By Ian Cooper from his excellent series Records of a Bygone Age published in The Stronsay Limpet and republished here with kind permission.
Recent articles in the Limpet highlighting the progress of formal education on Stronsay concentrated chiefly on the role played by the main school in the island – the Central School. No record of education in the island would be complete without highlighting the role played by the smaller ‘side schools’, where pupils from the areas nearby were taught until about the age of 10 or 11 before moving on to the bigger Central School to finish their education or to move on to Higher Education at Kirkwall Grammar School.
These side schools owe their existence to the introduction of the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act which enshrined in law compulsory education for every child in Scotland between the ages of 5 and 13, stating that ‘There shall be provided for every parish and burgh a sufficient amount of accommodation in public schools available for all persons resident in such parish and burgh for whose education efficient and suitable provision is not otherwise made…’
This Act also saw the introduction of School Boards to oversee education in each parish and such a board was soon elected to cover both Stronsay and the neighbouring island of Eday. At its first meeting in March 1873 the Board resolved to proceed immediately with the erection of two female infant schools with teacher’s houses attached in Stronsay and for this purpose to give due notice to the Parochial Boards of each school district of an assessment of 9d (3½p) in the pound in order to entitle the School Board of Stronsay and Eday to claim its proportion of parliamentary grant. They then fixed the fees payable at the public schools in the parish at 1/6d (7½p) per quarter, payable in advance and to be collected by the Clerks and accounted for by them to the treasurer of the Board.
The Board seems to have hit the ground running and by the end of October 1873 grant applications for funding the two new schools had been submitted to the Scotch Education Department and had been agreed by them. Agreement had also been reached on sites for the new schools, one at the junction of the Housebay and Everby roads going by the name of ‘Heathfield’ – a name I can find no record of – and the other at the junction of the Whitehall road with the main road near Clestrain. Both sites were owned by Colonel Balfour.
The date of entry was given as Martinmas (11th November) 1874 with the feu duty for the site, set at ten shillings and sixpence (52½p), to be paid to David Balfour or his heirs and successors at Martinmas 1875 and annually thereafter. The deed, dated 6th October 1875, was signed by David Balfour and witnessed by his factor Marcus Calder and his butler Alexander Robertson but it was March the following year before the deed was finally registered in Edinburgh.
By April 1875 plans for both schools had been finalised and put out to tender, with a tender for £309/3/- from James Chalmers to build the school and offices and a further £228/10/- from the same contractor for the erection of the teacher’s dwelling house and offices at the site at Heathfield (the South School) being accepted, both being dependent on funding being granted from the Scotch Education Department.
A further tender for the erection of the North School was also submitted but it was agreed to take no action on it meantime. Things appeared to move quite quickly in those days and by June that same year the Education Department had agreed to allocate a sum of £468-16-6d toward the erection of school and house, an offer that was gratefully accepted.
On 11th October 1876, little more than a year after funding had been agreed, it was reported that the building and furnishing of the South School was finished and, following an inspection, the Board agreed that it was satisfactory and assumed its control.
The first teacher to be appointed to the newly opened South School was 36 year old Miss Peterina Peace, who had spent all her adult life teaching at a school run by the United Presbyterian Church. This old school was situated across the road from Sunnybank, in the garden of what is now known as the Old Schoolhouse, and was apparently a single schoolroom with a small cottage on the end built and occupied by Miss Peace’s grandfather Thomas Fotheringhame.
This existing old school had been gifted by the United Presbyterian Church to the School Board on its inception in 1873 on the condition that Miss Peace would continue to be employed by them. With the transfer of ownership of the old UP school to the School Board in October 1873 the name of the school was changed to the South School and, with Miss Peace still in charge of the renamed school at a much enhanced salary of £40, a new Admissions Register was started, commencing on 13th October 1873. This register opened with 30 pupils, comprising 14 girls and 16 boys, the youngest aged 7 and the eldest aged 13.
The ‘Previous School’ entered on the register for all 30 was the United Presbyterian School. By October 1874 8 of these had left school at an age ranging from 10 to 14, while another 43 had joined, giving a roll of 65. Most of these new joiners were also recorded as either being new starters or having come from the UP School, although a few were to join from the Central School and a number from what was stated as ‘Private School, Rothiesholm’.
Returning now to October 1876 and the newly opened South School, Miss Peace moved into the Schoolhouse with her elderly grandfather and soon after her salary as teacher there was increased to £50, with an additional 15/- (75p) per week to be paid to her for cleaning the school and lighting the fire each day.
At the same Board meeting at which her increased salary was agreed Miss Peace had forward a letter enquiring as to how many pupils she would be expected to teach in this one-room school. The Clerk was instructed to reply to her that the Board would try to ensure the average number of pupils in the school wouldn’t exceed 60. We are left to ponder just how reassured she would have been with this reply! A later request from Miss Peace that no boys over the age of 12 should be taught at the South School was agreed to by the Board.
In October 1879 Miss Peace was laid aside with scarlet fever, a highly contagious disease that afflicted the island population on numerous occasions. The school was closed for a time and then it was agreed that, from 4th November, Alexander Learmonth from Millfield should be appointed in the interim at a salary of £3/10/- until such time as Miss Peace was able to resume her teaching, although there is no record of when she did return to duty.
In 1889 Miss Peace was granted the assistance of 13 year old Betsy Smith from Housebay as monitor at a salary of £2/10/-. Betsy Smith later moved on to be pupil teacher at the Central and was replaced at the South School by 12 year old Catherine Smith from Crowanna at a salary of £2.
The number of pupils on the various Stronsay school rolls was given in February 1891 as being 46 at the North, 104 at the Central, 48 at the South and 8 in Papay, a total of 206 plus several ‘defaulters’ (who weren’t attending school but should have been).
In March the following year numbers were given as being 56 at the North, 93 at the Central, 51 at the South and 7 on Papay, a total of 207. It is unlikely the total roll would ever have been much higher than this, although numbers were seldom given.
In October 1895, although still only 55, Peterina Peace handed in her resignation from the South School as she planned to retire. Born in1840, Miss Peace had completed a course of professional training at Moray House in Edinburgh to enable her to become a teacher. She returned to her native island in 1857 where she was responsible for establishing a new school in the south end of the island, under the jurisdiction of the United Presbyterian Church, where she taught until the newly built South School was opened. Following the passing of the 1872 Education Act Miss Peace sat and passed the exams to become a fully certificated teacher. She had taught in the South School from October 1873 until October 1895, with 395 pupils passing through her hands during that time. She was granted a pension of £25 from the Education Department, later enhanced by an additional £25, and moved to Kirkwall to enjoy her retirement until she died there in 1938 at the grand old age of 98. For a person from a working class background to have earned a fairly substantial annuity and to have enjoyed a retirement lasting 43 years must have been very unusual at that time, as it still would be today.
By this time, October 1895, the School Board which had covered Eday and Stronsay had split into two separate bodies, one for each island, which was felt to be a much more feasible arrangement. Among the new Stronsay Board’s first duties that October was to appoint Gracie M Brown of Hillhead in Glasgow to the teacher’s post at the South School at a salary of £55, together with a free house.
Her sister Elsie was appointed as second assistant teacher at the Central School with a salary of £50, with each being granted travelling expenses of £1/17/- (£1.85p) and staying in the South Schoolhouse. In December that same year 14 year old Grace Fotheringhame from Hescombe was appointed as monitor to assist Miss Brown at a salary of £5 per year.
Very soon afterwards Miss Brown appealed to the Board to be relieved of teaching the 5th and 6th standards as she couldn’t undertake the work for them all. This request was granted, with all 5th and 6th standard pupils being told to attend the Central School in future. It seems Miss Brown was a strict disciplinarian and by April 1896 parents of pupils at the South School were complaining of the severity of the discipline at the school. Miss Brown had asked the Board’s opinion on this and, although they felt unable to interfere in matters of discipline, they reminded Miss Brown that they forbade the use of anything but the strap on the hand, and that in moderation, in punishing any child.
In November 1896 13 year old William Chalmers of Eastbank was appointed as a monitor at the South School at a salary of £2/10/-, the only boy shown anywhere in the records as becoming a monitor.
That same year, 3 new kettles for heating water for cocoa were purchased for the South School. Before the days of school meals hot cocoa along with their lunch time ‘piece’ seemed to be a standard and very welcome requirement at school right on into the 1950s, although each child had to make a contribution to the cocoa fund,.
There was good news for pupils when all were given a day’s holiday on 2nd April 1897 in honour of Rev Joseph Caskey’s Golden Jubilee as minister of the Established Church in Stronsay. The pupil’s good fortune continued with another day’s holiday granted on 22nd June to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
In May 1898 tenders were sought for the erection of a wall around the playground at the South School, this specified to be 4’(1.2m) high with a quick cope set in lime mortar. The scarcement was to be at least 3” (75mm) thick, with the wall width at the bottom to be 2’(600mm) and 1’ 2” (350mm) at the top, with pillars corresponding to the wall and finished with cement. Five tenders were received and the cheapest of these, from Peter Chalmers from the nearby farm of Eastbank, was accepted at a rate of 4/- (20p) per fathom. The total paid to Mr Chalmers after construction was £29-1/-.
Teachers seemed to come and go quite rapidly around this time, with the Misses Brown both resigning their posts, one as teacher at the South School and the other at the Central, early in 1898.
An advert seeking their replacements was lodged in The Scotsman of 12th January 1898, with a free part-furnished house offered along with the post at the South School.
Miss Catherine Raeburn from Burness in Sanday was the successful applicant for the South School post at a salary of £55 plus a part-furnished house. Miss Raeburn was delayed in taking up her post and Miss Fotheringhame (possibly 18 year old Grace Fotheringhame who had previously been monitor at the school)) acted as teacher in the interim at a rate of 15/- per week. When Miss Raeburn did take up the post it seems that she was quite unhappy with her lot, submitting a letter to the School Board tendering her resignation dated 23rd August 1900. This was quickly followed by a letter dated 28th August withdrawing her resignation! The Board was happy to allow her to continue but her resignation was again submitted in December, this time with no reprieve.
Part 2 next month.