The British School – Stoke Goldington 1837 -1845
By Christine Kitchener
Editor’s note: A small book about the size of an exercise book, half-an-inch thick with writing in faded brown ink was found, quite by chance in March 1968, at the old Congregational Chapel, Stoke Goldington.
Mrs Kitchener’s husband was taking the church choir practice there, as the chapel was then used solely by St Peter’s Church Sunday School.
After choir practice a boy said that there was an old book in the cupboard. On investigating it was found to be the Minute-book of the “Stoke British School”, a unique record of one small British School from 13 March 1837 to 16 June 1845.
Nobody in the village knew of it and Mrs Kitchener has found only one other reference to it – an entry in the 1842 Annual Report of the British & Foreign School Society.
We are grateful to Mrs Kitchener for allowing us to publish the results of her researches.
R.J.A. (Armstrong)
INTRODUCTION
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth Centuries, Drs. Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster were the pioneers of elementary education for the masses.
Bell was an Anglican clergyman and Lancaster was a Quaker. The quarrel between them represented the “struggle between the Church of England and the Nonconformists for the control of education, a struggle which gravely hampered the work of making a national system, and of which traces still exist” (Jarman – Landmarks in the History of Education p257)
As yet there was NO Government Department responsible for Education.
Bell & Lancasters’ system of using selected pupils or monitors to instruct other pupils met with tremendous success and public interest was shown in this system, which could educate so many with apparently such little effort.
In 1833 the first Government Grant of £20,000 was made for the erection of school buildings and grants in aid of public subscription.
The grant was channelled into the country by two large rival organisations: –
- The British and Foreign School Society.
- The National Society for Promoting the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church.
The attitude of the National Society was, on the whole, an uncompromising one during the period 1830 to 1850. It will be remembered that this was the time of the Oxford Movement within the Church of England. Those who attended the National Schools were instructed in the liturgy and catechism of the Church of England.
The British School Society on the other hand was an un-denominational body, but the majority of its supporters were nonconformists. These opposed any claim that the Church should have control of the educational system – if we can call it that.
Stoke Goldington was fortunate in having one of the few British Schools to be established in a village.
FORMATION OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL
On 13th March 1837 a meeting took place of the ‘Friends of Education’ in Stoke Goldington, a village four miles from Newport Pagnell on the Newport – Northampton Road (then the A50).
Those present included members of the Church and the Independent Chapel.
These included eight farmers: William Whitmee; Robert Young; Thomas Wright;(who also kept the White Lion public-house); Benjamin Dawkes (who kept the George and Dragon at Eakley Lanes); Thomas Cooper; John Aldridge; Hugh Higgins (Churchwarden) and John Blunt from Eakley Lanes.
The only other person whose occupation is known was Thomas Isham, the baker.
Other people at the meeting included a Mr Woodcock, a Mr Simcoe, and a Mr Neale.
Two people from Ravenstone also attended – Mr Adkins (Ravenstone Mill) and Mr Manning.
From Newport Pagnell came two stalwarts of the British School: Mr Millar, the local secretary and Mr George Osborn, a wool-stapler.
They RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: –
“That it is desirable to form a School Society for the Education of the Children in this village and its vicinity, on the principles of the British and Foreign School Society.
That the fundamental principle of the British and Foreign School Society be adopted by this society and that the schools be open to the Children of Parents of every Religious Denomination.
That no tenets peculiar to any religious sect shall be taught in the schools and that the Reading Lessons shall consist of the Holy Scriptures in the authorized version or extracts therefrom”
(Stoke British School Minute Book 13.3.1837)
They decided that children who attended the school should also attend a place of religious worship “as their parents or guardians may prefer”.
They agreed also that anyone who subscribed five shillings (5/-) was a member of the Society.
The Gentlemen present formed a committee, with a quorum of 3 members. It agreed to meet monthly and to examine the Scholars annually, “reporting the state of accounts and the business of the Society”.
A deputation consisting of Messrs Osborn, Millar, Dawkes, and Cooper was instructed to “wait upon the Hon. Robert Smith J.P. to solicit the honour of his Patronage as President of the Society”.
Mr Barford (who appears in the Select Vestry Committee Report Book of 1831-1852) was to be approached for a “portion of ground as nearly as may be 50 feet square for the purpose of Building a School Room”. Mr Wright was to be Treasurer and Secretary.
The Children were to be admitted for Education on payment of two pence (2d) per week for one child and one penny (1d) per week for each child more than one in the same family. They thought it desirable that a school for boys should be opened in Easter week.
Mr John Hooton, late of Irthlingborough, offered to take charge of the school …” on receiving the children’s pence on condition that if they do not amount to 10/- per week the Committee will make up that sum and he also requested a cottage to reside in”.
They agreed to this if his testimonials proved satisfactory.
Mr Neale’s offer of the use of ‘2 rooms lately built by him for six months at the rent of £3.10s for the half year’ was accepted and it was agreed ‘that the committee also engage the cottage adjoining for six months at the rate of £3.10s per annum. Both school and cottage to be entered upon at Lady Day Week’.
Application was to be made for a grant of lesson books and slates by Mr Millar to the British and Foreign School Society. Mr Dawkes and Mr Simcoe were to canvass for subscriptions.
The next meeting took place on 28th March 1837 and was attended by seven people – Messrs Osborn, Manning, Wright, Dawkes and Adkins, together with Mr Neale, the owner of the rooms to be used by the school, and the Rev. W. Drake, the much-loved curate in charge of St Peter’s Church.
They agreed to engage Mr Hooton, because his references gave him “a good moral character and recommending him as a Teacher upon the Old System”.
One month’s notice was to terminate the agreement. So it would appear the school opened.
Six months later, on 29th September 1837, the Committee and friends of Stoke British School met again. Only five persons were present: Messrs Osborn, and Millar of Newport Pagnell, and Messrs Wright, Higgins and Simcoe of Stoke Goldington.
A letter was read from the Hon. Robert Smith J.P. stating that
“…a proposal was made to the school-master who has been sent to Stoke of this nature that all parties should contribute towards the Establishment, provided the Children of Church Parents were instructed in the Church catechism: this proposal was, I am told, rejected rudely and with violence by the Schoolmaster”.
The Rev. W. Armstrong who had replaced Mr Drake, the latter having taken over Gayhurst Church, had been asked to attend the meeting so that some agreement could be made, but he sent a note stating that:
“Mr Armstrong has already spoken to such of the Subscribers as are Members of the Church and that they have nearly all expressed an opinion that it would be better for both parties to establish a school on the principles that they respectively entertain. In this opinion Mr Armstrong entirely coincides.”
As those present did not see that Stoke Goldington could support two schools, they saw no alternative but to close the school and settle up the accounts.
Three weeks later, on 18th October 1837, we read that Mr Adkins of Ravenstone Mill, Mr Whitmee and Thomas Cooper, two Stoke farmers, with Mr Osborn from Newport Pagnell met at Mr Cooper’s house.
They had found that
“a great proportion of the parents of the children were favourable to the proposed Constitution which included the admission of all children”.
They decided to carry on and drew up an agreement with Mr Hooton, the master of the school, in which amongst other things “he promises not to interfere with the Religious Sentiment of the brethren worshipping at the Independent Chapel in the village”.
So the British School in Stoke Goldington continued.
What became of the members of the Established Church, who wished their children to receive instruction in the church catechism?
A word of explanation is needed here:-
The Rev. Fiennes Trotman was Rector of Stoke Goldington with Gayhurst from 1823 to 1863. He was also Vicar of Dallington and Rural Dean of Northampton.
The Rev. W. Drake was resident curate of Stoke Goldington and it was recorded “great harmony prevailed as long as Mr Drake continued to officiate”.
Mr Drake was over eighty when he became curate of Gayhurst.
It was his successor, the Rev. W. Armstrong, who was obviously a High Churchman lacking the more liberal views of Mr Drake, who “took means to divide the school”.
SITE AND UPKEEP OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL ROOMS
The British School was established in rooms rented from Mr Neale but it has not been possible to establish WHERE it was.
Mr Neale was a builder living at Gayhurst. His name appears in the 1833 polls owning several cottages “in the High road”.
Mr Graham Warren of Stoke Goldington has heard the upper part of the Chapel House referred to as the ‘school-room’.
However, this seems to be ruled out as the Chapel Trustees, according to the Deeds, did not acquire the property until 8 November 1842. The house adjoining the Chapel was originally two cottages.
Opposite the chapel until a few years ago there were four cottages in a row. Three of these were one room upstairs and one downstairs, the other was a double-fronted house. Could one of these have been Mr Neale’s “two rooms lately built by him”?
The Minute-book furnishes some information about the rooms. They appear to have been on different floors. We read of Mr Hancock, the tailor, asking that the Chapel Sunday School might use the British School rooms on the Sabbath.
The rooms could not have been very large because in 1839 it is noted that there is doubt whether they can accommodate parents and friends at the Annual Examination ‘due to the confined state of the school’.
Yet at the following meeting Wm. Hillier wanted to occupy the cottage adjoining the school, and this was allowed, as was “the use of the upper schoolroom for some of his furniture”.
The rooms were equipped with fireplaces for which the Committee provided coal, and candles for lighting. Mr Hooton, the first master provided a bell but as this was not with the committee’s prior approval for payment, they decided that ‘1/- per week be deducted from his salary for that purpose which he should afterwards consider his own.’
Repairs to the school rooms are noted, and the provision of shelves but in June 1843 there was a more urgent matter. There was an offensive cesspool close to the door of the school cottage and “illness had been occasioned to part of Mr Nye’s family and respecting which their Medical man had said that it was sufficient to bring the Typhus fever”.
At the meeting of 24th April 1844, the secretary reported that the schoolmaster had “caused the school rooms to be coloured and whitewashed on his own account and he wished the committee to pay for the same”. They agreed to do so on the understanding “that it be not considered a precedent for the future”.
THE SCHOOL MASTERS
Stoke Goldington British School had six masters:- read more..
TEACHING METHODS
What teaching methods were used in British schools and what subjects were taught? There follow extracts from the 1846 Annual Report of the British & Foreign School Society.
The emphasis was very much on the moral and religious training of the children.
The monitorial system, where selected pupils or monitors helped teach younger children, was employed with great success in the British Schools.
This was the system practised at the Borough Road school where British School-Masters received a three-month training.
How much they would manage to learn in so short a time it is impossible to assess, and even in the 1840s Mr Dunn was looking forward to the time when two years could be spent on training teachers!
No doubt it would have been a much watered-down version of the syllabus that was used at Stoke British School. read more
An inventory of 1st May 1845 shows that there was concentration on learning to read and write.
There is mention of the need to borrow the Sunday School Testaments as “the reading books are in a dilapidated condition”.
In the inventory were listed 8 maps on board and 9 keys to maps so that these must have been used in the first lessons in Geography. It was also reported on 16th June 1841 – ” that 26 pupils were taught by a Mistress on the art of Needlework.”
The annual examination before parents and friends was an important part of the school life. This was evidently the ‘event’ of the year and was held in Mr Cooper’s barn. Tea-tickets were on sale to Teachers and poor people for 6d, others 1/-.
Following the examination of pupils on 2nd October 1839, Mr Osborn was authorised – “to purchase a few small books as rewards to the children for the manner in which they conducted themselves at the last examination.”
At Newport Pagnell in 1845 there were 111 boys and 42 girls in the British Schools. The Annual Report stated that:
“102 read the scriptures;
40 read easy Reading Books;
10 are learning to join letters;
87 write on paper;
43 write on slates;
92 are learning arithmetic,
17 of whom have passed several of the rules;
60 are learning Geography;
24 English Grammar;
21 Drawing;
50 Mental Arithmetic.
Lessons of Scripture, Natural History, the Arts are given to the boys collectively every week.”
FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
One of the main duties of the Committee was to canvass for subscriptions to keep the school going. The Secretary, in a post-script at the back of the Minute book, recorded:
“Note: the cost of carrying on the British School from 18th Dec. 1837 to 1st May 1845 when it was dissolved amounted to the sum of £472.16s. 11½d., £339.14s. of which were obtained by subscriptions and donations but, if the amount be carried back to the time when it was first commenced, it will be found to have been considerably more.”
Continual reference was made to getting the patronage of the local gentry. Each year Lord Carrington of Gayhurst House was approached and he donated £5.
Lord Listowel produced £5 on several occasions but a letter of 2nd November 1842 reported him as saying when he gave his subscription “it would be the last he should give”.
It was agreed in 1842 to ask Mr Hancock, the tailor and spokesman of the Chapel Sunday School, to help collect the subscriptions. As each Master left there was a hasty consultation of the accounts to see if there were sufficient funds to make payment of his salary. When during Mr Bristow’s term as Master his salary was in arrears, people were canvassed at Olney and Newport Pagnell.
The drop in the number of children attending the school and the consequent drop in the children’s pence caused considerable strain on the finances. In the school’s most prosperous time there were 70-80 children producing some seven or eight shillings per week, yet in Mr Connor’s time six weeks pence produced only £1.2.1d, there being only 23 children.
On 16th June 1841 one of the British and Foreign School Society’s Inspectors, Mr Harry Althams, paid an official visit to the school as it was thought it might be “done to advantage”. The Committee no doubt hoped that they would get some financial assistance from the parent association in London. This is the only occasion that Stoke British School is mentioned – in the Annual Report of 1842 – where it is listed as below:
Name Secretary School Payment Sex
Newport P J. Millar 11 2d. Boys
Newport P J. Millar 48 2d. Girls
Stoke G Mr Cooper 90 2d. Boys/Girls
The 1842 Report stated that “the Inspector has visited and examined the following schools in the country besides holding public meetings, delivering lectures on education and addresses to parents”.
Besides private examination of the pupils in the school, already mentioned, the Committee had copies of the school’s history and the society’s rules published in leaflet form in the hope that they could attract more children to the school.
LOCAL CONDITIONS
In the minutes of the 14th April 1845 is recorded a census of the villages of Stoke Goldington, Eakley Lanes and Gayhurst, carried out by the Rev. Brown, secretary of the Stoke British School and first and foremost Independent Minister of Stoke Goldington.
According to the Stoke Goldington Select Vestry Minute Book 1831-1846, a child was someone under the age of eighteen:
“The secretary stated with a view to ascertaining how many children in the villages of, Eakley Lanes, Gayhurst and Stoke attend no school, he had visited nearly all the houses in which there were young people. The result of which was a s follows:
41No. in families exclusive of parents but including some who have left for Service 419
No. of young people employed at Lace-making at home and Lace School together with children at what are termed ‘Dame Schools’ 110
No. who are employed either at service or day labour 138
No. of children in British Day school 21
No. of children meeting Sabbath School which is rather more than the average attendance 78
?…who have not been visited are included we believe to be overrated 36
No. of children in the church S.S (Stoke) 79 and church S.S. Gayhurst 17 96
No. of children attending NO day school 113
Mr Brown requested Mr Burton to call upon the parents of the 113 and require the reasons of their non-attendance when it was found that of…
88 Children said to be too young
11 Children whose parents cannot afford to pay
5 Children who have not sufficient clothing –
9 Children promised when the weather was warmer
113 Total
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Stoke Goldington was in the lace-making area of Buckinghamshire which accounts for the number of children employed at home at lace making or attending lace-schools.
The Records of the National Society relate that
“in 1818 the Rev. Wm Drake commented that the poorer classes would be unwilling that the education of their children should interfere with the manufacture of lace on which they are employed”.
According to the National Society, about this time there were about 10 lace schools “where about 63 children were taught to read”. Children as young as five or six years old would be sent to the lace-schools to learn how to make lace.
Mr Graham Warren told me that his mother received her entire education in one of these schools, sited in an upstairs room in a cottage adjoining Mrs Fanny Clark’s house in High Street, Stoke Goldington. This information was corroborated by Mrs Clark herself and also by Mrs Dorrill of Tap Yard, who is over eighty tears old.
Mr Cecil Darby stated that his grandmother ran a lace school. “I’m told she was a tartar” he said. “She used to push the children’s faces amongst the pins if they were not attending” (sic).
Excerpts from the Minutes of the Select Vestry Committee 1831-1846 give lists of unemployed needing to be set to work. In 1833 the Overseer had to send to the local farmers 79 men and 26 boys who required work.
On 2nd September 1834 an entry reads:” It is agreed to pay those men with families, who may not be able to procure labour 3, 4 and 5 shillings per week”. It would certainly not be these men who could afford to pay two-pence to send their children to school.
Amongst the reasons for children not attending school was “inadequate clothing”. On 2nd October 1832 there is an entry: “Catherine Tames it is agreed shall receive clothing to the amount …(not inserted)…a shift and petticoat. Widow Rollins is to receive the same”. Even if they could get work it might be only of a casual nature.
Another entry reads “Widow Bason applys (sic) for labour for her son = allowed. 2/- Casual paid”.
Other excerpts record the purchase of a shovel for a man to go and work on the railway: two pounds to a man to start shoe-making: and a pound required by another man “to start with a basket”.
These were some of the reasons why the inhabitants of Stoke Goldington could not afford to send their children to school, or to contribute to the cost of the British School.
CLOSING OF THE SCHOOL
In December 1844 it was uncertain whether the school could continue. A suggestion was made that the school should become an Infants School and that an Evening school should be started by Mr Brown on two or three evening a week.
On 14th April 1845 “a very painful discussion arose…whether the committee would feel themselves justified in continuing the school for a longer period” and finally suggestions were made” for a Union of the 2 schools (the National and the British) upon the best terms that can be obtained”.
The Rev. Brown then drafted a letter to the Rev. Fiennes Trotman, Rector of Stoke, in which he suggested that the two schools might unite. Mr Brown recounted the history of the starting of the British School, how – “about 100 children were on the list, but that Union is strength and that the Dissenters wished to unite. Their conditions were that “the children of Dissenters may not be required to learn any creed or catechism and be at liberty to attend the Sunday School in connection with the place of Religious worship to which their parents may belong”.
In reply, Mr Trotman hailed “with delight any step towards that unity amongst his flock for which Christ prayed 17th St. John” but, as the school was in union with the National Society, he had to consult the rules first but he wished to know “what amount of annual subscription the committee can guarantee to Mr Trotman on behalf of the Dissenting Children”.
In his reply Mr Brown was unable to state this, it having been “regulated by existing circumstances”.
He could not commit the subscribers to the British School to support the National School.
Mr Trotman replied that we would accept the children of his Dissenting Parishioners. They would not need to learn the catechism and would enjoy the same privileges as the children of Churchmen, paying the same amount for their schooling. He would have liked the British School to guarantee a portion of their funds but he was willing to waive this, “not doubting a candid and generous accession to the Com’s. wishes will insure a generous support to his school on their part”.
The school was wound up.
Mr Neale was paid and given immediate possession of the cottage and rooms. The school desks were stored at Mr Cooper’s. The Reading Lesson books and boards were looked after by Mr Brown.
Public notice was given of the dissolution of the school.
The Last entry on 16th June 1845 reads:
“Mr Osborn then closed with prayer and the committee dissolved.”
It was over.
The NATIONAL SCHOOL
Miss Iris Blake of the National Society’s Records Department informs me that that Society received an application in 1838 from the Rev. Fiennes Trotman for aid towards erecting a schoolroom to accommodate 144 children, allowing six square feet per child as stipulated by the Society.
He stated that the populace had greatly increased because of the lace trade, but that had long since failed and the Parish was entirely agricultural and very poor. He, the Rector, and some friends had raised a considerable sum towards the cost of the project but no help could be expected from the populace.
The Society granted £60, and was successful in obtaining a further sum of £72 from the Treasury towards the undertaking. Because of difficulty in obtaining a suitable site, building work did not commence until 1st October 1838 but the school had commenced in the autumn of 1837 in a temporary room, about a quarter of a mile away.
The new school room which the Rector described as “imposing, and an ornament to the village” was opened at the beginning of 1839 and licensed for a Chapel. read more…
So the Autumn of 1839 saw two schools newly opened in Stoke
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SEE ALSO : SG Chapel that blossomed for 100 years