Nostalgia: A school by the river

Part one – The children of the wind and soil

The school sat near the Dart, its windows fogged in winter, its benches worn by restless hands. In the 1870s, it was more than a place of learning — it was a shelter, a battleground, a promise that was sometimes kept, often not.

Not every child could attend school each day. Some were only allowed to come for half-days, their hours already spoken for by labour. A few were sent to serve in large houses, rising at dawn to polish boots or fetch water. Education was a luxury squeezed in between obligations. For many children, even a few hours of school each week were hard won.

As the seasons turned, so too did the rhythm of absence. When the harvest ended, families from the countryside often failed to send their children back. It wasn’t the weather that kept them — it was the need for hands in the fields, or sometimes the long distances from the school, beyond what a small child could walk each morning.

The parish lines blurred the rules. A child living a few fields too far away might technically belong to another district — one that hadn’t finished drafting the laws needed to compel attendance. And so, they drifted between obligations, not from laziness or rebellion, but from the pull of survival.

Even the school building itself wasn’t always ready. On one occasion, it had been used for a community tea, and the mess lingered. With no cleaner found in time, reopening had to be delayed. Cold crept into the walls and chilled the ink in the headmaster’s pen. When they did reopen, only a few children came. It was bitterly cold, and home was warmer.

Housing, too, was uncertain. Some families arrived full of hope, registering their children with care, only to leave weeks later when no permanent shelter could be found. The fishing and farming communities lived close to the edge, moving as needed, always in search of steadiness.

Others, barely into double digits, were pulled from school to work on nearby farms or in village forges. Walking miles to attend class was difficult enough — but for those required to labour full time, education was a distant second. Some children barely made enough attendance to qualify for their basic examinations, and many never returned.

Sometimes, parents withdrew their children because they were unhappy with the school’s cleanliness, placing them instead in smaller village schools with a gentler reputation. There was quiet judgment passed back and forth — some saw the village schools as less rigorous, others saw them as kinder.

Boys often vanished when the fields needed tending. In spring, they were out picking stones for planting. In summer, they swung scythes in the hayfields. The schoolmaster understood. The law, too, allowed for these seasonal disappearances, but the loss of learning was no less bitter.

There was no janitor. Sweeping duties fell to the elder girls until a dispute arose among parents. A small wage — a few pence a week — was eventually offered to appoint one girl weekly to handle the cleaning. Even that small decision needed a committee, a vote, and a nod from the older generation.

In some cases, children were caught working illegally in foundries, even before reaching the lawful age. A visiting officer might call on the school, demand action, and parents would be warned. Still, families faced impossible choices. Food on the table often outweighed the distant promise of a certificate.

Sometimes, accusations of truancy were unfair. A boy might be found missing, only to be discovered running errands for an adult — collecting a shoed horse from the blacksmith, carrying goods across village lanes, or helping an ailing neighbour. Life demanded flexibility, and the school sometimes struggled to understand that.

And when children did pass a certain standard of education, they were only required to attend for half-days. For their families, this was a signal — that now the child could be of practical use. Fewer hours in class meant more time with a scythe or a broom, more value to the household.

By the end of 1880, attendance had dwindled again. Not from rebellion, but from necessity. The schoolroom remained, quiet in the afternoons, while the fields echoed with young voices at work.

Part two – Ink-stained registers and cold stone walls

By 1882, the headmaster had grown weary of tardiness. A new system was introduced — the registers slammed shut at precisely nine o’clock. Those who made it in time were marked in red. The late ones, or those missing altogether, were struck down in black ink. It was more than a formality. It was a quiet war against a habit that had taken deep root — some said in the children, others whispered it was the mothers, slow to rouse them or careless in their routines. The punishment? Not just extra lessons, but the public sting of having their lateness read aloud before the others, just before singing.

Gaslight hadn’t yet made it to every rural corner. By November that year, the darkness came too early. Lessons had to be finished before four o’clock — a race against the fading daylight. Candles flickered at home, but in school, there was no such luxury.

As the years passed, children came and went — some with heads full of stories from private tutors, others barely knowing how to count. There were constant reminders that this was not a level playing field. Some children sat on benches in chilly rooms too small for their purpose. Others arrived late because they had no shoes to walk the distance in winter frost.

By 1883, a nearby village school closed, sending a new flood of infants to the schoolhouse at Kingswear. The room, meant for quiet beginnings and cradle-side lessons, groaned under the numbers. The fireplace, which should have warmed the little ones, was instead an enormous thing that stole precious space — its belly jutting four or five feet into a room barely 12 feet wide. Desks were squeezed in. Backs were to be turned to the fire; new seating was hastily ordered.

Water, a thing so basic, became a crisis in the summer of 1883. The taps ran dry for weeks. Buckets had to be filled at nearby cottages just to clean out the privies. In the quiet stillness of that schoolroom, where the scent of damp stone and worn slates lingered, there was now also the faint stench of desperation.

In the Infant Room, children were crammed together. One-tenth of the grant was withheld by the inspector — punishment for failing to provide proper desks. Measurements were wrong. A single room was 16 feet long but reduced by a fireplace too large for any infant’s corner. The school board was scolded, the money held back.

By 1886, structural change was demanded. The fire would go. Backs of benches were added. Still, it was not enough. That same year, so many little ones filled the Infant Class that, by August 1887, a grim decision was made: no child under five would be admitted. The room had burst its seams.