June 2020

12 Buckden Roundabout June 2020 Buckden school history 150 years of school—or is it? Staying away from school 2020 marks 150 years of school as the Elementary Education Act was passed in 1870. However, Buckden has had an active school since before this Act was passed. In the second of a series of articles, we look at Buckden School following the Elementary Education Act through the Victorian era. You can access previous editions of Roundabout via www.buckdenroundabout.info t o find out more about the Ele- mentary Education Act and Buckden School. If you have any memories or photos of Buckden School you would like to share, please email them to us! The Victorian Board Schools The 1870 Elementary Education Act provided for genuine mass education on a scale not seen before. The state became more interventionalist and encouraged voluntary action assisted by local authorities. By 1874, over 5,000 new schools had been founded. In addition to the existing Buckden School, a new school build- ing was opened in 1871 for the National Girls ’ and Infants ’ School on land conveyed from the See of Peterborough. It was sited close to the schoolhouse in part of the Bishop ’ s Palace on Church Street. The following year a reorganisation took place and the school became mixed boys and girls, with the infants and Standard I in a separate classroom. By 1889 there were 123 pupils in attend- ance. To teach them, the master had the assistance of a pupil - teacher and two monitors. But the mixed school came to an end in 1890 when the Headmaster states he, ‘ reopened as Boys Dept. Sent girls to Infants Dept. ’ The master would have been paid £100/year and the pupil teacher would have received £10/year. The Elementary Education Act did not provide schooling free for all and in fact income from fees in 1879 totalled only £20 4s. 3½d. and its collection was tedious, so that it was with relief as well as pride that the headmaster wrote in his Log Book ‘ Opened as Free School ’ on 5 October 1891. Fees or no fees, the problem of attendance cropped up regu- larly 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 prom- ised to employ none under 10.’ The chief farmers in the parish were also the school managers and 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 chil- dren ’ s parents not one had paid the fine. ’ 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 al- lowed 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. ’ Also in 1893: ‘ Many boys stopped away today there being what they consider a grand funeral at Brampton. ’ This was the funer- al of Colonel the Hon. Oliver Montagu, which was indeed 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 gal- lant 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 yester- day 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 Head- master 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 (Continued on page 13)