by Guy Woolnough

In the early years of the nineteenth century, more people wanted to set up schools for the children of ordinary, low-paid people. Many of those who wished to provide schools for the children of the poor were worried that the poor were ignorant of the Bible and the Christian faith; they thought the poor needed moral education even more than reading, writing and arithmetic. Religious groups led the way in Carnforth, as in most other places; they knew that only by providing a school would they persuade the parents of the children who most needed “moral guidance” to send them.

In 1849 the Reverend Thomas Dean, Vicar of Warton, was granted £60 by the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church. The site for the new school was a triangle of land previously occupied by the Tithe Barn; the school building is still there to-day, though it is now occupied by the National Tyre Service. To pay for it, a total of £227 was collected, mostly from gentlemen who did not live near Carnforth; the “landowners of Carnforth” donated a total of £11.7.1d.

There was a public opening of the Carnforth National School, with a special service, on October 8th 1850, but there is little to tell us what the school was like. The teacher was given no pay, but would have collected school pence from the children. This would only have been 3d or so per child per week, raising perhaps 10 shillings a week; he most likely had another source of income. The teacher is named in the 1851 census; Robert Townson, age 66, a widower sharing his home with his sister and two nieces.

The following is from the rules and regulations adopted by the Managers at a meeting in 1850. “The children are to be instructed in the Holy Scriptures and in the Liturgy and Catechism of the Established Church.” The managers made no stipulation about any other subjects which were to be taught.

By 1861 Carnforth had grown by a third since 1851, thanks mainly to the railway. So it is not surprising that some of the gentlemen of the parish decided to extend and improve the school; in particular they wanted to provide the school with a regular income. To this end a bazaar was held in August that year, which raised the amazing total of £568.8s. 6d. The list of Patrons includes many notable persons. His Grace the Duke of Devonshire heads it. These patrons would make the event smart and fashionable as well as making generous donations. Local worthies acted as stewards. None of their children would ever have attended a school such as Carnforth National. It is, for instance, known that one of them, Robert Jackson of Hall Gowan, employed a governess in 1861 to teach his four school-age children.

The bazaar lasted three days, offering dinner at half a crown, ice-cream, beer, wine, and a ‘ Room of Curiosities’. The entrance fee to the Bazaar seems to have been specially designed to separate the classes, coming down from two shillings on the first day to sixpence on the third. The Band of the Rifle Corps only attended for the first two days.

Within a few months of the bazaar the managers advertised for a new teacher. The school building had been improved and they were now able to offer a salary. In January 1862 a letter was sent to Henry Ingliss Orr offering him the post.

‘You will receive the interest of £500 which is expected to realize £20 per Ann: together with the whole of the Children’s Pence.’

Mrs Orr was expected to instruct the girls in plain knitting and sewing. The letter offering the post added

‘Saturday will be a Holiday & this together with the unoccupied Evenings in the Week might enable you to hold the office of Rate or Tax collector or of Assistant Overseer with a proper Remuneration from the Township; there is a desire on the part of some of the Inhabitants to procure you such an Appointment. An Evening School two or three Evenings in the Week might be beneficial to the young Men in the Neighbourhood and be profitable to yourself.’

The method of managing the school was tidied up by a new scheme dated July 4th, 1862. The school was defined as for “the children of the labouring, manufacturing and other poorer Classes” of Carnforth. The Managers had to be well off and live in the area; they must also give at least £1 a year to the running of the school. They were to be elected, but their voting power would depend on how much they gave; one vote for every ten shillings.

An extension to the school was opened in January 1863 with a special tea party. The speeches given (as reported in the Lancaster Gazette) make clear that the school was intended to prepare the children for a working life as servants or manual workers. The Rev. Thomas Dean, vicar of Warton, is reported as follows. ‘The surplus population (of Carnforth) is being sent out as servants in the large towns or as emigrants. In either case he urged the necessity of a careful religious education.’ Mr Erving, a retired builder, assured the people of Carnforth from his long experience of the manufacturing districts ‘that it was idle to send their children there without some degree of education, for without it they would never succeed. ‘

In 1867 the managers decided to apply to the Department of Education for a grant. They learnt that a grant could not be made unless the school was taught by a certificated teacher, which Mr Orr was not. Furthermore, according to the vicar he expressed himself ‘in great doubt whether he shall offer himself for examination’ nevertheless the managers invited the Education Department to send an inspector to see the school, even though no grant would be forthcoming. The inspector reported: –

‘The elder children seem to have been taught something and have passed fairly on the Standards in which they were presented which generally are too low. The younger children know little or nothing for their Age. Discipline is poor, and there is a general want of Order and Method. Nothing can be done until a proper Supply of Books and Slates is provided. The master should procure proper Registers and a Log Book and study the Requirements of the Revised Code generally. It is strongly recommended to provide a Mistress for the Girls and Infants; and to separate off the Upper part of the room for them.’

As often happens today the blame was directed at the easiest target. On November 21st 1867, Mr Orr was dismissed. He remained in Carnforth working as Surveyor, Assistant Overseer and later as Secretary to the Carnforth Waterworks Company.

A new teacher, Mr Joseph Smith, took over the school in March 1868. He had been a pupil teacher at the Lancaster National School, and had then attended a college in Oxford. He had taught before and was properly certificated. He was unmarried and his sister undertook the duties of Mistress. A grant was given, but the Inspector made it contingent on there being improvement. The next year, in the absence of any such improvement, the grant was cut by ten per cent though the Inspector did allow some excuse from ‘ the fluctuating character of the surrounding population which to some extent affects the attendance.‘ In December 1870 the grant was cut by two thirds. ‘Whatever knowledge there is seems almost purely mechanical and the power of fixing attention and answering thoughtfully is very small.’

Mr Smith was duly dismissed.

After some delay, Mr Tom Clark, a Cumberland man, was appointed master of the school, starting his duties on January 1st 1872 with the generous salary of £90 per annum. On this occasion the managers made a determined effort to improve the school. The building was extended to take another hundred pupils, and a separate infant’s department was set up under Tom’s wife.

The next inspector’s report was flattering. The Managers sent a letter to Mr Clark congratulating him on the improvement in the school. The total number of passes on inspection had risen from 33 in 1870 to 109 in 1872. The number of children had risen from 67 to 141 and the total grant paid from £21.73 to £82 .90.

As the school and the town grew it became essential to extend the building and employ more staff. Building programmes were started in 1872 and 1882. The money was found in 1872 from donations. By the 1880’s it was clear that donations alone would not work. At their meeting in July 1882, the managers adopted a system, new at any rate to Carnforth, but tried elsewhere: a voluntary rate was levied on the people of Carnforth. There is no indication of what the response of the public was to this voluntary rate, but it did at least pay for the alterations needed.

I have looked at the people aged five to twelve in the census returns; this is the age group which would most commonly be scholars. Of this age group in 1881 and 1861 only three were not described as ‘scholar’. The 1851 census is more varied. This is how the five to twelve year olds were described; ‘At home’ 11, ‘Scholar’ 20, ‘Servant’ 1. No entry for 10 children.

If the census entries can be trusted, it seems that by 1861 most children did go to school even though the law did not require it. By 1878, when the Clarks were well established, virtually all school age children must have been attending. It would be interesting to know how all parents were persuaded to send their children, No mention is made in the Minute Book of parents being forced or persuaded to send their children.

The Clarks were never the only teachers in the school. In January 1872, when they took over, there was a pupil teacher about to be appointed for the infants, and another, Daniel Miller, already appointed. Daniel was 13. He was born in Carnforth, the son of a farmer, Joseph Miller. In the 1861 census, at the age of two, he is shown as a ‘scholar’! In 1881, age 22, he was an assistant teacher. When Mr Clark died, Daniel Miller was appointed headmaster in his place. He himself died in office in 1913, so his association with the school was almost lifelong. Daniel Miller can be seen in the school photo of 1890 (John Easter Roberts, Old Carnforth 1977).

In the 1881 census 6 pupil teachers are listed, with ages ranging from 14 to 19. So three teachers were teaching more than 350 pupils, with the assistance of six pupil teachers. In 1895 the staffing of the school was much the same; two certificated teachers, three assistants and three pupil teachers to 430 pupils. Even with excellent pupil teachers, the task must have been tremendous. The number of staff and pupil teachers stayed much the same well into the 20th century; no wonder that Mr Clark died aged 48 and Daniel Miller in his early fifties; no wonder that on one occasion Mr Clark lost his temper and struck a boy with disastrous results.

The estimates of Receipts and Expenditure in 1872 show, that out of a total expenditure of £201.16s, £60 came from the Government Grant (30 per cent) and £72 from School Pence, and £22 from interest on money invested. From 1873 Mr Clark received all the income of the school: the school pence, the Government grant, the income of the invested money. Out of this he met all the running expenses of the school, including payment of any other teachers needed. Mr Clark would keep all the remaining money, up to a generous maximum of £220, as his own, instead of receiving pay. However a few years later the managers were very angry to discover that he was gaining much more than this. The Clark’s were, in the 1881 census, shown to have two servants, much more than an elementary teacher could usually afford.

This arrangement only ceased with Mr Clark’s death in 1894. Mrs Clark continued as mistress of the Infant’s Department, but both Mrs Clark and the new Headmaster, Daniel Miller, received a fixed salary. They were paid £120 and £130 respectively, quite modest compared with Mr Clark’s £220.

By the 1890’s the managers were almost totally reliant on the Government grant; since this could vary according to the Inspector’s report, the financial position of the school was increasingly difficult. ‘Estimates of Working’ for 1895-6 show that, out of a total expenditure of £606.10s, £310 was expected to come from the Government grant (51 per cent) and £250 from ‘Pence and subsidy’ (41 per cent). Except for this item the old sources of income were now very small in value. The managers’ problem was that the law said parents could apply for free education. Such an application was made in 1893. The managers of the National School contacted, for the first time the managers of the British School on Hawk Street (a Congregational school set up in the early 1880’s), The managers of the two schools decided on a joint policy, which was to charge the younger children nothing; the older children (who were not required by law to attend) would have to pay but they conveniently managed to “find” a few free places, so that those parents who made a fuss could be satisfied. A proper solution only came with the Education Act 1902 which set up Local Education Authorities to assume financial responsibility.

The 19th century, especially the Victorian period, was one of considerable change in education in Carnforth as elsewhere. In many ways progress has been slower in the 20th century. Yet the National School remained what it had been at the start, a school for the children of the working classes. The children of gentlemen were no more likely to go to such a school in 1900 than they would have been in 1850. There was however one noticeable change. In 1897 a new scheme of management was introduced. Instead of a system in which only the better off could be managers, the new committee of managers was to have nine members, three from the church, three from the town council and three parents. This was a foretaste of the changes which would come in the 20th century.

The building itself, on the old site, remained in use as a school until 1960, when the new secondary school opened.

Sources

The Minute Book of the Managers of the Carnforth National School. This book is kept at Christchurch School, Carnforth,

The census returns, 1841 to 1881. (Unfortunately, 1871 returns are largely illegible)

The Lancaster Gazette, Observer and Guardian, Trade directories. Charity Commissioners Reports.

This article is a shortened version of Schools in Carnforth 1840-1902 Guy Woolnough 1987. A copy of the complete article has been placed in the archives.

Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 15 1990