Thrale history

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a practical interest in the school which was doing so much for the children of their workers. He also started a school clothing club. When Miss Hooker married and departed, the managers tried the experiment of a joint headship of a husband and wife, but this was a failure so Miss Nicoll came for £25 plus half the children’s fees, which made her salary about £34 a year. If the children were taught writing they paid a higher rate of two pence a week. Writing was not popular and not until about 1880 do we find that most of the Sandridge brides and bridegrooms were able to sign their names.

When the fifth Earl Spencer inherited the Manor, he conveyed the school to the vicar and churchwardens and built a new school collage. Then a brick wall was erected round the playground, which caused trouble because boys preferred playing on the wall rather than on the ground. The following notes by the teacher show that human nature does not change much.

1866, 11th October 1866. Frederick Kerrison pushed David Matthews off the wall. 15th October. David Matthews was able to return to school. The wound he received is progressing favourably.

1869. 4th November. Henry Aldrtdge is a very quarrelsome boy, Fred Allen cut his head with a slate. 8th November. Alfred Woolmer was fighting Alfred King who is much younger. The little boy’s head was severely cut against the wall. 26th November. Edward Stater’s nose bled for a long time after a fight with Fred Hedges and Joseph Wood.

1871. Henry Aldridge set a boy on to bite Fred Allen.

Some of the girls were not much better as we shall see later.

As the century progressed the needlework was producing less income because the children’s efforts could not compete with the machine made articles which were filling the shops. Also parents kept their girls at home to earn a few pence by straw-platting. In October children were withdrawn by their parents to gather acorns. There were many more oak-trees than there are now. Two wars have taken their toll of timber.

Further difficulties followed the passing of Gladstone’s Education Act in 1870. The Church had been maintaining such schools all over England because she believed that every child of God, however poor, had a right to be educated. Eventually it dawned on the State that this was a good idea and that it, with greater resources, could do better. So the State said in effect to Sandridge school managers. "Enlarge your school or we take it from you." Mr. Winbolt, the curate, backed up by the Bishop of Rochester, sent an S.O.S. to Lord Spencer, who at the age of 33 had become Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and was busy dealing with Fenian risings.¹ In a long letter from Dublin he wrote in effect "You turned down my offer three years ago, if that is all you cared then the school might as well go to the State now. You can’t expect me to pay for everything." It was of course more politely worded. Mr. Winbolt was disappointed; after twenty-four years’ experience he knew how hard it was to extract money from the farmers to keep the school going. But this time they rose to the occasion and agreed in Vestry that the money should be raised by voluntary subscription. Seventeen farmers from Bernards Heath to Bride Hall paid a voluntary rate of 6d. in the pound, which produced £135: the landlords subscribed £115, Lord Spencer heading the list with £40, and the curate gave two guineas. A classroom was built and furnished with thirty new desks; a new well was sunk in 1872 and the school remained a voluntary one for a few more years. But a voluntary society like the Church cannot compete with the State which extracts money from the people by force, so when financial troubles arose again this fine effort by the church and people of Sandridge came to an end. The School became a Board School and the first compulsory school rate was levied in the parish in 1880. The School Board did not look after the building well, and when Mr. C. W. Little was appointed Head Master in 1893, he found "half the ceiling unboarded, with bits of dirty paper hanging from all parts. The birds of the air had previously and unanimously decided that the school was an admirable place to build in, and sometimes during that early spring the sparrows vied with each other in their twittering efforts to drown my modest-attempts to induce the young ideas to shoot."²

The village workhouse had pursued its unhappy course for fifty-four years but the leaders of the village were not satisfied with the manner in which it was being run. In 1832 notice was sent to the governor warning him that the parish "mean to take the house into their own hands at Lady Day next". The sum of £200 was borrowed to carry out alterations and repairs, including the making of an outhouse "for the reception of any turbulent pauper". Repairs were also carried

Footnotes

1. Dictionary of National Biography 9, Second Supplement, Vol.3, p.370A.↩︎
2. Sandridge Magazine, Vol.2, p.566.↩︎