Thurlbear School

HISTORY 1873-1975

William Lance, the curate, can little have imagined what a change he was heralding when on 21st July 1873 he wrote "The new school was opened on this date, and the instruction commenced under the management of Miss Curtis". Education had come to Thurlbear, and never again could the village be quite the same. That is not to say that education did not have a nominal foothold in the village before this time, since Kelly's Directory for 1861 speaks of "a school for boys and girls supported by voluntary subscriptions" which may have existed for many years. This would have been a church school and these classes were held in a room over the stables of Thurlbear's Tudor Tithe Barn. In 1870 under Gladstone's Elementary Education Act, existing schools such as that then at Thurlbear were given the opportunity of making improvements to conform with the new standards failing which the School Board would arrange for the establishment of a secular school. Such a prospect was anathema to the managers of most church schools, and to avoid it the government undertook to provide half the cost towards the improvement and maintenance of the existing schools. It was under the provisions of the Act that Thurlbear and Stoke St. Mary Church of England School was built. A tablet on the School House wall expresses the laudable sentiment that we must "train up a child in the way he should go", and adds that the school was "built by voluntary subscription for the parishes of Thurlbear and Stoke St. Mary". The land and a substantial amount of money were given by the village's sole landowner at the time, the first Viscount Portman, whose family were to play such a large part in the school's later history.

SCHOOL HISTORY 1873-1975

Almost all that can be said of the school is contained within the five hundred pages of its log book. For the most part it lists various visitors to the school, who in the early years included the Lances, Pattons, Trepplins and Portmans. Certain events passed with scarcely a mention. Queen Victoria's death in 1901 and the outbreak of war in 1914 are completely unrecorded. Moments of somewhat more local drama were not in short supply; a day in October 1882 when 12 boys were kept after school for throwing mud at the girls, and a seemingly unannounced arrival of the Countess of Carnarvon at the school door in 1914. But the accounts are dispassionate and the headmistresses keep doggedly to the regulation printed at the front of the log, forbidding "reflections or opinions of a general character". Initial attendance in 1873 was poor. Miss Emily Curtis dubbed those who did not attend "generally noisy and disorderly" but she and her successors had to contend with a way of life which had its roots in a rigid dependence on the land. The longest of the school holidays was at harvest time and school came a poor second to the demands of the farm. It was against the background of an agricultural tradition reaching back to Domesday and beyond that Miss Curtis set out to drag the youth of Thurlbear down the paths of learning. Of all the factors that hindered the early progress of the school, the irregular attendance was certainly the most important. The reasons for absence were many, and apart from those who were given to playing truant, the weather, and the resulting bad state of the road seems to have been another perrennial favourite. Even within living memory the road to West Hatch was often impassable during the winter months. In February 1883 Alice Hill wrote "By dinner time the waters had risen so high that the few children who had brought their dinner were obliged to go home, or the roads would have been impassable for them".

SCHOOL HISTORY 1873-1975

Whether Thurlbear children were more unruly than most, or whether the managers paid the headmistresses as little as they could get away with, it is certain that the school ran up an impressive tally of headteachers in the first ten years of its life - no fewer than six. After an upward struggle of sixteen months, Emily Curtis resigned in November 1874 and handed over to Fanny Middleton, the task of running the school. She found the children "generally unruly and badly behaved". Perhaps feeling that her's was a losing battle, she resigned at the end of her first year and was succeeded in 1876 by Miss Ada Whiteman. Her teaching was rapidly interrupted by illness amongst the children, and by the more unforeseen causes such as occurred in April 1876 when school closed for the day, "the schoolroom being engaged by a lady to deliver a lecture on the Holy Land". By the end of 1877 it seems that the managers had decided upon a new headmistress, Mrs R.J.Warren. She succeeded Ada Whiteman on the last day of the year and was the first teacher really equal to the task of running a country school. If anyone could bring improvement to Thurlbear School, then a better person than Mrs Warren would have been hard to find. During her second year she wrote, "The children seem now to have made a start for improvement in everything; their appearance is not what I should like, but that will come in time with constant reminders". Judging from her later entries, however, she became very disillusioned at the painfully slow progress of her pupils, and this may have been one of the factors which prompted her to resign towards the end of 1879. Caroline Hobbs took temporary charge at the end of 1879, and it was during her brief period at the school that the thorny question of asking parents to contribute money towards their childrens education was first raised.

SCHOOL HISTORY 1873-1975

Miss Alice Hill became head teacher in January 1880, and for four years was to guide the school on a course of prosperity, such as it had not known before. She evidently had no time for lazy children, and soon after arriving kept them in for half an hour on the last day of term, "as punishment for idleness". One notable innovation during Miss Hill's headship was the formation in November 1882 of a Ladies Committee, consisting of Mrs William Lance, Mrs Charles Lance and Mrs Henry Bethune Patton. It was organised "for the purpose of inspecting and superintending the needlework of the school". and was in the opinion of H.M.I. an "additional great benefit". These three ladies - and later the Rev. H.F.B. Portman and his family - were to contribute greatly to the school by their almost daily visits. Mrs Patton was a particularly well-liked and respected member of the local community, and in October 1882, she "announced her intention of giving two prizes to the girls for the best needlework". It was during 1883 that the school suffered its first serious epidemic, when diptheria appeared among the children and quickly spread closing the school for five weeks. One child died and several others were still seriously ill. Alice Hill left in December 1884, and although the inspector complained a little about the Geography, the school would seem in most respects to have been thriving when Miss Costello took charge in the following January. During 1885 the school lost one of its greatest supporters when William Lance gave up his curacy to return to Buckland St. Mary. The new rector was the Reverend Henry Fitzhardinge Berkeley Portman, cousin of the second Viscount and regarded by his parishioners as a peacemaker. He was to be rector for the next 39 years and soon became a familiar figure at the school door.

SCHOOL HISTORY 1873-1975

Miss Costello would seem to have been a schoolmistress out of the traditional mould, who, according to one who remembers her, "Kept order by scolding and the cane". Perhaps the chief advantage Miss Costello had over all her predecessors was that she taught at Thurlbear for so long, that she came to be regarded not merely as the headmistress but as a member of the community as well. She brought material improvement to the school but could not be expected to remedy the complaint of the Inspector that the school was "much too full". In 1902 and 1906 the number of children at the school reached an all time peak of 82, but over 60 years were to pass before a new classroom was provided. The first indication of Miss Costello's illness appears in a log entry for May 1900. In June Miss Harvey, assistant mistress wrote, "school closed until further notice, the mistress being sent away for a change". Miss Costello never returned and died shortly afterwards. During the next two years Miss E.M. Hatten was to guide the fortunes of Thurlbear School. Like so many before her though Miss Hatten resigned before she could really prove her worth as did Edith Vile and Ada Harvey, the assistant teachers. Miss Annie Jackson arrived at School House on 9th November 1903 and neither recalcitrant children nor unsympathetic parents were to move her from it for the next quarter of a century.

SCHOOL HISTORY 1873-1975

In all she did, Annie Jackson had the assistance of Miss Ruby Drewe, who was appointed monitress on June 1st, 1908 and in January 1911 became supplementary teacher. Her connection with the school as pupil and later teacher was longer than anyone else's, spanning two World Wars and five headmistresses. In 1935 Mrs. Gunningham reports, "Miss Drewe married-now Mrs Rowsell". She was placed in charge of the infants by Miss Jackson and received consistently high praise from the inspector for her teaching of them. Miss Jackson continued to teach at Thurlbear until her resignation from January 31st, 1929. Mrs. E.M. Gunningham took charge on February 1st, 1929 and was to be headmistress during one of the most eventful periods in the school's history. In the November following her appointment, the senior pupils were transferred to Creech St. Michael. Thereafter, Thurlbear was a junior school only. By the mid 1930's, the prospect of war had become very real and in 1938 the school was visited by Col. Lyle to "demonstrate the use of the gas mask and to find out the various sizes required by the children". They were thankfully spared the necessity of ever using them, although in 1941 the A.R.P Officer came to test them. On 3rd September 1939 Britain was at War but the schol reassembled on September 13th, when a surely apprehensive Mrs Gunningham wrote, "Thurlbear children combined with 23 evacuees from London. The school is arranged on a full time basis with morning and afternoon sessions". By the April of 1942, many of the evacuees had begun returning home, although the children from London did not leave thurlbear until the end of the war in Europe. One of the evacuees is with us still.

SCHOOL HISTORY 1873-1975

Mrs Gunningham whose retirement was approaching became ill in September 1950 and on May 20th 1951 she resigned as headmistress at Thurlbear having been in charge for 22 years. Soon after Miss D.I. Hill had become headmistress in the following September, Thurlbear lost a teacher whose association with the school was longer even than that of Mrs Gunningham. On December 19th, 1952 Miss Hill wrote, "Mrs Rowsell finishes duty today as Assistant Mistress..... She entered this school at the age of five years in 1897, commenced duty as Pupil teacher in 1908 and as Assistant Teacher in 1911, and has now reached the age of retirement, with the good wishes of all". In later years Miss Hill was responsible for founding the Parent Teacher Association which flourished. In 1956 however she resigned through ill-health, having been at Thurlbear for five years. Mrs Ivy Williamson was the school's 12th headmistress on taking charge in May 1957. Though numbers had dropped to only 14 pupils not many years later, by the mid 1960's numbers had considerable increased. It was in 1965 that the first proposals were made for the building of a temporary classroom and in January 1968 a new classroom and kitchen were opened. In 1971 the Education Committee announced that an upper limit of 55 children would be imposed on the school but proposals were made to make Thurlbear the rural school for the area and in 1972 parents of Staple Fitzpaine School urged the closure of their school seeking to apply to the managers of Thurlbear to accept their children. By this simple act, over 100 years of education at Staple Fitzpaine came to an end, and the existence of Thurlbear School was doubly assured. The new buildings at Thurlbear opened in 1975 and everything augers well for the future of the school which for the first time in over 50 years has three permanent members of staff: Mrs Hughes takes the infants, Mrs Williamson the 7-8 year olds and Mr Buchanan the junior class, while Mrs Halliwell is part time teacher.

Source: Tom Mayberry. A History of Thurlbear School. (1975). Loaned by Margaret and Graham Salter, 2001.

In the 19th century, the children used to be taught to read and write for a few pence a day in the room over the stables, converted from the Tudor Tithe barn. (Information provided by Miss Lance, 3rd November, 1955). Kelly's Directory for 1861 says that "There is a school for boys and girls supported by voluntary subscriptions", but the entry for 1875 reads "A handsome School-house was erected in 1872 for the parishes of Stoke St. Mary and Thurlbear". This is still a Church School. Miss Curtis was the first school mistress: she found the children "backward and disorderly". the children were kept away for bad weather and also to help on the farms. In 1873 Fanny Middleton took charge; she had a pupil teacher, and on 11th August there was a holiday for the "School Feast". In November of that year several girls are reported to have done the same work as the boys during the afternoon "There not being needlework enough for them" (Information provided by Miss Hill, the present school mistress, from the School Records.) Source: R. A. Sixsmith, A History of Thurlbear, (1956). Loaned by Michael and Carole Pragnell, 2001.