Winterbourne Family History Online...          Return to Photographs

Winterbourne Down - All Saints School - date not known

Names of the pupils and teachers not known.          Can anyone help?

Nothing's new    -     If you are a teacher and think your job is just too much for you,

you may find consolation in reading the following extract from the All Saints School Log Book...

A Day in the life of Miss Emily Merry, Head Teacher of All Saints School, Winterbourne Down

9 February 1900                             K Harcombe, a Std III girl, who was one of the very worst in the whole School when I came, & for some time after, was on Thursday morning very rude, fought, kicked, scratched & shouted – amongst other things said she would go & tell Mrs Bishop [The Rector's wife]. I have now told her to go home to her mother. It would be advisable for the girl to go elsewhere. At any rate, it must be either she or myself. In the afternoon she presented herself again & was rude, in the presence of Miss Marriott.

No one knows the difficulty this School has presented in every conceivable way; insubordination – bad, rude, ignorant parents – apathy of children and Managers – no teacher in Infants Room – or a bad one. Only the week before last a Mrs Anstey molested and assaulted me in this room. Being a larger woman than myself I could not, if I would, have pushed her aside. She repeatedly pushed me backwards by striking me in my chest. In the end I had to return to the School to see if I could get rid of her in that way. Now, her daughter had had one stroke on one hand & she well deserved it. But, the girl had not got home to tell her mother. She met her mother on the way down to the School. Some boy, J Lloyd, had made it his business to run quickly from School & inform this Mrs Anstey.

One morning some time back this very person came to the School in a great state because she had been told that Miss Carter had beaten her little boy. It was no such thing. The child had had a tumble in the yard.

No Infants Teacher this week – Miss Baker ill – I am, myself, nearly worn out.

You can read the whole of the School Log Books by going to the School Records in these Online Archives.