HOW times change. Many rural schools struggle for numbers these days, but it wasn’t always the case, as this extract from the Mercury in 1877 highlights.
WORD must have spread rapidly after the first lessons were given to boys and girls at a new village school in Woodland.
There were 71 pupils in the classrooms when it opened on an August Monday morning in 1877, but the total went up to 87 that same afternoon, rose to 98 next morning and was 138 by the following Monday.
Within two months the daily attendance was over 160.
There was certainly a great need for it as the first head teacher, Joseph Morton, wrote in the log: “Several of the children are very backward in their education, many of them never having been to school before.”
That log in a series of books compiled by a succession of heads, gives a vivid history of the school – and indeed of the village and surrounding area – during the turbulent years after that first Monday.
In January 1878 the head wrote: “A boy called James Johnson, who will be 11 years of age in September next, left school and commenced work at the pit on Monday.
“But I sent a note to Mr Metcalfe (a school manager) who kindly attended to the matter and said the boy was not to work. The boy went to Lynesack School on Tuesday but returned here on Thursday.”
A couple of years later there was a dispute about a boy called John Kellett who left to start at the pit. His family claimed he had already passed his 13th birthday, and that the school record of his date of birth was wrong.
Later there was sympathy for a lad named Robert Lowe who wanted to leave early. The log states: “He is a big boy and does not learn a bit: neither does he appear able to do so. Therefore I have allowed him to leave a few weeks before he has arrived at 13 years of age. I think it better for the boy himself.”
Changes in fortune at the colliery are reflected in the school attendance.
An entry for July 1880 records: “Bad attendance caused by the closing of Woodland pit, whereby a considerable number are thrown out of employment.
“Consequently their children have not been sent to school. If the pit be closed for any length of time the results as far as the school is concerned will be most serious.”
There is another sign of how the pit touched the classrooms when during a stoppage by coal hewers in 1887 the log declares: “The children are evidently affected by the excitement caused by the strike. Indifference and inattention are plainly manifest.”
But there must have been more prosperity around in 1900, when there were 260 pupils on the books.
The head states: “There is a strong desire on the part of some parents to withdraw their children before the legal age. The cause of this no doubt is the great demand for labour.”
Throughout the years there are simple notes about personal family tragedies and the deaths of pupils.
In 1879, in among other routine details of school life, the head has written in a stark, matter of fact way: “I lost one girl by death from scarlet fever last Monday. She was at school last Thursday week.”
The following week’s log adds: “I have lost another scholar by fever this week. It is quite an epidemic.”
That outbreak seemed to clear up, but a few months later comes another chilling note: “Some children absent owing to scarlet fever being in the district. One of the scholars has died this morning.”
In 1901 two pupils died during an epidemic of diphtheria which caused the school to be closed.
Other epidemics, such as flu, measles, ringworm and scarlet fever, are recorded from time to time, with the worst outbreak being smallpox which struck several children during 1927.
There was great excitement in 1900 when British troops occupied Pretoria and the pupils “paraded in the streets with great enthusiasm.”
In 1918 news came that a teacher, Mr T.R.S. Harrison, had been killed in action: Another teacher, Miss S. H. Wallace, took two days off to travel to Liverpool to meet her brother as he returned wounded from France.
The log for November 11, 1918 records: “In view of the victorious position of the allied armies and the announcement of the Armistice, the school was closed from the end of the afternoon session until 18th November.”
The logs for the years of World War II record the arrival of evacuees from Tyneside, with thanks from their teachers for the warm welcome they were given.
The books tell of many great storms – a hurricane which damaged just about every building in Woodland and blew over haystacks, snow drifting to 10 feet deep and blocking the railway line, heavy rain coming through the ceiling into classrooms, and so on.
But possibly the prize for the most unusual entry should go to February 1929: “The school is very cold. In two classrooms the ink froze in the inkwells.”
Among the many items of note are the start of the Provision of Meals Act in 1921, when the school had 72 on its “feeding list” and the handing out of 30 pair of boots to needy scholars in 1932.
Various head teachers have added their own comments through the ages about pupils, lessons and area in general. No doubt some felt exasperated at times – a feeling perhaps best summed up by one who wrote in 1885:
“Miss Stephenson closed her engagement as assistant mistress at this school today. Got married and giving up the teaching profession – a sensible thing, too, for those who can do it.”
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