Beckbury CofE Primary School

A History of Beckbury Church of England Primary School

This information was written by the staff and pupils of our school in 1973 as part of the 120th anniversary of the school. It was updated at the 150th anniversary in 2003.

The Doomsday Survey

Of course there were people living in Beckbury before the school was built. It is often very difficult to decide exactly when and how people began to settle in a particular place. But we do know that the villages of Beckbury, Badger, Ryton and Kemberton were all in existence in 1086.

That was the year in which William the Conqueror ordered a national survey of the land which was really the first census, and from it we can learn many things about the district at that time. For one thing the village names were different. Did you know that once they were Becheberie, Bedeshovre, Ruitone and Chenbritone?

The county was divided up into areas called ‘hundreds’ and in the following table you can see who were the lords of each district before and after William took over the throne:

Village	Doomsday Name	Hundred	Saxon Owner	Doomsday Tenant
Beckbury	Becheberie	Patinton	Azor	Roger Venator
Badger	Begeshovre	Alnodestreu	Bruniht	Osbern Fitz-Richard
Ryton	Ruitone	Alnodestreu	Wiuar and Briestual	Osbern Fitz-Richard Osbern
Kemberton	Chenbritone Elmer, Uluuin and Robert	Bascherch	Elmer, Uluuin and Edmur	Robert Fitz-Tetbald

But all that was over 800 years ago, and we are really interested in the last 120 years. A hundred and twenty years may seem quite a long time to you, but really it’s not.

Suppose you are ten, and your father was 25 when you were born. That means that he was born 35 years ago. Now suppose his father was 25 when he was born, this means that person (your grandfather) was born in 1912, which is over 60 years ago. Your great grandfather may have been born around 1887, and his father (your great-great grandfather) in 1862 shortly after the school opened.

So 120 years is only four generations back from you. But as you will see, life was very different in these times.

Since the book was first written 27 years ago, it is almost five generations now since the school was first opened in 1853.

1853: A Panorama

In 1853 Queen Victoria had been on the throne for 16 years. Two years earlier the Great Exhibition of the works of Industry of All Nations had opened in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London

At this time it has been said that Britain was almost 50 years ahead of her nearest competitors in applying power to machinery and transport. She was the first to develop widespread industrial skill, and her engineers took their knowledge and British machines to all parts of the world.

Victorian prosperity was at its height, and Britain was called “The workshop of the world “. Factory owners and industrialists made fortunes.

And yet

In many cities and towns there were slum dwellings and horrible conditions for the poor people. Very few places had refuse collection, sewerage or even a water supply. A visitor to Manchester estimated that 350, 000 workers lived “in wretched, damp, filthy cottages “. Other places were as bad - in Leeds only 68 streets out of 568 were paved; in one part of London 2,850 people were crowded into 95 houses; in Liverpool one family in five lived in a cellar.

Lack of sanitary conditions led to widespread ill health and disease and in Bradford the average age at which a worker died was twenty. Not until well into the 1870’s did things start to improve.

What were things like in the country?

In 1853, about half the population still lived in the country. The rich land owners held thousands of acres, and there were prosperous tenant farmers with 300400 acres. There were about 100,000 small holders who managed holdings of less than 50 acres without hiring labourers.

But two out of every three men on the land worked for wages. They worked about 14 hours a day and were paid no more than seven or eight shillings (35-4Op)

Craftsmen, like the blacksmith and wheelwright could earn more and at least living in the country was healthier than in the towns.

Life in Beckbury in 1853

What do we know about Beckbury itself in 1853? Certainly there have been many changes since then, and it is difficult to find out just exactly what the place looked like, because we cannot turn to photographs or film as researchers in 120 years time will be able to.

One way of discovering some information is to consult census reports and directories. Every ten years the government holds a census, which is a sort of register of who lives where. A directory was a survey made in each town and village of principle landowners, traders and institutions.

Bagshaw’ s Directory of 1851 tells us that, in that year, there were 309 people living here in 61 houses. The 1971 census reveals that there are 365 people in 120 households. So we can assume that the village was roughly half its present size.

Walter Stubbs, “A considerable land-owner in this parish” lived in Beckbury Hall and John Ward Esq. R.N. lived in the Lower Hall. The Reverend Ralph Smythe was rector.

The Post Office was at Thomas Page’s with letters arriving at 8:00a.m. and dispatched at 4:45p.m.

Samuel Thurstons was the farmer at Heath House and Benjamin Worrell ran Snowden Pool and Farm.

The other main occupations are listed as:

Benjamin Adams shoemaker

Thomas Baugh beerhouse keeper

Isaac Bradburn shopkeeper

Samuel Brown farmer

Benjamin Corfield farmer

George Hand butcher

John Hand carpenter

Thomas Hand builder

William Hand joiner

William Hampton blacksmith

Thomas Page shopkeeper

William Poyner butcher

John Richards farmer and malster

Thomas Southall beerhouse keeper

Richard Williams shopkeeper

John Warren tailor and draper

Probably the rest of the men worked as farm hands. Few would have worked out of the village in places like Wolverhampton or Bridgnorth can you think why?

If your parents and grandparents have lived in the district then they might help you find out more about the history of your house. In fact wherever you live must have some kind of history which you could investigate.

Education in the 1850’s

Nowadays we take it for granted that children go to school from the age of five until sixteen, and that there will be opportunity to stay even longer in some cases.

But the State did very little about education before 1870. In those early days there were a few private schools, run by any one at all from kindly old women to poor clergymen. Parents paid for the lessons received. There were charity schools where older children called monitors, taught, taught the younger ones to read. And there were the voluntary schools (also called “National” or “British”) founded by the National Society of the Church of England and by the non-conformist British and Foreign School Society. Beckbury was one of these.

It was not until the Forster Education Act of 1870 that the government admitted responsibility to provide elementary education. Schools run by local boards (“Board Schools”) were to be built where no other satisfactory schools existed, and after ten years there were enough of them to make attendance compulsory.

Balfour’s Education Act of 1902 took elementary schools in England and Wales out of the hands of school boards and placed them under the control of town and county councils which were to maintain the state schools and by a special agreement the national schools as well. In addition these councils, known as ‘local authorities’ were encouraged to provide secondary school in which there would be places for boys and girls who won scholarships from the elementary schools.

Thus, early in the present century, was formed the pattern of education that persists today. There was no uniform system, as in most countries, but a patchwork of old and new, with private schools, the Church schools and the council schools, as well as the Public schools and the old Grammar schools, all existing side by side.

The Opening of the School

Efforts to trace the exact opening date of the school have gone on for the past eighteen months, involving several children and much detective work.

The plaque on the front wall reads NATIONAL SCHOOL A.D. MDCCCLII (1852). This was the first clue. The earliest log book in our possession only dates back to 1896; the earliest official report we have was written in 1864; and the first date in the old admission book is 1882. This meant a search outside the school files.

1. We could find no mention of the opening in the Parish deeds and records.

2. Both the County Archivist and the Lichfield Diocesan Education Council were approached, but both were unable to help.

3. The Education Department of Salop County Council records only date back to 1902.

4. The next step was to consult the National Society in London, but again we drew a blank.

The Records Officer was however able to send us a copy of a report made by the Rev. J.P. Norris who inspected the school on the 13th June 1854. He stated that the “school was opened 10 months ago under Mr Tomkins and his sister.” We knew then, that the opening took place in August or September of 1853. (The plaque commemorated the erection of the building.)

5. In an effort to trace the exact date back copies of the local newspapers were searched.

There is no mention in the August/September 1853 editions of Eddows’s Journal”, the Shropshire Journal of the day. Like wise in the editions of the Shrewsbury Chronicle which carried county news and is on microfilm in Shrewsbury Borough Library. The Newport Advertiser was unable to help.

6. At last, very recently a reference was found in Wolverhampton Reference Library. Although the actual date is not mentioned we can surmise that it was Tuesday 13th September 1853.

The School 1973

And so we come to the present day - the school in 1973. What have been the main changes in 120 years? Certainly the surroundings have altered. In 1853 the school was a single two-storey building standing fairly isolated on the corner of the Burnhill Green Road. We now have the terrapin classrooms, the school field and modern houses near the school.

In 1853 children left school to start work at the age of 12 or 13. Nowadays you leave when you are 11 and you still have at least 5 years of education in front of you at secondary school.

But perhaps the biggest difference between then and now is what you actually do whilst at school. 120 years ago lessons were largely based on the 3 Rs - reading, writing and arithmetic. Drill and needlework provided some variation. Modern education has expanded these basic needs. Reading and writing are included in language development generally; arithmetic has become part of the much wider field of mathematics; PE and a wide variety of games activities now take place on field and at swimming pool; needlecraft is only part of a whole range of creative art/craft activities; music and drama have been added; and by examining places and things, and meeting people, outside the school itself - it has become a base where learning starts rather than the place where it may well have ended.

Your parents have become more involved in the life of the school too. Things like Open evenings, Sports Days, Carol Services, Fund-raising activities and so on, have meant they can see more of what you do and help in many ways how you do it.

The important thing is that the school must not stand still. We must preserve what is good of the old and investigate and adapt the relevant aspects of the new. In this way the next 120 years may show true educational progress

Beckbury School 2003

Previous pupils of Beckbury School said that the school should not stand still. It hasn’t. Even in the last 30 years (since the first edition of this book), there have been many changes.

The present school building was opened on 22nd November 1993. It had two classrooms, an office come staffroom, a kitchen and inside loos! A further extension was added in 2002, providing a library and small computer suite. At the same time the school added seven computers that were networked and attached to BT broadband.

The old school is still in the same place but the caretaker and his family live in the bottom storey. The top floor is now used by a play group.

A further change that has occurred since 1853, and that has continued to be the case since 1973, is that children come to Beckbury School from further away because they have cars to transport them here whereas when the school was built many pupils would have walked.

Children presently at the school travel from Ryton, Grindle, Badger, Albrighton, Cosford and Telford.

Also, children wrote on slate in 1853 whilst the teachers wrote on blackboards. Today children write on paper and in books and teachers write on interactive white boards. Furthermore we have computers and printers to help us with our work. Of course, we can also use the computer to write and, with the introduction of the Internet and e-mail, we can communicate with children in other schools anywhere in the country (or the world!) and we can access almost any information at the push of a button.

In 1987, the National Curriculum was introduced by the government at that time and had to be followed by all children in state schools in England and Wales. Like other children around the country we have to follow this curriculum although it has been changed even in the few years since it was introduced. Here at Beckbury School, we do maths, English, science, music, RE, PE (all kinds of sport, including swimming!), geography, history, art, design & technology and ICT. At the end of Year 2 and Year 6 (when we are 7 and when we are 11) we do SATs tests – in 1973 children did the 11+ exam.

We wear a school uniform. This is a red or white polo shirt with a red sweatshirt or cardigan. With that we wear a grey or black pair of trousers or skirt.

Our uniform carries our school logo.

Our 150th Anniversary celebrations

Throughout the current school year 2003-2004 we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the opening of the school. In our history and geography work we are studying the local area and it’s recent history. We are finding out about our families and constructing family trees. Using details from the 1851 census and parish records we have found out about people who were living and working in Beckbury when the school was built. On 22nd October 2003 we held a special day of celebration and invited pupils and teachers from past and nearly present times to share the day with us. We dressed up in costumes as the children may have looked in Victorian times and experienced some Victorian lessons. Also to mark the event there was a special service of thanksgiving at our church, St Milburgha’s. We planted an orchard of fruit trees and 150 daffodils so that the future children of Beckbury can enjoy their time at the school as much as we do. We were joined on the day by reporters from BBC Radio Shropshire and BBC Midlands Today sent a film crew.

Children on roll October 22nd 2003

Hannah Venables

Peter Hubbard

Thomas Perry

Daniel White

Andrew Ellsey

Alana Correa

Jack Lawton

Callum McIntyre

Jenny O’Sullivan

Jake Crick

Christopher Newsome

Cole Parker

Kris Painting

Joseph Sankey

Alice Mundon

Charlotte Crick

George Tolley

Jamie Dawson

Jessica Hadley

Alison Wycherley

Joshua Ellsey

Amy Want

Katie Venables

William Mundon

Joseff Lawton

Natasha Stephens

Anna Stephenson

Scott Place

Holly-Ann Wellburn

Taryn Correa

Emma Wycherley

Bethany Perry

Peter Stephenson

Sophia Sankey

Robyn Scott

Ryan Want

Joshua Dawson

Holly Pleydell

Thomas Bruce

Ryan Ridge-Reynolds

Reuben Harris

Martha Tolley

Spencer Osborne

Patrick O’Sullivan

Emilie Ellsey

Thomas Hadley

Thomas West

Reception

Zach Wellburn