Articles tagged with: education

A School in Your Kitchen

on Monday, 16 November 2020. Posted in Schools

Working From Home in History: Dame Schools

Working from home in 2020 might involve a networked computer and video conferencing but if you are working from your kitchen table, you have more in common with a 19th century home worker than you might expect.

Picture anywhere between half a dozen to a dozen children gathered on a flagged or earth kitchen floor in the kitchen of a roadside cottage, receiving rudimentary lessons perhaps in reading or sewing from an elderly woman, and you have what was a fairly typical example of a 19th century dame school.

Thomas Webster, A Dame’s School, 1845 Photo © Tate CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported)

There was no national system of education before the 19th century, and the opportunities for a formal education were restricted mainly to town grammar schools, charity schools and dame schools. In the 19th century two societies were responsible for much elementary education; The British and Foreign Schools Society (named such in 1814) was founded by two Quakers in 1808, and the National Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church throughout England and Wales for Anglicans was formed in 1811 from the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. The schools built by these societies are commonly referred to as British Schools and National Schools but for areas without access to these schools, a dame school would have been one of the few options. It was not until 1870 the Education Act paved the way for state run schools by providing for the election of school boards, with the power to build and manage schools where provision by the two voluntary societies was inadequate. And in 1902 the responsibility for providing elementary, secondary and technical education passed to 330 Local Education Authorities (LEAs). You can find out more about education in Wiltshire through the centuries and the kinds of records that you can find in another of our blogs “Schools Out for Summer!” 

There are few records for dame schools, although 19th century parliamentary report provide some information. Nevertheless, we know they were a feature of education for several centuries: in the mid-17th century Charles Hoole wrote in A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching Schoole that education was too important to be be ‘left as a work for poor women, or others, whose necessities compel them to undertake it, as a mere shelter from beggary’.

A valuable picture of education in the mid-19th century is also given by the return prepared by the Revd. W. Warburton, H.M.I., to a House of Commons order in 1859. The resulting Account of Schools for Children of the Labouring Classes in Wilts (available at the History Centre under shelfmark AAA.372) gives details of attendance, staffing, buildings, equipment, and curriculum every school open to inspection, usually with comments on teachers, pupils, and management. There were 140 day schools liable to inspection and 428 others (including dame schools). The number of dame schools is not precise but Warburton estimates the number of children attending dame schools as about 1,900 (approximately 6% of the total number of scholars in Wiltshire at the time). It is likely there were between 100-200 dame schools in Wiltshire in the mid-19th century.

The second half of the century saw an overall decline in dame schools following the introduction of government grants for the building and improvement of schools. For example, prior to 1858 a dame school with 20 to 30 children existed in Collingbourne Ducis but this closed following the construction of the new parochial school in 1859. However, some dame schools survived and even continued to be established: Warburton remarked that ‘They are not uncommonly set up, especially by the dissenting bodies, as a tentative step, in order to discover whether a more regularly constituted school would be likely to draw in a given place’. As well as to test local demand for education, they were set up due to the need of the mistress to earn an income: Warburton notes ‘It is difficult to exaggerate the shifting, changeable character of private dames’ schools, owing their origin as they do, in many cases, not to the educational necessities of the district, but to the domestic necessities of the teacher.’

The following examples of communities where dame schools existed can be found on our Community History pages (which are well worth checking out!)

History Without A History Centre: what we've been up to while you were away (Part 2)

on Monday, 31 August 2020. Posted in Archives, Conservation, History Centre, Museums, Schools

During lockdown our teams, like everyone, have had to adapt to new ways of working and think creatively about how we continued to support our heritage community and maintain our statutory services. In Part 1 Neil and Dorothy shared some of the work done by the Archaeology team and Wiltshire Buildings Record.  In Part 2 we turn the spotlight on our Archives and Local Studies team, the Conservation and Museums Advisory Service and the Heritage Education Service.

Archives and Local Studies

While lockdown forced the cancellation of our 2020 events programme, we were able to reinvent some of the activities in new formats. County Librarian Julie Davis had planned a talk on The Home Front in Wiltshire, as part of the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of VE Day in May. Instead she turned her slides into an online film show with a recorded narration. Julie also recorded readings from her recent publication From Blackout to Bungalows which explores the effects of World War Two on Wiltshire. These are available on our VE Day page on the website.

Pre-lockdown we were delighted to host a display of artworks by students from Wiltshire College in the History Centre foyer. Community history advisor Joy Bloomfield, who worked with the college on this project, redisplayed the pieces in our search room and created a more widely-accessible online exhibition available via our Facebook page

Julie's Memory Box sessions also went online. Before lockdown the group would use written sources as a springboard for discussion and reminiscence. Unable to meet physically Julie recorded several readings themed on local fairs and industries which are now online to be enjoyed at home. Similarly, Ian Hicks has replicated his popular Introduction to Ancestry.com sessions as online videos. All videos can be found on our youtube channel including four short Welcome Back films featuring members of our team. Creating video content is new for most of us at the History Centre and, we’re not afraid to say, it was a bit daunting to begin with, but we have learnt new skills, gained confidence and seen the benefits of developing online content for the History Centre. Watch this space for more online material over the coming months.

Community history advisor Ian made a video version of his Ancestry workshop.

We have also used lockdown to add more content to the Know Your Place website. Scanned copies of our tithe awards have been added to this already brimming resource. The tithe awards give details of landowners and occupiers plus land use for parishes across the county. In addition, more content has been added to pages of the Wiltshire Community History website, most notably on the subject of Wiltshire schools. Julie has also continued her engagement work with the team of Wiltshire Libraries Local Studies’ Champions to create digital material for the library service's YouTube channel.

Lockdown resulted in the disruption to many arts, heritage and cultural projects but as restrictions eased organisations looked to restart their programmes. The History Centre is delighted to be working with our new partners at Celebrating Age Wiltshire on their lottery-funded project to improve health and wellbeing of older people living in isolation. We are also feeding into the Swindon Heritage Action Zone, which is part of a wider Historic England heritage project and the project officer is working with local people in and around Swindon’s Railway Village to post old photographs onto the community layer of Know Your Place website. 

Visitors to the History Centre usually come to consult documents, but the Local Studies Library is also an important research tool. It contains over 50,000 volumes and is the largest collection in the world of books about Wiltshire. We are always on the lookout for new titles and actively collect any published work that is about Wiltshire or is written by someone with a strong Wiltshire connection.

New titles have been added to the extensive Local Studies collection.

The last few months have been an opportunity to catch up with the backlog of cataloguing, making over 100 new books available to users of the service. They include biographies; newly published research on the two world wars and a beautifully illustrated book of the plants found in the gardens of Salisbury Cathedral Close. Perhaps these books may inspire you to write something and be part of Wiltshire’s written history. New lists of our latest catalogued books can be found in our Local Studies newsletters.

We have also used this time to update our staff toolkit which contains key guides on various collection themes in the hope we have the answers to all your questions at our fingertips. Quite an undertaking, we’re sure you’ll agree. Colleagues have also conducted research on topics such as militia records, the architecture of Salisbury and the Kennet and Avon Canal, plus we have been putting the finishing touches to a major new catalogue for the archive of Westinghouse Rail. This has involved formatting data collected by our volunteer Mike and uploading onto our electronic catalogue.

Like most archives and museums, we have launched a new collection that will record the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our lives. The History Centre’s Living in Lockdown project aims to collect personal reflections from people in Wiltshire and Swindon on their experiences of Covid-19 and how it has affected daily lives. We are also looking for printed material such as posters and leaflets, or newsletters from local groups, plus photographs recording lockdown, such as public displays of art and craft, and how local shops, services and events have been affected. Read more about the collecting project (including how to get in touch) on our archives pages

Meticulous work by one of our object conservators.

Conservation and Museums Advisory Service

The Conservation and Museums Advisory Service (CMAS) aims to promote excellence in the care and use of collections by providing conservation advice and practical treatments to heritage organisations and the public. We also support museums in Wiltshire to meet professional standards and become sustainable, resilient organisations.

Based at the History Centre, we can normally be found working in our two conservation laboratories, or out and about giving advice to museums, archives and historic houses. Lockdown meant that, like many others, we were confined to working at home and had to find a whole new way of doing things.

Without access to the specialist equipment and chemicals in the laboratory, we had to stop carrying out practical conservation treatments such as x-raying archaeological finds, cleaning coins, reconstructing ceramics and repairing documents. Instead the conservators have taken the time to carry out a number of other tasks.

We have been developing new training and support packages for both staff at the History Centre, and other museums and archives looking to gain Accreditation or better care for their collections. This includes topics like pest management, environmental monitoring and control, collection care planning, and preventative conservation of archives and historical collections. We’ve been looking at services aimed at those involved with archaeology, such as archaeological contractors and metal detectorists. There has also been the opportunity to develop our environmental sustainability plans, becoming greener to help the Council meet its pledge to become carbon neutral by 2030.

Even though the building has been closed, the archives have still required some care and attention, so we’ve been carrying out regular environmental monitoring checks to make sure the temperature and humidity levels in the strong rooms is suitable for their long-term preservation.

Our Paper Conservator tensioning distorted parchment.

We have been exploring the digital world and finding alternative ways of working. A redesign of the CMAS web pages has begun including a simplified web address - www.wshc.org.uk/cmas - and we took part in a twitter conference organised by the Institute of Conservation (#IconArchTC) talking about our treatment of a Roman coin hoard owned by Athelstan Museum, Malmesbury. You can also watch our new video about the conservation treatment of a pair of Pele’s football boots.

Meetings have gone online, and we have been getting to grips with the technicalities and etiquette of virtual meetings, including Wiltshire Museum Group get-togethers. The team has also been available by telephone and email to answer questions and give advice to organisations and the public about all things conservation and museums.

Wiltshire’s museums have been hit hard by the lockdown, with the cancellation of events, loss of income, and other challenges that come from having to close their doors overnight.  Working with South West Museum Development, we have supported them throughout the last few months, answering enquiries to help them look after staff, volunteers and collections, providing information about the latest government guidance, and encouraging applications for the grant funding available. This has continued as museums have started to re-open. Museums in the county have been working hard to address the issues and several have now welcomed back visitors, with special measures put in place to keep everyone safe: Wiltshire Museum, Chippenham MuseumBoscombe Down Aviation Collection, REME Museum, Salisbury Museum, The Rifles Museum, Crofton Beam Engines www.croftonbeamengines.org. More will follow in the not too distant future.

Although the CMAS team is now back in the building and the laboratories, we’re not quite back to normal! It’s likely to be a little while before we’re able to make visits to organisations or carry out face to face training. So, in the meantime, we’ll carry on developing our digital delivery and because we love showing off the work we do we’re planning to add more case studies, videos and a virtual tour of the laboratories to our web pages soon.

If you have a conservation query, want a quotation to carry out some work, or would like to book a free online appointment for one of our conservation surgeries, we’d love to hear from you! You can contact the team by email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Heritage Education Service

As heritage education officer I work with schools and community groups providing facilitated sessions in schools, community settings and at the History Centre. All those face-to-face sessions ended with lockdown. The other aspect of my work involves creating classroom and online resources – and this has very much continued.

In anticipation of the lockdown the History Centre could see that digital resources – our website, blog and social media platforms – would be our way of keeping some of our services operational and allow us to stay in touch with our community of users and volunteers. With that in my mind my role morphed into coordinating the History Centre’s digital services and joining with colleagues in Libraries and Leisure to develop and deliver online services to replace, as best we could, the wide range of physical services provided by our teams. This resulted in the Active Communities webpages and a host of downloadable resources on the Wiltshire Council website.

Screenshot of the Active Communities web page on the Wiltshire Council website.

As our services resume, with new policies and procedures in place, my work on the History Centre’s digital strategy will continue alongside creating classroom resources for teachers. I am also delighted that many of the projects we support are getting back on track, including the Salisbury Soroptimist’s Her Salisbury Story project (funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund) celebrating the women of Salisbury past and present. I will be providing support and training to the group and their volunteers as they work on this wonderful project.

For schools and teachers looking for new curriculum resources please contact me on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. I am currently updating the education web pages but please do visit  the education home page for links to online resources.

What Next?

After meticulous planning and much hard work we are delighted to have welcomed out first visitors back into the search rooms on 25th August. Making sure the History Centre is COVID-secure for staff and visitors does mean we have had to put in new procedures for accessing our services and these follow national guidelines and regulations. We are now operating an appointments-only system for accessing our services and face coverings are mandatory for all visitors. To book your archives and local studies visit go to our website.  http://wshc.org.uk/visiting-the-centre.html For other teams please telephone ahead to make an appointment.  

We look forward to welcoming you back.

 

David Plant, Archivist

Heather Perry, Conservation and Museum Manager

Ruth Butler, Heritage Education Officer

Neil Adam, Assistant County Archaeologist

Dorothy Treasure, Buildings Recorder

The Memory Box Reading Group

on Tuesday, 01 October 2019. Posted in History Centre, Traditions and Folklore, Wiltshire People, Wiltshire Places

Do you love reading and history?

Our latest venture might just suit you down to the ground!

Our reading group is based at the History Centre on the 1st and 3rd Monday of every month, 2-3.30pm, free entry. It’s a chance for anyone who is at a loose end to come along and listen to extracts of books from our Local Studies Library on a wide range of topics, take a look at a range of documents from the Archives and photographs from our Local Studies Collection, not to mention tea/coffee, biscuits and a chat at the end!

Feel free to join in with any memories or comments you may have, or just enjoy the friendly atmosphere with others and the chance to take a look at the many fascinating and little seen items from our vast range of collections.

Sketch for an instrument to lop forest trees at Savernake, 1809 from ‘Royal Forests’ topic

Topics we’ve covered so far have been as wide-ranging as Royal Forests, the Workhouse, the Fair, Ironworks, Education, Cinema, 1950s Chippenham, Washday, Harris’ of Calne and Alfred Williams. The extracts mostly cover Wiltshire places but we also find out about the origin of the subjects to add context, covered by our general reference (Heritage) collection held at the library. The group also suggest topics of interest for us to cover in future sessions, which is proving to be very successful and interesting to date.

Eden’s State of the Poor 1797 Vol 3, Wilts – Seend entry from ‘Agricultural Labourers’ topic

You’ll be amazed by what there is to discover and uncover; we’ve found out about sea eagle bones which were purported to have been used in medieval bird hawking; the common labourer who was writing to tell others of the plight of his follow workers in the 18th century, the pioneer of the modern-day cinema, based in Salisbury, and much more!

We are a small, friendly group at the moment who would love to expand; please feel free to drop in and join us sometime soon; no appointment or booking necessary. A copy of our leaflet with further information can be found here.

If you have any questions or queries please feel free to contact me This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or tel 01249 705534

Comments from attendees include “Brings back memories I’d forgotten I had”; “It’s lovely to hear other people’s ideas and learn new things”; “Brings up questions and new things to think about”…

We look forward to meeting you!

Julie Davis
Reading Group Leader and County Local Studies Librarian

King Henry VIII and Napoleon - A Week's Work Experience at the History Centre

on Friday, 27 May 2016. Posted in History Centre

Every year the History Centre hosts work experience students from Year 10 to Higher Education. Alex, a year 10 student from Malmesbury School describes what he got up to during his week:

Recently I have had work experience at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. On my first day I got shown around the strongrooms which they have lots of original documents, records and certificate etc. I actually saw King Henry VIII’s marriage deed with Jane Seymour. After that I saw Archives Conservation and got told how they restore letters, papers and maps, I also saw a small piece of Napoleon’s hair, and a really nice photo album. I also had a look at a newspaper by Swindon Advertiser in 1918 and 1919 which was really interesting to look at all the different stories they had at that moment in time.

Marriage settlement of Jane Seymour and Henry VIII 1536 (1332/1/1/1MS)

On the second day for the morning I was copying and pasting wills onto a disc for a researcher. Then I got an original document from the strongroom and I had to find the names and occupations of people, where they lived and the year, but it was sometimes really hard to find some people because the writing was really hard to read and some documents did not give names. After lunch I went into the object conservation lab and saw a sole from a roman shoe in the wet room with a freeze dryer, also I went into an x-ray room. After that I saw a very old ceramic pot that had been damaged by a badger when it was digging, the people in the lab were trying to put it back together. After that I did community history and I had an introduction to the Wiltshire Community History website and was able to look at all the different parishes that they have written information about.

The First World War Home Front – a forgotten part of the war

on Friday, 07 February 2014. Posted in Military

The Blitz, rationing, evacuees, home guard, women’s land army are all such familiar parts of the story of the Second World War. The home front is well documented, the setting for popular television programmes, taught in primary schools and part of our collective narrative for the Second World War, but most people know very little about the home front during the First World War. Prompted by this year’s centenary and the production of a resource pack for schools, volunteers and staff have been looking into the archives for documents about the Great War. At the request of teachers, we looked into the role of children in the war researching the school log books to find out how the war affected their lives.

WWI, from the pens of Wiltshire's school teachers

on Tuesday, 27 August 2013. Posted in Schools

Since Victorian times, schools across Wiltshire have kept a weekly or daily account in rather fancy log books. During our week working at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, we had the privilege of looking through a selection of the log books kept in the archives, some more battered than others.


Once we were able to read the copperplate handwriting used in these books, we were able to unlock the secrets of historical schools within these books. Focusing mainly on 1914-1918 (looking for any mention of The Great War) we read about children and teachers almost one hundred years ago.


Of course, there were some immediate differences that we noticed: fires in the classrooms, measuring and weighing at schools and excluding of pupils when there were epidemics of illnesses. However we also noticed some other things that have changed over time: we are no longer sent home for being dirty, nor are we caned but unfortunately, we no longer get granted holidays for blackberry picking, going sliding in icy weather or afternoons off for tea parties.

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