EDUCATION

Prior to the 1870 Elementary Education Act, education was voluntary and funded by subscriptions. The earliest record of a school in the village is in a letter dated 11th December 1775 sent to Lord Ailesbury’s office:

‘Dear Sir – You will have the goodness to inform Lord Ailesbury that there are twelve children who will leave Easton School at Christmas. You will further state that they have been regularly catechized by me and also examined in their reading and that I think they will not easily lose the knowledge which they have acquired. Yours sincerely – William Sparkes’

In 1835 an enquiry into schools recorded in the village an infants’ school with 12 pupils, a National school with 10 boys and 10 girls daily and 30 of each on Sundays.

The 1870 act introduced publicly controlled schools to fill the large gaps in the educational map of the country. The new schools were to be paid for out of local rates and governed by popularly elected school boards. Queen Victoria encouraged landowners to allocate appropriate parcels of land. George Frederick, the Marquess of Ailesbury did his duty by providing the site in Easton where the school was built in 1870 and still stands today.

On 1st February 1871, Easton Royal National School opened with Master JW Pearce, supported by assistant teachers Mrs Pearce and Mary Ann Beckingham, sewing mistress Mrs C Smith and 64 pupils. Attendance was now compulsory for children aged between five and twelve unless they were sick or lived more than one mile from a school. Parents who were able contributed one penny a week for each child attending.

Mr Pearce and his staff had many frustrations to deal with, as the log book records: ‘February 6th/7th – Examined classes 1 and 2 in general knowledge and found them very backward. Took two lowest classes and found them very dull.’

School attendance was spasmodic depending on the seasons, with many children away planting then picking potatoes, hay making and during harvesting the school closed from 21st August until 23ed September.

Latecomers were common with youngsters doing chores at home or busy earning pennies on local farms before school. When it was wet, some didn’t turn up at all. It was not unusual for the school to close and pupils to die during the frequent epidemics of scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, chicken pox, influenza, whooping cough and impetigo that swept through the village. For some years, the annual HM Inspector reports were on the lines of ‘could do a great deal better’.

Finally, in 1884 came a breakthrough: ‘The children are in very good order and have passed a thoroughly successful examination in Elementary subjects, the handwriting having considerably improved during the past year. The general character of the Recitation is fairly good, that of the second Standard being good. Grammar and Geography have also been efficiently taught, although children of the third Standard are not quite up to the mark in the latter subject. Altogether the present condition of the village school is highly gratifying. ‘

The house opposite the school was once home to a succession of school teachers as recalled by Jack Pearce: ‘Borrowing from my mother there was Mr Scales ‘very handy with the cane’ followed by Johnny Dereham (ditto). Then came the excellent Miss Winzar, Miss Rule and finally Miss Tabor who threw my highly treasured set of footballing cigarette cards into the blazing school stove just because she caught me looking through them in class.’

Alec Choules remembers Mr Dereham as a patriotic man and a good teacher: ‘We were well and truly indoctrinated with the British Empire tradition. Most of the songs we learnt were of the ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘Hearts of Oak’ type. Geography was mostly about the British Empire which in those days covered most of the world. History was a case of remembering a lot of dates of battles and kings and we had a fair grounding in what happened in England after 1066.’

Adult education was not ignored - the Reading Room movement of the mid-19th century encouraged local communities to set up provision for evening classes. In 1895 an Evening Continuation School was begun in what is now called Library Cottage, kindly set aside for this purpose by Mr Powell of Easton Farm.

 Subjects taught by school master Mr Scales included: Agriculture, Music, Weather, Arithmetic, Insects, Phases of the Moon and The Science of Common Things. Less than two years later, the classes ceased because a rowdy element preferred fighting to reading.

In 1986, a government plan to close the school was defeated by spirited parental opposition. Some years later, a new front office and assembly room/gymnasium were added thanks to an amazing fund-raising effort by the community.

School building circa 1900

School photo circa 1900