FURNESS VALE
Before Furness Vale school was opened in 1877, the owner of Furness Printworks - a Mr. Saxby - kept a school for the children of his employees in a building near Lodge Farm, adjoining the Printworks. There was a room above used as a church. This would be about 1875 or 1876 and the "Dame" who managed the school was a Miss Eyres. Mr. Goodwin took over this school and moved into the new Board school when it was ready.
Our summer holiday in 1940, the year after war broke out, was shortened to three weeks as children were considered safer at school! We had very wet weather during the holidays and on our return brilliant sun. We felt so cheated that each day we took our furniture out and did lessons in the yard. It was so very hot many children could not stand it and put on hats or used their individual hand towels, sometimes with weird results. Later, air-raid shelters were built in the yard and we had little or no play space.
I was always given a young men assistant when I was Head at Furness 1 had boys up to 14, and a man had always been Head before. The man I had as an assistant when we were a Cheshire school was always someone who had been through College but failed finals. He had to take his exam again and on passing was moved on as the Cheshire authority would not pay certificated salary for a man assistant. I never took P.T. with the boys, but did most of the garden of which we were very proud. The boys made the bird bath and flagged paths, and the garden was always self-supporting.
NEWTOWN
After the 1870 Act, Board schools were built at New Mills, Thornsett, Hague Bar, Hayfield, Furness Vale and Newtown. The two last were under a Board of their own, Disley Stanley School Board, which met in the room with a bay window at Newtown school. This room was very beautifully furnished. Newtown had a Weslyan school, where the Albion Road Chapel is now.
It was too expensive to run and was closed, the children going to Disley Church school, or to New Mills church school at least two miles from their homes. This was considered too far for the infants, and my mother and a local woman teacher were sent to the end house in Hibbert Street, Newtown, to teach infants. This house is a queer shape and is known as "The Smoothing Iron". The photo may be taken outside this house, or outside the Weslyan school of which my mother was in charge. Newtown school was opened in 1876 or 1878 with Mr. Turner (my father) as Head.
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| Newtown School 1875 |
After my brother died in 1903, my mother came as Head to Newtown Infants Department, then separate from the upper school. She had taught there when the school opened. Her salary as Head was £70.
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| Newtown School 1903. |
(The log book for Newtown Infant Department from 1875, before the present school was built, is in the collection.)
NEW MILLS
Mr. Nichols was head master of what is now Spring Bank secondary modern school as an elementary school with an infant department under the same roof.
He started evening classes and specialised in chemistry which met the needs of many aspiting young men in calico printing, bleaching and dyeing works, in the valley, Later a technical school was started under the same roof with Mr. Nichols as Head; this was the beginning of what is now New Mills Grammar school.
Mr. Nichols spent all his time in the technical school, but was also paid as head of the elementary school — a unique position and an assistant took charge of the elementary school. Mr. Skelton was the assistant; he was afterwards Head at Hague Bar and Thornsett.
When the new Grammar school was ready, Mr. Nichols gave up the headship of the elementary school; his assistant at that time was Mr. Crawford who was appointed Head.
A difficult situation arose because Mr. Skelton applied for the headship; the local managers appointed him but the Education Committee appointed Mr. Crawford. The deadlock lasted, but Mr. Crawford became Head although local opinion in some quarters never forgot or forgave.
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| New Mills School 1899 |
HAGUE BAR
Children of Hague Bar school in 1888, with Mr. Lee as Head. He was the first head master my mother worked with after returning to school.
Most of the children attending the school at this time were children of employees of Strines Print-works (before Calico Printers Association days) employees, and a few farmers. There were a number of large families. The fathers were either labourers - wage 18/- weekly, or 27/- if overtime was worked - or office workers, cashiers and secretaries in the Printworks; the well-to-do section were calico printers, Many were very bonny children and all were well cared for.
1899. With the exception of my mother who was fully qualified, and the head master, Hague Bar was always staffed with pupil teachers. My mother went there after my father died (he was the first head master of Newtown school) leaving her with myself one year old and ray brother aged five weeks. My brother, who appears on the New Mills photograph, third boy from the left on the row next to the back, was killed at work when sixteen years old. My mothar's salary was never more than £60 p.a. She had to be at Hague Bar school by 8 a.m., when the head master took the pupil teachers for lessons, a regulation made by the Board. I notice a variety of window plants in the photograph, but no aspidistras. I remember Dr. Stead when Director of Chesterfield giving at a refresher course an address entitled "Aspidistras". His theme was that you could judge the progress to be expected in a school by the presence or absence of that plant, which grows with little care, and with which it is easy to make a show without effort; so often work in such schools was similar!
I went to Hague Bar with my mother for a short time about 1892. There was no drinking water laid on at the school then; the farmers nearby did not always supply water willingly if asked and there were no houses nearer than over the railway bridge. My mother could not afford to pay for hot water for tea, and she sent me to New Mills as she thought the day too long for me.
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The above account is transcribed from a document written by Miss Sarah Jane Turner, former Headteacher at Furness Vale School. Miss Turner is seen in the following school photographs from 1950.
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