By Ian Cooper, from his excellent series Records of a Bygone Age published in The Stronsay Limpet.

In last month’s article we left the school and the island celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. After the excitement of such a historic event, School Board minutes quickly returned to more mundane matters:

Robert Miller from Coweshouse, who had been Compulsory Officer for the last 18 years, announced his resignation in October 1897 as he was leaving the island. A new Compulsory Officer was quickly appointed, this being Peter Shearer of Schoolbrae, at a cost of 2/4d (12p) per day. His duties were to include calling at each school once a fortnight to ascertain attendance levels and in order to obtain a list of absentees from each and to call on these absentees and parents where necessary. He was also to be at the call of the clerk where needed and to report to the Board on attendance levels once a month. It seems that Mr Miller didn’t, in fact, leave the island as he remained as clerk and treasurer to the School Board for many years afterwards.

Grace and Elsie Brown both resigned their posts in February 1898, one as teacher at the South School and the other at the Central, with Miss A F Blyth appointed to replace Elsie to the assistantship at the Central, with a salary of £55.

A severe snowstorm disrupted the school in March 1898, with impassable roads leading to the school being closed on the 20th and remaining so until the 28th. The school was once again opened on a number of Saturdays after this to try to make up for lost teaching and learning time.

Regular HMI inspections continued to take place and, with another inspection approaching in 1898, school cleaner Mrs Wallace from Park Cottage was asked to scrub all the floors in the Central School weekly and continue doing so until after the inspection. Her efforts must have helped make a good impression as the subsequent report of this inspection was thought to be very acceptable and the clerk was instructed to convey to the school the Board’s appreciation of the extremely satisfactory work the teachers had accomplished during the year.

In April 1899 Mr Macpherson, who had given thought to resigning 3 years earlier but had been offered an increased salary and persuaded to stay in post, again submitted his resignation as headmaster after 6 years in the post and this was reluctantly accepted by the Board. Before he left the island in June the children presented him with a ‘purse of sovereigns’ as a mark of their own and their parents’ respect. Just how many sovereigns were enclosed in the purse isn’t known but, bearing in mind that the equivalent of a sovereign in 1898 would be well in excess of £100 today, this must have been a substantial gift.

The post was advertised at a salary of £125 but, although a number of applications were received, none were deemed suitable and the post was re-advertised, this time at a salary of £140. Mr George Milne from Dufftown was the successful applicant in this second round, taking up the post in August.

A few months later, in January 1900, Mr Milne announced that he could not live in the schoolhouse in its present state and, after viewing reports on the property, the Board agreed that it would be more practical to build a new schoolhouse at the same site rather than repair the old.

That same month George Milne volunteered for service with the Gordon Highlanders, who were fighting in the Boer War in South Africa at the time. It seems he may have had second thoughts about this move as, soon after, he told his commanding officer, Captain Campbell, that he couldn’t take up the post as the School Board refused to keep his place open for him. This was a statement that was hotly contested by the Board as, they maintained, they were unaware Mr Milne had volunteered and that there had been no indication from him of his wish to resign his post! In the meantime, having taken George Milne at his word, Captain Campbell had written a letter of complaint to the Scotsman stating that the School Board had refused to keep Private Milne’s position open while, he wrote, the Board were also stipulating that Mr Milne supply a substitute to cover the 2 months of his notice. The Board responded robustly to this allegation, writing strongly worded letters refuting the accusation to both the Scotsman and the Orkney Herald. Captain Campbell’s statements, which the Board insisted had no foundation in truth, were recorded in the minutes as having caused great distress to members of the Board.

Mr Milne’s resignation was subsequently tendered in a letter dated 2nd February 1900, to take immediate effect, and was readily accepted by the Board. The Headmaster post was then advertised yet again, with 26 year old Shapinsay man Mr James Drever appointed to the vacant post in March 1900 at a salary of £140, along with a free house, yet to be built! This lack of a house didn’t seem to bother Mr Drever unduly and he took up the post the following month.

A tender for the new schoolhouse was accepted soon after, with James Chalmers of Sandybank submitting the only tender. This comprised £399-10/- for the building of house and offices, £10-10/- for the supply of gates and £30 for the boundary wall and gates – a total of £440. An application for a loan of £440 to cover this cost was submitted to the Government-funded Public Works Loan Commissioners and this was successful, with the loan to be repaid over 40 years. The work was quickly authorised and went ahead at pace, with Mr Drever soon happily taking up residence in the newly built house.

Applications were invited from older pupils to apply for the post of pupil teacher at the Central School with the aim of this being a first step toward training for the teaching profession. Applications were received from Mary S Gorie of Clestrain, Annie Jane Logie from Brigend and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Fotheringhame from Hescombe, all three girls being aged about 14. With what was thought to be three very suitable applicants it was agreed that a competitive examination should be held to decide who should be appointed, with the successful applicant initially being paid a salary of £5 as a monitor. After this examination in December1899 the results were recorded as: Annie Jane Logie 65%, Lizzie Fotheringhame 50% and Mary Gorie 45%. Miss Logie and Miss Fotheringhame were both appointed as monitors on the understanding that, on reaching the age of 15, they would then be engaged as pupil-teachers. All three young ladies were later to move on to become qualified teachers and teach in Stronsay, two of them until they retired.

Miss Blyth resigned as Assistant Teacher in July 1900, with Miss Isabella Shearer of Stromness being appointed as her replacement at a salary of £65. By this time Annie J Logie and Lizzie Fotheringhame had been engaged as pupil-teachers, with both young ladies to be paid at a rate of £7 for year 1, £9 for year 2, £11 for year 3 and £13 for year 4.

At this time, although school education had been available to all up to the age of 14 since 1883, it appears there was no compulsion to attend after the age of 12 or 13 if pupils could prove by examination that they had a basic level of education and the prospect of full time employment. This all changed in 1901 when new legislation made it compulsory for all pupils to attend school until reaching the age of 14.

Records of the number of pupils attending school seem to be hard to find but, in that same year of 1901, the roll at the Central School was recorded as 154.

Influenza hit the island once more in 1901 with the school being closed from 24th May until 17th June to try to help control the spread of the raging epidemic.

Ongoing snowstorms were recorded every day from the 7th to the 14th February 1902 with the school shut during that time.

At a School Board meeting the following month a motion was agreed that, to prevent the old Central Schoolhouse falling into ruin the office of Janitor and Compulsory Officer should be dependent on him occupying the said house and that the present incumbent should be given 3 months’ notice of his services no longer being required. A few months later Alexander Chalmers of Balfour Cottage was appointed to the combined post of janitor of the Central School and Compulsory Officer and moved into the old schoolhouse, now renamed School Cottage. I haven’t been able to find out just where the old school house was in relation to the new but it seems they must have been quite close together.

A two day school holiday had been declared for 26th and 27th June 1902 to celebrate the Coronation of King Edward VII and his wife, Queen Alexandra. Unfortunately, due to the ill health of the King, the Coronation had to be postponed at very short notice. At the King’s request the nationwide celebrations still went ahead as planned on those dates although the Coronation itself, now a much smaller affair, wasn’t held until 9th August.

1902 also saw more resignations and appointments, with James Drever resigning his headship in July, to be replaced by Mr Robert J Arnaud at a salary of £140. Irish lass Jessie Smith, who had received high praise from the Inspectors over the years and had been in post for 8 years, resigned her post as infant mistress in August and was replaced by Miss EJ Struthers.

In September 1902 a glowing HMI report recorded that Stronsay was the best school in Orkney outwith Kirkwall and Stromness. The teaching staff at that time were Mr RJ Arnaud, Miss EJ Struthers and Miss IS Shearer, along with Annie J Logie and Lizzie Fotheringhame as pupil teachers in their third year. The school roll at this time was standing at 143.

Later in 1902 a number of cases of scab had been recorded and, due to the highly contagious condition of the condition, a number of pupils had been excluded.

In March 1903, on the application of John Leslie of the boat ‘Fear Not’, it was agreed by the Board that his 12 year old son John should be exempted from school until the end of August to enable him to assist on his father’s herring drifter as a coiler. I’m not sure what ‘Health and Safety’ would have made of such a request today! A number of other requests for exemption were also granted, mainly for the older children to work on the farm or assist at home to allow a parent out to work. Very soon after these exemptions were granted the Board received a letter from headmaster Mr Arnaud pointing out the detrimental effect these exemptions were having on teaching within the school.

In March 1904 it was intimated that both pupil teachers at the Central School – Annie Jane Logie and Lizzie Fotheringhame – had passed the ‘King’s Scholarship Examination’, qualifying them as fully fledged teachers. Soon afterwards 2 more pupil teachers were appointed to the Central School – Ella Scott of Wardhill and Margaret Cooper of Tifmaka.

It is interesting to note that, in the School Log of 1st July 1904, (the last day of the school term), headmaster Mr Arnaud records that ‘The two Pupil Teachers’ engagements had terminated on 30th June. Annie Logie however, out of a sense of decency, put in an appearance today: not so Liz Fotheringhame.’ Miss Fotheringhame was obviously not in favour that day!

Rev Joseph Caskey, who had been minister of the Established Church on Stronsay for 57 years, died on 18th May 1904 and as a mark of respect all schools were closed on the day of his funeral.

In July Miss Struthers left the Central, to be replaced by Miss Elizabeth Williamson of Kirkcaldy at a salary of £85. That same month Miss Shearer resigned due to ill health and her successor as teacher in the intermediate department was Miss Beatrice Ramsey of Midlothian, with her salary set at £75. Pupil teacher Ella Scott resigned in October as she was going to Canada with her family and headmaster Mr Arnaud then resigned in November 1904, to be replaced by Thomas Fullerton from Stonehaven in January 1905. After his appointment took effect members of the teaching staff were: Headmaster Mr TA Fullerton, together with Assistant Teachers Elizabeth Williamson and Beatrice Ramsey, aided by Maggie J Cooper in her 2nd year as a Pupil Teacher.

Both of the female teachers at the Central School were boarding at the old Central Schoolhouse, now renamed School Cottage, with the Compulsory Officer and his family. Finding the sanitary arrangements there far from ideal the ladies requested that the School Board should provide a water closet for their use. This was quickly agreed and a water closet suitable for both the teachers and the compulsory officer and his family was soon built at a total cost of £11.

A rather intriguing entry in the school log on 9th May 1906 recorded the headmaster, together with a number of the senior scholars, had visited a farm ‘to inspect a manure destroyer.’ Just what a manure destroyer was and what its purpose would have been is left to the imagination but it may well have been an early form of a machine to spread farmyard manure (or dung as it was better known) on the fields.

Mr Fullerton tendered his resignation in December 1906 and, after a long and tedious advertising and appointment process in which 3 previous applicants had been approached and declined the post, Mr J McKechnie took up duties in March 1907. This apparently turned out to be a most unsatisfactory appointment, with Mr AW McCallum from Burray replacing Mr McKechnie just a few months later. In his first entry in the school log, Mr McCallum noted that he had spent his first day at school filling in forms which should have been done by his predecessor!

School Board accounts for that year, which would have been for all 3 Stronsay schools, showed an income of £469 from various grants, with an additional £60 granted from the Airy Mortification (a charitable fund for endowing the education of Stronsay pupils), a total of £529. Expenditure included £505 in teachers’ salaries, £21 in School Board Officer’s salaries, £8 on postages and advertising, £52 on books and apparatus, £28 on repairs, £20 on rates, taxes and insurance, £36 on fuel and cleaning, and £65 on loan interest and repayments, a total of £735 which left a deficit for the year of £206. With a balance of £60 carried forward from the previous year and a withdrawal of £146 from the local rates this balanced the books nicely. If only life was always so simple!

In November 1906 a visiting committee called along each school, finding the North School attendance record very good and the other two schools good but went on to note their ‘regret that so many scholars should be kept at home to work and for reasons not given as to necessitate so much visitation from the Compulsory Officer.’

Mr McCallum seemed to be a stickler for punctuality and, if any of his teaching staff were late in their arrival at school, this was duly noted in the log. Miss Williamson seemed to be a regular offender, being 15 minutes late on 3rd July 1907 and 8 minutes late the following day. These misdemeanours continued to be logged over the following months, with the headmaster warning Miss Sinclair, the junior Pupil Teacher, about her continuing absence and lack of punctuality. This seemed to have the desired effect as on 7th March 1908 Mr McCallum thought it worth to record that all the teachers were at their posts on time that day and working earnestly.

After a series of good HMI reports, the school inspection in 1907 was much more critical due in some part, the inspector believed, to changes in teaching staff. With the appointment of the new head (Mr McCallum) the report was more positive about the future of the school as it moved forward. The report was also quite critical of the building itself, stating that ‘The school is dingy and out of repair, and the walls in several places are disfigured by scribbling. The woodwork should be painted and the walls should be distempered. At least one of the rooms is damp. The office accommodation is insufficient. The Board should keep in view the necessity of refurnishing the Infant room.’ It concluded by saying that the grant paid out by the Scotch Education Department to schools meeting their set standards, upon which the school relied so much for its funding, had been paid but with considerable hesitation.

An outbreak of chicken pox in July 1907 resulted in all children in affected households being excluded from the school. Then, more seriously, in October an outbreak of Scarlet Fever was prevalent on the island and this led to the school being shut on the 22nd of that month, reopening on 4th November after being fumigated and disinfected. The children from the Station, where the disease still had a strong hold, were excluded for a further 2 weeks.

Maggie J Cooper of Tifmaka had passed her final Pupil Teacher King’s Examination by July 1908 and was appointed as a fully qualified Assistant Teacher, joining headmaster Alexander W McCallum, Elizabeth Williamson and Beatrice Ramsey on the school staff. Attendance at the time was once again reported as poor, with many of the older pupils being kept home to help with the singling (hoeing turnips).

The HMI report around that same time showed a great improvement from the previous year, with the teachers being singled out for their good work through the year.

The Central School received a huge boost to its resources in November 1908 when philanthropist James Coats, millionaire owner of the J & P Coats thread and weaving company of Paisley, gifted a bookcase and a number of books to the school. Determined to do what he could to help education in more deprived areas of Scotland, this was one of around 4,000 libraries, each of at least 300 books, established and funded by James between 1903 and 1912. A catalogue of Stronsay’s Coats’ Library books lists almost 500 books covering a wide range of subjects and topics, from history and reference books through poetry and religion and on to biographies, classical fiction and tales of derring-do.

In a chance conversation with Doris Shearer from Airy Cottage she told me that they had a bookcase at Airy for many years which had a J&P Coats label on it. It had been passed to them by her in-laws and is now with their son and daughter in law in Kirkwall. There seems little doubt that this would have been one of the bookcases originally donated by James Coats, in all likelihood the one donated to the Central School in 1908. Raymond Dennison remembers a wooden bookcase standing just inside the door of the headmaster’s room in the early 1950s and, by his description, it may well be the same one. When or why it was taken out of the school isn’t known but it may have been sold off when the school was renovated in the late 1950s.

In another twist to the tale, a brass presentation plaque bearing the name of James Coats was recently found among a box of odds and ends during the renovation of a shed at Roadside. Again it would be almost certain that this would have come off a bookcase, in all probability the same one, but how it found its way into that box remains a mystery.

Beatrice Ramsey resigned at the end of that year, with the vacant position being filled by the headmaster’s daughter, 24 year old Mary McCallum, with her salary set at £90.

The school roll at that time was 125 and the School Board intimated that children could only start or leave school on the Scottish Term or Quarter days, these being the 28th of February, May, August and November.

Back to the building front now, and in November 1908 additional maintenance and building works at the Central School was started, again carried out by James Chalmers, at a cost of £298-10/-.

With the enhanced facilities now available after this upgrade the School Board applied to the Scotch Education Department for the Central School to be reclassified as an ‘intermediate’ school. (It appears that this ‘intermediate’ status was dependent upon adequate provision for the teaching of additional subjects and, if achieved, would in turn attract more funding.) This request was rejected as the Department felt there were insufficient resources in place to justify this upgrade and, with this in mind, the School Board agreed to appoint an additional teacher to the school.

This teacher was to be Miss Mary Gorie, formerly of Clestrain, who had graduated MA from Edinburgh University in 1907 and was said to be the first female graduate from Orkney’s North Isles. She took up her duties on 18th October 1909 and was to continue to be a well-respected and popular teacher and local stalwart in Stronsay for over 40 years.

A number of exemptions, either to work in the harvest or to care for the house to let a parent do harvest work, were again granted by the School Board in September 1909 but it was agreed that, in future, no exemption would be granted to a pupil achieving less than 80% attendance in the previous year. These exemptions weren’t finding favour with the headmaster nor with His Majesty’s Inspectorate, both citing the poor attendance record at the school due in some part to these exemptions, but more of this in next month’s article.

Also in this series:

• Stronsay Schools Part 4 –Free education for all
• Stronsay Schools Part 3 –Into the 1880s and room for all
• Stronsay Schools Part 2 – The coming of the 1872 Education Act
• Stronsay Schools Part 1 – pre 1872