The Guild of One-Name Studies held another seminar this month, at Bearley Village Hall, near Stratford-upon-Avon. Entitled "The Best Days of Your Life", the sessions focused on education and, as usual, there was a good variety in the talks.
Once the welcome and administrative information was dealt with, the day kicked off with a fascinating talk by Taresh Solanki, "William's Schoolmaster", giving us an insight into the education William Shakespeare, and other pupils in the 16c, might have experienced. Since Taresh was dressed for the part, and 'in character' it was easy to imagine being in the classroom at that time, and I think a visit to "Shakespeare’s Schoolroom & Guildhall" might be one of my future activities!1
Following this, we watched one of the videos from the Schoolroom, "The Prefects Table in Shakespeare's Schoolroom".2 This reminded me of a project carried out by the Coventry Family History Society, recording the names inscribed on the desks of the old Grammar School there.3
Such carvings really are "unusual" name rich sources, but wouldn't it be amazing to find someone with your research surname on one of them?
Which is actually something I did, when I followed up one of the other suggestions for unusual sources - checking the various displays within the village hall. One of these is a set of tiles of "Residents and Friends of Bearley at the Millenium" and, among those, I found a PARRY family!
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After a short break, Margaret Roberts told us about the changing role and experience of the teacher, covering teacher training from the Edwardian period up until the "swinging sixties", with a particular focus on the Cheshire Training College, in Crewe. The early segregation of the sexes there reminded me of how, even in the 1970s, at my secondary school, there were certain subjects only available if you were of the 'right' gender, and how, for assembly, boys and girls sat in different halves of the school hall (something I probably recall more vividly because three of us made the mistake of going down the boys' side in our first year! :-) )
Alison Boulton then shared with us the research carried out by Denise Bright, on Moorfield School for Girls, in Plymouth. The records for this school were lost, after it closed in the early 1960s, and Denise has done an amazing job in managing to identify over a thousand of the pupils who attended between 1850 - 1962, in what was a fairly small school.
After the usual, excellent, buffet lunch, Val Brenton spoke about how to trace teachers in the family, using examples from the records relating to two particular teachers. I noted the need to dig a bit deeper, when finding someone recorded as a "teacher", or a "certified teacher" in records, such as censuses. It turns out that there were various methods for becoming certified, and even a headteacher might just be described as a "teacher" at times.
The FANS principle, of researching "friends, acquaintances, and neighbours" can also be of importance, especially when researching spinster teachers, who often went to stay with a variety of relatives. Again, I was reminded of a couple of cases I have come across - one, an elderly "aunt" of my Dad who, I gather, lived with my grandparents, when my Dad and his siblings were growing up, before moving on to stay with someone else. The second, an "Eleanor Agnes Plant", whose gravestone is in the London Road Cemetery, in Coventry, and who is someone I researched because the inscription intrigued me, since the stone was put up by her cousin:
Transcription:
Of
My dear cousin
Eleanor Agnes Plant
Who died October 12th 1912.
“He giveth his beloved sleep”
Born in Salford, Lancashire, but seemingly (based on census entries) brought up by her uncle and aunt in Leicester, rather than by her father and his second wife, Eleanor is recorded variously as a "Teacher of music", "Private governess (teacher)" and as a "Governess", before finally living on her own private means.4
I haven't investigated her potential teaching qualifications, since I was more interested in the cousin relationship (and music can be a "special case" when it comes to teaching qualifications, anyway.) But she seems to be a possible example of this principle of spinster teachers who lived with relatives, once they no longer worked.
Having heard all about records relating to teachers, Claire Moore then gave us an introduction to school and education records, and the information we might find for pupils, which included a brief history of schooling, and of different types of schools, such as the National, Reformatory, Industrial, and Ragged schools.
After a short quiz based on exam questions from the 1800s (no, I couldn't list all the main towns along the south coast, from Dover to Falmouth, either,) the seminar finished with three more 'Tales from the Schoolroom', by Margaret and Alison, which covered an example of a child study by one of the trainee teachers at the Crewe College, the education of the deaf and dumb, and finally, information about the sporting activities of the female teaching students during the Edwardian period.
I seem to have written more than I originally intended to, about the seminar itself, and about the thoughts that came to mind during it. So I'm going to stop here and then write a separate post, to follow up on something not directly related to the seminar contents.
Notes and references:
1. Shakespeare’s Schoolroom & Guildhall: https://www.shakespearesschoolroom.org/
2. Back to School videos by Shakespeare's Schoolroom & Guildhall: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdJwy6CrVaSlc2EcZQQXF_TcdMYK2sEQp
3. Coventry Family History Society pdf of the Graffiti in the Old Grammar School can be accessed from https://www.covfhs.org/records/
4. Census entries relating to Eleanor Agnes Plant:
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