Swindon in the Past Lane

Two buildings in this aerial view of Swindon fifty years ago are testament to the town's continuing record of expansion. Clarence Street School on the corner of Euclid and Clarence Streets was build in 1897 at a cost of £12,091.  With accommodation for 885 children by the beginning of the new century the school was already overcrowded. The building of Euclid Street Higher Elementary School in 1904 eased the pressure somewhat.  School log books reveal that around this time Clarence Street School was divided into a separate girls' and boys' section. In 1907 J.J. Stafford was the headmaster with Miss C.J. Stiles in charge of the girls and Miss L.M. Kent, the infants' mistress.  Just two years later and the average attendances numbered 891. Fifty years later and Clarence Street School accommodated the children of Swindon newcomers moving to the new estates at Walcot and Parks.  In 1958 there were approximately 1,000 children on the roll. With a population to...

Children as young as five will be expected to learn and recite poetry by heart if a major overhaul of the national curriculum in England's schools goes ahead.  Education Secretary Michael Gove would like to see a new focus on the traditional skills of spelling and grammar of which the study of poetry will become an important part.  And as any student of history knows, there is nothing new under the sun. In March 1884 Francis William Drew, master at Lydiard Millicent Church of England School, was preparing his pupils for the annual inspection.  As a large portion of the school’s funding rested on a pass or fail, and with it Mr Drew’s salary, the inspector’s visit was an important one. The village school at Lydiard had an average weekly attendance of 139 in the spring of 1884.  Divided into standards according to ability, children enrolled aged five and worked their way through Standards I to VI if their parents could afford to keep them in school that ...

A 19 th century programme reveals an energetic array of activities enjoyed by Swindon High School pupils at their annual Sports Day in 1898. The earliest record of a school in Swindon was the Free School founded in 1764 to educate 20 boys and 5 girls.  Pupil numbers soon outstripped the accommodation in a cottage in Newport Street and the National School was built on the same site in 1835. The school in The Sands began life as the Classical and Commercial School for Young Gentleman.  Swindon Advertiser founder William Morris, one of the schools' early pupils, was enrolled for about eighteen months to complete his education where schoolmaster George Nourse, according to Morris, was a nice, kind, old gentleman but lacking firmness and ability to teach. By 1869 Cornish born Samuel Snell was in charge.  One of five sons of a lead miner, Samuel was a pupil teacher by the age of sixteen and the only one of his brothers to escape the Cornish lead mines. ...