Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

EDUCATION IN BUCKDEN 175 In other years the subject grants were awarded, but the Inspectors also criticized discipline. When the school was first inspected in 1871 the Headmaster’s attention was drawn to Article 17 under which ‘the grant to the whole school was endangered by an unfavourable report from H. M. Inspector’ on the Infants’ discipline. In spite of this threat, the pupils seem to have been controlled with only occasional resort to corporal punishment: ‘Punished W. E. 3rd Standard for gross impertinence to P. T. 3 Raps on Palm of Hand with cane am glad to say such punishment is not so frequently necessary as heretofore’. (1888) Gentler methods were also used: ‘Being abusive I put her off the premises. She called me a dirty beast. E. D. with others kept in at noon to write punishment task for disobedience. Mother came and demanded her before the work was done’. (1890) Such entries are rare. On one occasion the Inspector complained of the boys’ listlessness and the Headmaster wrote tartly: ‘ H.M.I. said Children appeared half asleep (not unlikely—waiting 2 hours for his appearance.’ (1881) Besides the visits of the Government Inspectors, there were frequent checks by the vicar, who examined the registers and spoke to the children. The Diocesan Inspector visited yearly too, since the schools were Church of England, and tested the children on their catechism and knowledge of the Bible. The Dame Schools In addition to pleasing the various authorities, the schoolmaster had to please parents, especially when schooling was not compulsory and involved paying a fee. There were alternatives in the village. The wealthy families employed tutors or governesses, of course, and do not enter into this account. 1 There were also the ‘dame schools’. Miss Frances Beaumont and her sister Laura opened a girls’ seminary (boarding school) in Buckden during the 1830s, having moved to the village with their mother, Sarah, herself a schoolmistress. At some time between 1847 and 1851, the sisters moved the school to St Neots. Trade directories and censuses show that several other small private schools came and went in the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth century, most of them for girls and very young boys. One such boy, looking back at his 1860s childhood, remembered his schoolmistress, an innkeeper’s daughter, as an ‘acid spinster’, but he may have been prejudiced against teachers, having a surfeit of them in his own family: a sister who ran a similar school, another who taught music, a third who married a headmaster, and a brother who became a nationally-known mathematics teacher. The schoolmasters had little good to say of these dame schools, naturally: ‘ Re-admitted J.W. – who has been away a year to a dame’s school, and not improved.’ (1873) ‘Admitted F.H. a good 7 from Mrs Bowling’s Private School rather backward.’ (1878) But on the other hand: ‘A private school kept by Mrs Bowling has a good number of children. The fee is 6d a week.’ So this school definitely provided competition. 2 The Schools in the Twentieth Century In many respects, rather than lessening, the schools’ problems increased after the turn of the century. Epidemics (of whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, mumps, influenza, jaundice) caused lengthy closures in many years. It was also much more common for children to be excluded because of scabies or ‘verminous heads’, though arguably higher standards of hygiene could explain this: there were inspections regularly from the School Medical Officer, the School Nurse and later (1931) the School Dentist. Falling rolls were also a cause for concern. The downward trend of the 1890s continued and by 1907 the Boys’ headmaster was worried enough to observe: ‘The number of boys gets less and less. Another family left the village for London.’ There were only 40 on the books. In 1911 he reiterated: ‘Number of children on books decreasing. Two families emigrated to America.’ A different teacher in 1927 did not see the fall in numbers as part of a long-term trend; he noted: ‘Sept 26th. 36 boys present out of 37. Numbers are exceptionally low owing to a very low birthrate since the war.’ A recovery in 1933 ( ‘70 on register—highest in 20 years’ ) did not continue, and by 1943 there were only 31 boys, aged 7 to 14, being taught as one class. The step which had been fought off for so long was unavoidable: amalgamation with the Girls’ and Infants Department. It was effected in 1944, anticipating the same year’s Education Act by arranging for senior boys (11+) to go to Brampton and Offord schools. 1 Much was expected of governesses: one who taught the Gatty sisters at the Manor House in the late 1860s had to be competent to teach ‘thorough English, good French and German, music and the rudiments of Latin and Italian’. 2 For more on the schools run by the Beaumonts and Mrs Bowling, see their respective entries in the A to Z Section.