Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

EDUCATION IN BUCKDEN 172 So in 1873 an entry reads: ‘The Free List revised, and vacancies filled up by boys eligible to be free.’ And in 1879: ‘Admitted E.H. and C.S., gipsies, to be paid for by the parish.’ In fact income from fees (‘school pence’) totalled only £20 4s. 3½d. for 1879 and its collection was tedious, so that it was with relief as well as pride that the headmaster wrote ‘Opened as Free School’ on 5 October 1891. Fees or no fees, the problem of attendance cropped up regularly from 1871, when the Headmaster noted ‘difficulty in working the timetable owing to irregularity; and of the bigger boys going out to field work.’ , and in August: ‘Not many at School, Harvest having commenced.’ In 1873 he came closer to defining the difficulty: ‘Nearly 30 boys under 11 out at field work—and the managers had promised to employ none under 10.’ When the chief farmers in the parish were also the School Managers no parent was going to risk their displeasure by refusing to allow his or her child to work in the busy season. Legislation did not help, for the same farmers were also the magistrates who in 1883 ‘appear not very strict in regard to the attendance of children for they appear to stay away when they like, and Mr Worthy informed me that out of a conviction of 6 or 7 children’s parents not one had paid the fine.’ 1 In June 1889, the attendance officer charged Buckden farm labourer William Carter with not sending his ten-year-old son George to school. The St Neots magistrates adjourned the case for a month; which, perhaps coincidentally, would have allowed George to continue helping with the haymaking, and then be returned to school for a few weeks’ rest before the harvest began in August. In the 1890s absences for field work became fewer and the boys’ reasons, or excuses, for playing truant more diverse and ingenious. For example, in 1893: ‘A very sharp frost following on floods have [sic] made a chance for nearly half the boys stopping away the afternoon for skating,’ and ‘Many boys stopped away today there being what they consider a grand Funeral at Brampton.’ (This was the funeral of Colonel the Hon. Oliver Montagu, which was a very grand affair, complete with a military escort, pewfuls of dukes, earls and lesser aristocrats and gentry, and the Prince of Wales himself, mourning one of his closest companions, a gallant soldier who ‘had only two misfortunes to regret during his happy, gay career’: having one eye shot out by a friend, and dying in Egypt as a result of following his doctor’s advice that holidaying in a warm climate would speed his recovery from flu.) In 1895 the weather was again disruptive: ‘Great storm yesterday trees down in all directions and only 32 boys at school this morning all the rest out sticking.’ In 1899 the Infants’ teacher recorded another diversion: ‘School closed on Monday owing to the visit of Barnum and Bailey’s Show to Huntingdon. Five children who came to school were dismissed.’ There were other, rather more legitimate, amusements for which the headmaster was more or less obliged to close the school. The most contentious was the village Feast Week, the second week in July, when there were various celebrations including a Grand Flower Show. In 1871, the teacher tried to keep the school open but attendances were very low; by 1873 he gave up and granted a week’s holiday. In 1885 the Headmaster tried to enforce attendance but noted: ‘Teachers and attendance officers powerless.’ In 1886 he commented: ‘Feast holiday very injurious to school work. Children as dense as if they had been away for 6 weeks.’ And in 1887 he complained: ‘4 th Standard dull at Arithmetic: this week being the Troublesome ‘Feast Week’ will render matters worse.’ In 1888 he finally gave in: ‘The Infants Mistress has agreed in the absolute necessity of a Holiday.’ Other annual days off were given for the Sunday School outings, both Church and Chapel, and the Club Feasts in May. Special occasions were also marked by a holiday, both national ones such as the Jubilees of 1887 and 1897 and the Queen’s birthday in 1900, and local ones like the funeral of the vicar (Daniel Haigh) in 1875. A day off was also given in 1884 when the schoolmaster (George Barber) returned home to Lincolnshire to marry a fellow teacher, National Schoolmistress Rebecca Westland. Official holiday periods amounted to only a few days at Christmas and Easter and generally five weeks in the summer. The summer holiday was not fixed in advance but was announced when the harvest was ready. If the weather was poor an extra week might be given in September to complete the field work. Here, as before, the schoolmaster was at the mercy of the school-manager farmers. Another cause of lengthy closures was epidemic disease. There were measles ( ‘Arch Enemy of Elementary Schools’ the teacher calls them in 1884) in 1890 and 1897, and whooping cough in 1900. Mumps and smallpox affected attendance badly but did not necessarily lead to the school’s closing altogether, as would sometimes happen in the early years of the twentieth century. The inadequacy of the school premises must have contributed to the spread of disease. In 1871, according to the Preliminary Statement, the boys’ school consisted of two rooms measuring 27' by 15' and 8' 1 Alfred Worthy was a former schoolmaster, turned St Neots public official. He gave his occupations in the 1871 census as ‘Relieving Officer, Registrar, Collector, Vaccination Officer &c.’ The ‘&c.’ suggests he listed them less out of pride than from weariness: they all had the potential to bring him into conflict with every section of the community.