It was also declared the boys must be members of the Church of England and were to stay in school until they were 14. Similarly precise instructions were given for the master of the school. He too had to be a member of the Church of England as well as being able to read and write ‘the mother tongue’ and be capable in common arithmetic. Being a ‘discreet and honest person’ was also one of Kay’s requirements for the schoolmaster. Henry Reeves was the first to fill the role of schoolmaster. Reeves was also a churchwarden and therefore regularly awarded and signed for the £5 annual grant for the school. Reeves remained in the role, likely living in the school, until his son, also Henry, took over at the start of 1773. 

In 1818 the school population had only slightly increased to 14 pupils.

However, the poor of the parish wanted more education for their children, providing it did not interfere with their other labour work and by 1835, 18 boys and eight girls had free places at Fittleton school with there being other children who paid fees.  

To accommodate the growing number of pupils a small classroom was added to the original school building in 1843 courtesy of the Hicks Beach family. The school registers for the 1850s record 82 pupils across Sunday and day school, including a few boarders who slept in the dormitory above the original classroom. In 1867 15 pupils attended the school for free whilst the remaining pupils were charged fees ranging from one penny to threepence per week. 

The 1870 Education Act produced more money for Fittleton School. The increased funding, combined with Sir Michael Hicks Beach giving land by Deed to the Trustees, allowed for further enlargement of the school with another classroom being built in 1872. Another Education Act, in 1902 made the school a Voluntary Aided establishment with articles of management introduced for the first time.

The number of pupils on the register at this time was 54 with the average attendance in 1906 being 43.  

Unfortunately, the only surviving logbook for Fittleton covers the years 1932 to 1964. Victorian logbooks are very informative, and we know in general terms what school life would have entailed. By 1880 children were educated up to the age of ten, although they could stay longer. The learning age was raised to eleven in 1893, when children normally started as infants, aged four or five. School fees, one penny or twopence a week, had been removed in 1891. The school day was likely to have been from 9.00 to 12.00 noon and from 2.00pm to 4.00pm. Children either brought their lunch and ate it in the schoolroom or went home to eat. The teacher was assisted by paid monitors in their mid-teens or by a pupil teacher, who was training to become a certified teacher. 

Lessons were the elementary ones of reading, writing and arithmetic with scripture; some lessons in the latter subject were often taken by the vicar. The girls learned sewing, and all had singing and recitation. Some geography and history would have been taught.

School holidays were about a week or 10 days at Christmas and Easter, a week at Whitsun and five weeks Harvest Holiday in the summer. Full day and half day holidays were given for various reasons such as church or chapel teas or Sunday school outings, Royal and national occasions and the afternoon after the H.M.I. examinations. Unauthorised absences included seasonal work on the farm and in the garden for the older children and visits to local fairs, military events and other local happenings. 

Entries in Victorian logbooks are dominated by attendance, prompted by the ‘payment by results’ system that was introduced in the management of British schools in June 1862. National funding for individual schools, eventually rising to about half, depended in part on the outcomes of examinations of the pupils conducted by school inspectors. The weather and sickness were the two main reasons for absence. Heavy rain would keep children at home, as many of them had no protective clothing. Heavy snowfalls would sometimes make the journey to school impossible. Stoves could often not cope with very low temperatures; the infants found it very difficult to work in a cold room.

In December 1938 the weather was exceptionally cold; the temperature in the school room was 360F. 

All schools coped with the usual coughs and colds, but serious infections were more of a challenge. The only way to prevent the virus spreading was to close the school. In January 1934 there was a measles outbreak in Fittleton, with 31 children ill. The school was closed for three weeks. In May 1938 there was an outbreak of whooping cough and flu, closing the school again for three weeks. The illness occurred again in August 1943; including the summer holiday, the school was closed for nine weeks. It must have been a real challenge for the teachers to get the children back into the right frame of mind for studying, after such a long break. 

At the beginning of 1926, Fittleton and neighbouring Netheravon schools were elementary, taking children from 5 to 14 years. Netheravon was suffering from overcrowding, which some people thought was the reason for the high level of sickness among the pupils.

After months of confusion in the village Netheravon school reopened as a senior mixed school in September. The school took children aged from 9 to 14 years, or to 15 years from 1947, from Netheravon, Fittleton and Haxton. The younger children from the three villages attended the new Junior Establishment at Fittleton, which prompted the need for further accommodation. 

In 1933 there were 70 children on the roll, but only 64 desks. Work started on a new classroom, which was officially opened on 8th January 1934. Prior to this, we assume that all the children were taught in the one room, as the Inspector remarked in his 1935 report that conditions had been much improved by the addition of a new classroom. There were 34 children in the First Class (Standards I and II) and 40 children in the Second Class (Infants).  

In May 1938 the Inspector reported that there were 66 children on the roll.

Children living in the village who were aged 9 or over attended school at Netheravon; no child under 5 was admitted to school. In 1946 the assistant teacher Mrs Passmore left after eight years at the school. This was followed by a reorganisation of the school. Children were to remain at Fittleton until the age of 11. Accommodation was increased by turning the girls’ porch into a classroom. There were 17 children in Fittleton and Netheravon aged 4 years and 16 children aged 3 years, thus guaranteeing a good number of pupils for the next ten years. The headmistress Mrs Dale left in 1947 and was replaced by Mrs Wilkinson. There were 77 pupils on the role and three teachers. 

In 1964, Fittleton and Netheravon schools were amalgamated by the Department of Education into the Netheravon with Fittleton Church of England Controlled Primary School. Under the amalgamation Fittleton School educated the 9–11-year-olds, whilst the younger students went to Netheravon.

By 1976 the joining of the schools resulted in Fittleton School containing 80 pupils and needing to use a mobile classroom.  

Fittleton School eventually closed in 1989 when a new larger primary school was built at Netheravon by Wiltshire Education Authorities to accommodate children from Fittleton as well as Netheravon and Enford. The school was named All Saints School after the Churches in the three parishes.