The Jamesons, the Makepeaces, the Peadons and the Morpeths; many of the surnames that appear in Hunstanworth Parochial School day books of 140 years ago still live on in the area. But the descendants of those lead mining families have very different lives to their Victorian ancestors, as the books reveal.
A school photo with teachers Charles and Helen Dewhirst from around 1922. Debra Goldsmith
The two day books — written between 1863 and 1893 and now in a very delicate state — were returned to Hunstanworth in October 2007 by 88-year-old Dick Winskill, whose late wife Bronwen was the last headmistress at the school when it closed in 1974. They have now been safely deposited in Durham County Records Office (D/X 1607/1 and 2), but digitized copies of the original day books are being prepared so that people can access them from this website.In 1863 the school was brand new, designed by eminent London architect Samuel Sanders Teulon as part of Hunstanworth model village. The school inspector notes on the first page of the log book:
“Excellent new building recently erected by the owner of the neighbouring property, the Rev W Capper. The children are in very fair order, but are at present (with very few exceptions) extremely backward.”
Just how ‘backward’ the children are even shocks the head teacher, Thomas Wilkins, who writes in 1864: “Accidentally discovered while giving a lesson in Mental Arithmetic that more than four-fifths of the scholars could not name the 12 months of the year.”
Being a church school, lessons were naturally heavily weighted towards religious education, so Mr Wilkins would cover topics such as: “Moses smiting the rock of Noreb and the Discomfiture of the Amalkites” and “The beheading of John the Baptist”. But there would also be time for ‘drill’, or exercise, sewing, singing, mental arithmetic and other general subjects. A typical entry on lessons for the day would be: “Gave Geography lesson on the principal seats of the manufacturies of England. In Grammar on the difference between Proper and Common Nouns.”
Look at the Teacher’s Records
Click on the image to go to pages from Hunstanworth School day book, from 1863 onwards. [NOT WORKING]
Click on the image to go to Hunstanworth School day book, from 1880 onwards. [NOT WORKING]
Resources
But Mr Wilkins is frustrated by the lack of resources at the school. In 1866 he writes: “Gave bible lesson this morning on “The temptation of Jesus” and reading lesson on the Nautilus. Owing to a want of proper apparatus in the shape of models and illustrations could not sufficiently explain the lesson [If only Mr Wilkins could have done a quick Google search for this Wikipedia entry – Ed]. This I am convinced is the secret of the cause of the general ignorance of the children here and their backwardness and silence when a question is asked them. They may have been told over and over again, but ’tis only then a mere effort of memory and which has suffered obliteration by the game last played at in the playground or at home…”
One of the earliest class photos at Hunstanworth School – although the log books mention in 1866 that the vicar Rev Simons brings Mr Warren from Newcastle … to take a photograph of the school and with the children grouped as during playtime.”
Families had to pay a monthly sum for their children’s education ranging from sixpence to a shilling a month, and if there were four from the same family, one scholar went free. If they didn’t pay the month’s fee in advance, they could pay weekly but it worked out more expensive. And if perhaps a father had died in a mining accident, the Weardale Board of Guardians paid “paupers’ fees” for a time to help the family recover from the loss.
But the school also earned annual grants, and these depended on attendance levels and successful examination passes – and the teachers, living in what was still a remote and exposed North Pennine outpost in the 1800s, had a constant battle getting the children to come to school regularly.
Bad weather often kept children away — there were no heated 4x4s then to drop them off at the door. A minute’s drive down the road to us today could be a slow, miserable trudge through howling gales and driving snow. In 1865 Mr Wilkins reports snow drifts of four feet up against the school door, and a quick thaw resulting in a flood which forces him to teach the few pupils who have turned up in his own parlour. Although parents made an extra payment for coal for fires in the school, it was often hard to get a fire going, and even if it did take light, the choking smoke was even more unbearable than the freezing cold. On many occasions he writes that he had to get the children to do exercises between lessons just to keep warm.
A school photo from around 1914. Keith Robson
Mr Wilkins complains bitterly of the problems the cold weather causes in May 1865: “In consequence of the wind blowing eastward the girls’ fire could not be lighted. The absence of the fires during these cold wet days makes the schoolroom almost unbearable and is the cause of much sickness (from cold and damp clothes) among the scholars. Myself and the mistress also are often indisposed from the same cause. This evil, which is so seriously hurtful to the scholars and damaging to the interests of the school (for I find the parents refuse on this account to send their children) should be remedied.”
Even the rumour of sickness at school would make parents keep children at home; there were diseases that could disable, disfigure and even kill. The very first page of the day books records a low attendance because smallpox is in the area, and throughout the logs diphtheria, mumps, whooping cough, scarlet fever, chicken pox and “The Itch” – or scabies – are never far away, with children often staying off for weeks and months at a time.
Good weather could also mean a low attendance. Even the very young children had to help the adults with haymaking, gathering potatoes and planting trees, and some actually left school completely for the summer months to work in the fields. Certain days of the week could also be difficult; in 1869 Mr Wilkins notes: “Find some difficulty in keeping the elder girls at school on Tuesdays it being the washing-day.”
Fun To Be Had
But there was fun to be had too. There was the annual treat of tea and cakes and singing at Newbiggin Hall as the guests of Colonel and Mrs Joicey; there were the occasional apples and oranges that were shared out during break time; and there were times when it must have been just about impossible to keep the children in their seats, as in this entry of 1869: “Allowed the children to leave school for a short time to witness a performing bear.”
The giant’s stride erected in the playground in 1866 and still standing today in what is now a private garden.
The logs reveal that what has long been thought of as a maypole in the old school playground is actually a much more robust piece of apparatus. Hilda Everitt, who was a pupil at the school in the 1920s, said she thought it was “some kind of game” rather than a maypole. And Irene Baugh, who has lived with husband Tom in the former school building for 30 years, still has the mysterious long piece of thick iron chain which they dug up some years ago and which is looped at the end to hang on one of the pole’s four metal hooks. Entries for May 1866 show that it was meant for much more boisterous play:
“Mrs Simons [the vicar Dr Simons and his wife visited regularly and often helped with lessons] presented to the girls some skipping ropes for general use during playtime. Dr Simons proposed and gave orders for the erection of a ‘giant’s stride’ for the boys.” – a giant’s stride being a sturdy pole with ropes attached for taking big swinging leaps.
Looking at those faded long-exposure Victorian school photographs, the grim little faces staring back could give the impression that the children of Hunstanworth Parochial School were subject to iron discipline and dumbly obedient – but the logs books beg to differ. The headmaster, Donald Campbell, writes in March 1883: “Mr John Waggot gamekeeper called for the purpose of frightening Wm Robson and Michael Anderson who had set the heather on fire at Boltshope Park Fell on Saturday.”
Mr Campbell faithfully records the on-going antics of young Joe Law, who was 8 years old in 1880: “Several boys played truant yesterday afternoon, being after the foxhounds. Joe Law so keen on the sport that he followed without his hat.” Joe just can’t seem to stay out of trouble: “Had to chastise Joseph Law for swearing. All the “Laws” much addicted to this vice” and: “Joseph Law reproved for swearing. I am at a loss to know what to do with this boy and his sister, to cure them of this detestable habit.”
Finally there’s a visit from Joe’s mother: “Mrs Law called and ordered me to wallop Joe, as he wished to play truant. Walloping won’t mend Joe’s pace either to the school or in it.” But a year later things aren’t getting any better: “Joe Law turned the key of my desk and abstracted sixpence. I have great fears as to the future of this boy.”
But like any other school, other pupils are memorable in more positive ways. On Feb 4 1881 Mr Campbell remarks: “Thomas Hutchinson left school for the lead washings. He was a very quiet and diligent pupil, and his influence upon the other children was very beneficial.” And in July 1883: “Christopher Foster left; Passed VII, the first who ever did so in either Blanchland or Hunstanworth. He was at all times punctual and regular in his attendance and very well behaved, and I had much pleasure in my work with him.”
Ultimately of course, their fate was sealed; most of the girls would go into service before marrying and having families of their own. Most of the boys would go to the lead mines, where they would first be employed in the “washings,” spending long hours in filthy, noisy conditions separating and cleaning the ore. One very poignant entry for 20 April 1875 seems to sum it all up: “Two boys from the Third Standard left school to go to the Washing: their ages are eleven and twelve.”
At work in the school garden c 1919. Pictured left to right: John Willie Taylor, anon, Bessie Robson, ? Pears, Lilian Bell, Jenny Short, Robert Taylor, Stanley Walton, Vera Bell, Ted Oxley, Ned Jameson.
The rise of the ‘Three R’s’
Hunstanworth’s population rocketed in the first half of the 19th Century, and as lead miners from Cornwall and other parts of the country moved into the area, so the demand for school places rose. The Education Returns of 1833 report that… “one Daily School contains 21 males and 8 females instructed partly at the expense of their parents and partly from a donation of £5 per annum from the two Lords of the Manor.” The Returns also mention a Sunday School where around 50 girls and boys “receive gratuitous instruction.”
Local historian Fred Wade, writing in the 1960s, mentions Hunstanworth’s earlier school and schoolmaster Edward Redhead who, in 1827…”was a splendid penman, an able mathematician, taught land surveying, logarithms, trigonometry etc. The education at Hunstanworth School while he was master was of a very advanced order. His daughter Mary taught the girls’ school and the following verse was worked on a sampler by Caroline Robinson at Hunstanworth School in 1827:
"Youth is the time to serve the Lord
The time to ensure the great reward
And while the lamp holds out to burn
The vilest sinner and return."
Fred writes that the larger and more up-to-date school was located half a mile away at Townfield to be more central for the children of the parish.
