Stibbard School Log Book 1863-1934
SOLD OUT
Edited by Shirley Howell with Notes by
Rachel Young
A5 paperback, 192 pages, 17 illustrations
including 11 photographs
Price £9.00 plus £1.00 UK or £3.00 airmail
postage & packing
Stibbard is a village of about 400 inhabitants
situated 4 miles south-east of the town
of Fakenham in Norfolk. There has been a school in the village since
about 1858 and the school log books dating from 1863 have been deposited at the
Norfolk Record Office. The first two of
these have been transcribed, edited and published as an A5 book. For glimpses of everyday life in a remote
Norfolk village, these documents could hardly be bettered.
Assaults
on staff, truancy, bullying, curricula, interfering parents, staff shortages,
payment by results, visits from Her Majesty’s inspectors – topics all too
familiar to today’s teachers. Add
epidemics of diphtheria, influenza, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, small pox,
typhoid fever (the deaths of eight children and one teacher are reported),
floods, snow-blocked roads, lack of equipment, insanitary toilets, and a vivid
picture of Victorian life in a Norfolk village emerges from the Log Books of
the school. We see clearly the tension between
the parents, wanting their children to help at home or go out to earn, and the
school mistress whose grant depends on keeping up her attendance figures.
This
book contains a transcription of more than 70 years of Stibbard School Log, and
includes the names of teachers and hundreds of pupils, fully indexed, together
with photographs of children and staff dating back to the nineteenth century
(but also including two post-WW2 photographs).
In many instances a pupil’s complete school career is covered. However it must be admitted there are fewer
references to the well-behaved children!
Summaries of the Diocesan and H.M. Inspectors’ reports are
included. Unusually the log records the
kind of fieldwork undertaken by absent children.
School
Log Books generally are a much neglected source for historians of all kinds:
educational, family, local, social, even climatic. This one in particular deserves a wider
audience.
Mrs Shirley Howell,
e-mail - shirley@meadowrise.demon.co.uk
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