Chapter 7 EDUCATIONBy 1887 the Founder had been obliged to accept that, if his Homes were to abide by the laws of the Education Acts, he would either have to continue to send the boys to the village school, or to provide alternative acceptable education on the Hill. For this reason, Clyde House, the next home to be opened (in 1888) was provided with a School Room, and the first Superintendent was a professional teacher.
It is not clear whether the Founder originally intended the boys to be educated in the Homes or in the Village School. The village school was a Parish School (it was conveyed to the National Schools Society in 1887) founded by the Rector in 1840. By 1886 it had for twenty-eight years been under the firm but not unkindly control of the Master, William Jackson, who had arrived straight from one of the new Teacher Training Colleges at the age of twenty-two. A close friend and observer, Dr William Warde Fowler, said that he was ‘young, smart, alert and certificated. He was an optimist … He made the children learn the three R's and kept them in good order … A mighty person in the village` (‘Kingham Old and New` pp 82-3)
- a description amply confirmed by all other existing evidence.
In 1886, elementary education was free and compulsory. When school term began on 4 th October 1886, only one boy, Walter Balfour, had arrived in Durham House, but he was joined by Austin Scarsbrook (7 th October), and by Fred and Arthur Walliker (9 th October). The arrival of the orphans from the Hill meant the prospect of a substantial increase in the school roll, and a corresponding rise in the Master's salary. On the other hand, they were an alien and potentially disruptive element in William Jackson's orderly empire. Friday, 15 th October was a ‘whole holiday to enable Morning and Evening Concerts to be given in the School Room`; school life was so much more relaxed in those days. On Monday, 18 th October, the school was visited by the Revd C. Adams, the Diocesan Inspector. The fifth boy from the Hill (Charles Melton) was due to arrive on 23 rd October, so the Master decided that the time had come to assert his authority by clearly laying down the ground rules. On Friday, 22 nd October the ‘Master complained to the Managers of the irregular attendance and unpunctuality of the Boys from Mr Young's Orphanage` (School Log Book, page 162). The managers, as represented by the long-suffering Rector, Samuel Davis Lockwood, called to see Mr Hamerton, the Superintendent of the Orphanage, and as a result William Jackson was able to record the next week (29 th October) that the Boys had ‘attended much better this week`. It was the start of the love/hate relationship between the Hill and the Village that would persist for many a long year. The School Admission register for this period has been lost, so that we cannot tell from that source when the Boys from the Hill ceased to attend, but Alf Jarvis says that they went to the Village School for their first term. The school closed for the term at 12 noon on Friday, 24 th December (Christmas Eve), and the Master no doubt breathed a sigh of relief to see the last of the boys trudging away up the Hill. By that time, there were twelve boys in Durham House, aged between six and ten years, for the first five had now been joined by Walter Burrows, James Edwards, John Lyne, Alfred Monk, William Harwood, and Harold and Arthur Cave. The next day, Christmas Day, The Founder came to share with them their first Christmas Dinner, together with the House parents, Arthur and Emily Hamerton, and their four children under six years old. Nineteen sat round the table in Durham House kitchen and could look back with pride at the past four months, and at their achievement in welding such a diverse group into one large but coherent family. The Founder will have offered a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving: his plan was working; God was prospering him.
Scene at a waifs' supper. "Let those who wish to enter the homes stand up." Destitute children, taken in at the 'Edinburgh Castle' mission in Limehouse, east London, say yes when asked if they would like to go to one of Dr Barnardo's Homes. Illustration by an unnamed artist in 'Bubbles' magazine.
The Boys from the Hill were lucky not to have to return to the village school on 3 rd January 1887 when the new term began; it was bitter wintry weather, and there was a serious outbreak of diphtheria in the village from which little Leonard Bridge died on 11 th January. The medical officer of health for the county visited the village school, and the ‘Closets and School` were disinfected. By this time, the Founder had been obliged to accept that, if his Homes were to abide by the laws of the Education Acts, he would either have to continue to send the boys to the village school, or to provide alternative acceptable education on the Hill. For this reason, Clyde House, the next home to be opened (in 1888) was provided with a School Room, and the first Superintendent was a professional teacher. But for the preceding eighteen months, the boys must have received some form of elementary teaching within Durham House. [See below, page 26].
