National School, Maiden Bradley

There was a school in the village in 1818 when 18 pupils were taught by a mistress, who was paid £12 a year. The foundation deed for a new school was created in 1846, when there was also a Sunday School for 24 boys and girls under a master and a mistress. The new school was built in 1847 with the aid of a government grant of £63 and much support from the Duke of Somerset.. It had two good rooms, was stone built with a striking exterior and a flagstone floor. Later a house for the master was erected. In 1858 there were two separate schools in the building. The boys' school had 30 to 40 pupils under an uncertified master while the girls school contained 40 to 50 girls under an uncertified mistress. The appearance of the schools impressed the inspector who found the 'proportion of scholars to the population of the parish is unusually large; the schools appear to be conducted with much care'.

The school log books survived from 1866 and provide an interesting picture of Victorian school life. The two schoolrooms were respectively 24 feet 9 inches and 26 feet long by 15 feet wide and with a ceiling height of 16 feet. In 1867 a new floor of boards was laid over the flagstones during the Harvest Holidays. A new class room 15 feet 3 inches by 14 feet by 14 feet 8 inches high was built in 1875 and used for the first time on 11th July. It became the infants' room. The school was often cleaned and painted during the Harvest Holidays, as it was in 1885. Increasing numbers attending in the 1870s and 1880s meant that the school was too small for the classes. On August 10th 1888 workmen moved into the school to enlarge and improve it while the children and their teachers moved to the reading room.

The school was re-opened on 4th October 1888 and the children moved back in. The two original classrooms that had been made into one during earlier work were lengthened by the addition of two extra bays making the main room 46 feet 6 inches long. Folding doors meant that the room could be used as two rooms and the infants were taught in one of these. The room that they had been taught in was used as a classroom for various standards. Separate lobbies (cloakrooms) and lavatories were provided for boys, girls and infants and the lavatories had constant running water. The playground was divided into two with separate entrances for boys and girls. Windows were replaced with small latticed panes giving way to larger sheets of glass, thus improving the lighting, while a scullery was added to the master's house.

In 1867 the school staff consisted of Albert Whitlock as master, his wife as assistant teacher and sewing mistress, and Clara Bussum as pupil teacher. The master changed at fairly regular intervals and by 1873 there were 2 pupil teachers. By the 1890s there were also paid monitresses and in 1895 the staffing and salaries were as follows:-

Headmaster £60 per year
Assistant Mistress £30 per year
Pupil Teacher £16 per year
Monitress 1/6d (7½p) a week
Monitress 1/- (5p) a week

These salaries were paid out of the school pence collected from each family for education and the government grant that was awarded according to the school performance at the HMI visit and tests.

Abstracts from the HMI reports are included in the log books and show that the school performed quite well over the years.

In 1867 'The children are in nice order and passed a very fair examination. The Infant Class however is at present rather backward'.

1872 Day School - 'The discipline of the school is good, and the instruction is fairly effective, but nearly two thirds of the children failed in arithmetic. Reading and spelling very fair'.

Evening School - 'The evening scholars have done fairly well in reading and spelling but badly in arithmetic'.

After some poorer reports there was an improvement;

1878 'A very satisfactory improvement has been exhibited in the general result of the examination, arithmetic, except in the 5th and 6th standards, writing and the extra subjects are all fairly good'.

1880 'The order of the school has improved considerably and a very respectable rate of progress has been maintained with respect to the children's attainment in elementary subjects'.

The reports continued to be most satisfactory through the 1880s and suggested improvements such as the condition of the toilets, (1887) and increasing the number of staff (1891) were carried out.

Numbers attending the school were quite high, despite the custom of boys from the school being used as beaters when the Duke of Somerset was pheasant shooting. At times more than 30 boys were thus employed. In 1867 the average attendance was 85; this had risen to 102 by 1884, although this dropped to 92 by 1888 it had risen to 100 in 1889. There were also other regular causes for absence such as visiting Frome Fair (September), early harvest (July) and gleaning (September). The weather would dramatically reduce numbers, particularly heavy snowfalls, which seem to have occurred every year. They caused the closure of the school for about a week in January 1886, March 1887, February 1888, March 1889 and March 1891.

Illnesses were more serious and more frequent than today. Apart from the normal coughs and colds there were regular outbreaks of chicken pox, whooping cough, mumps and measles, while ringworm was common. In 1881 the school was closed at times for epidemics of both measles and scarlet fever while in December 1895 to January 1896 there was a 5 week closure because of an outbreak of scarletina coupled with bad weather. Early in 1890 influenza caused the deaths of 2 children.

The children learned the elementary subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic, with scripture lessons. Older children in top standards would also study history and geography, while by the 1890s they also took drawing. All children had singing and music lessons and the girls learned needlework, Object lessons, where all aspects of an item such as coal or the noun were studied, were common to all ages. The day school accommodated children up to the age of 12 but older children, who were working all day could attend the night school. Here they could improve their reading and writing, study more difficult aspects of arithmetic and learn new subjects.

Holidays were fairly standard with one week at Christmas, 1 week at Easter, 1 week at Whitsun and 5 weeks Harvest Holiday in August and September. In the 1860s and early 1870s the Christmas holiday, other than Christmas Day does not seem to have been taken but there was a holiday in late January and early February. There were also half day holidays after HMI reports, when the clothing club was using the school and also when most of the boys were required for beating on days in November, December and January when there were pheasant shoots. There were also a few special holidays, as when there was a thanksgiving day for the recovery from illness of the Prince of Wales in February 1872. On July 6th 1893 the village celebrated the royal wedding of the Prince of Wales to Princess Mary. The church bells rang at midday and free tea was served to 140 children on the school lawn at 5.00 p.m. This was followed at 6.00 p.m. by sports on the Jubilee field, while from 7.30 p.m. there was dancing and free refreshments for the adults.

The schoolroom was also used for parish meetings, temperance meetings, magic lantern shows, lectures and other entertainments on a regular basis. The school library opened on March 3rd 1894 , then being open on Saturdays to paying subscribers . There were over 200 books in the library, a good number for a village at that time.

The daily cleaning of the school was normally carried out by the pupils working to a rota. The cleaning included dusting and sweeping the rooms. The dust was probably considerable as the rooms were heated by stoves and open fires. Both coal and wood were used as fuel and in the 1890s the school was buying coal at one shilling (5p) a hundredweight, with up to 2 tons being delivered at a time. In the winter of 1894/5 the coal bill came to £5.9.0d (£5.45). Like everything else this was paid out of the school fees and government grant. The school fees were normally one penny (0.4p) a week, later rising to twopence (0.8p) a week. In February 1871 the school committee ordered that all children at the school who did not live in Maiden Bradley parish had to pay threepence (1.2p) a week. Around 1905 the school was taken over by Wiltshire County Council and further information will be found under Maiden Bradley C of E Junior School.