Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

EDUCATION IN BUCKDEN 178 a well-equipped gymnasium which doubles as a dining-room, a large activity and music room and a good library. These are not all modern buildings: the 1871 National School building and the schoolmistress’s house are still an integral part of the campus, a permanent reminder of the importance our nineteenth century forebears placed on universal education. But all memories of the infants’ slates and the juniors’ copybooks and the headmaster’s crackly valve radio have been erased by today’s wi-fi computers and interactive whiteboards! Adult and other education Education in a community is not confined to the formal schooling of its children. Formal education for adults included the training of pupil-teachers at the school, where they received instruction from the certificated teacher outside school hours, and at classes organised by the county council. At its widest education could include library provision (in the school from 1926) or the village Reading Rooms. The latter opened in November 1891, providing somewhere members could read the more respectable newspapers, discuss the issues of the day, attend lectures, and have their cultural horizons broadened (though not, in some cases, very far: there was a hard core of members who would persist in preferring music hall songs and comic monologues to recorder duets by the Misses Linton and Gatty). In the last years of the nineteenth century, patriotic evenings devoted to the various South African Wars were hugely popular, but the educational value of ‘British pluck, Boer intransigence’ was perhaps limited. The Buckden branch of the Women’s Institute (WI) opened in 1919. Its committee at once set up a lending library and embarked on a programme of lectures and demonstrations designed to increase the members’ self-reliance and sense of self-worth. The topics ranged from home hygiene, upholstery and poultry keeping to world geography and British history. Even more than with the Reading Rooms, there was an important social side to the WI, which let women escape the confines of home life to take part in competitions, dances and drama. The churches (and temperance organisations) also arranged lectures or courses for adults; in addition, of course, they ran Sunday Schools, whose annual days out at the seaside were the only time some children got to see the wider world for themselves. There were also classes organised by individuals, such as one in shorthand at the Spread Eagle which cost 1d. a time in the 1890s. Other classes were held at the school as early as 1874, when the Head noted, ‘Opened Night School on 27th September.’ , but no more is known about these. The most interesting venture on record is in the Parish Council minutes for 1896 to 1911. In this period the Technical Education Committee organised lectures in bee-keeping, farriery, poultry-keeping, shorthand, dressmaking, horticulture, ambulance (first aid), basket-making, cookery and domestic economy (where ‘the audience on some occasions showed an inclination to argue the lecturer’s point’). All the classes which ran were firmly practical; proposals which were not adopted included vocal music, carving and shoemaking. The income came from a grant at 4½d. per capita and the usual class size seems to have been fifteen. It would be interesting to know more about these courses which so clearly mirrored the rural preoccupations of Buckden’s inhabitants. Certainly some at least of the speakers were at the top of their profession, such as James Barson, the head gardener of Hinchingbrooke House—although his series of talks did not go quite as anticipated: see his entry in the A to Z section. The parish council runs no such courses today, but informal adult education is far from defunct. The WI still flourishes, as do groups such as the Gardening Association, the Buckden Surgery Patient’s Association, the Friends of Buckden Towers, the Local History Society, and the Workers’ Educational Association. With the exception of the last two, education is not their primary reason for existence, but is an important, if occasional, ancillary activity. For the young, Buckden has a Pre-School Playgroup, a Day Nursery, and for those looking for a career in dance and drama, Stageworks, an independent performing arts college situated in the grounds of Buckden Towers. SOURCES Parish Registers 1559-1920 Churchwardens’ Account Book 1627-1774 Rayment’s Will 1661 Census Enumerators’ Returns 1851 Report of the Charity Commissioners 1836 Directories: Pigot’s 1839, Kelly’s 1847, 1890, 1898, Post Office 1854, 1877 School Log Books: Boys 1871-1932; 1932-1944 Infants 1896-1913 Girls 1902-1944 School Managers, Minute Book 1903-1937 and correspondence Admissions Register 1927-1965 Website, Buckden CE Primary School 2009 Mrs June Woods, The Buckden Schools, undated talk