More than just the 3 R's

A few years ago I made a small photobook about the members of Dad’s maternal grandfather’s family who emigrated to New Zealand in 1841. It’s been in the back of my mind to do something similar for other emigrant/settler families too. I thought I might make a start by jotting down some notes as a Christmas present for him – partly because it’s so hard to know just what to buy a 94 year old.

But in building out the story for the children in this family (his paternal grandfather's line) I came up against the same old dearth of information about education and where they might have gone to school. It’s not even that long ago (in the scheme of things), which makes it more frustrating that there doesn’t appear to be surviving records.

I suspect that they may have attended a church school in either the parish where they lived or a neighbouring parish. They are noted as scholars on the census prior to leaving the country. Then where did they go to school after they arrived in New Zealand in 1862?

I found some clues for the previous generation though.

In the 1841 census, Sarah Norman (12) and her younger sister Caroline (8) are enumerated in the “household” of the schoolmaster at Cutcombe, Somerset. This was likely to be a church school. Great to see girls, the daughter’s of farmers, getting an education. Their elder sisters were above school age on this first census available readily for family historians, but it seems likely they too would have had the opportunity to attend school.

In 1841 schools and schoolmasters were asked to record the names of the children who had attended in the last week as the census was taken very close to the summer holidays beginning (6 June). There were all sorts of rules about who could be recorded and who couldn’t – those with a governess weren’t “at” school so different rules applied. However, if you are lucky you might find the governess enumerated with a family and can then speculate as to which children she taught.

James Davys (15) was enumerated in Barnstaple, Devon at a school led by Elias Bray. It has taken a lot of pondering and searching outside the box, but I have found that this school which I originally thought I had identified as a Free Grammar School was actual Mount View Academy. A boarding school for boys. As the census indicated it was located at 66 High Street, whether this was also the address where the boys lived is unclear. Since finding James there, I have presumed that his elder brother may also have attended there previously and I have often wondered what subjects were taught. Sometimes you can get clues about that in the occupations recorded for some of the teachers, but many of them are just “teacher”, “schoolmaster/mistress” or “assistant schoolmaster”.

Anyway, having recently had some better luck with the search in FindMyPast for British Newspapers since they recently changed it I though I would have another try. And lo and behold!

Mount View Academy was established in 1828 by Elias Bray. He remained the principal until 1856 when he retired and Hugh Gawthrop became principal. But what did they teach? And what did it cost?

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According to in2013dollars a guinea was slightly more value than a pound, but more or less became a pound as we remember it in the pre-decimal world (although people still talked of guineas even in the 1980s! I remember my grandmother mentioning them). One hundred guineas in 1841 would be the equivalent now of almost £13,000, so 25 guineas for a years tuition including board would be around £3000. Interestingly in2013dollars also says that since 1841 the British pound has LOST 99.218% of it’s value, meaning that todays prices are 127.93 times higher than they were in 1841 and that today’s pound can only purchase .078% of what it could then.

That makes the cost of living crisis were are all in currently bite just a little more.

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Examinations at the Academy were held at the end of each term and were public, this makes me think they weren’t written exams, but more like recitals or spelling bees style. Parents and families were invited to attend and prizes were given. Often at the end of year events the boarders presented a gift of thanks (an inkstand, bowl, lamp) to Mr Bray.

I wonder, did James’ family take up the invitation to attend the examinations and celebrations? How did James travel back and forth at the beginning and end of each term. I don’t believe there was a railway that early, so a carriage or coach must have been the only option. Something to explore another time.

So, this was an interesting little foray into education. What an educated young man my great great grandfather was, and so pleased to see that my great great grandmother also had some formal education a long time before education became compulsory. It hasn’t helped me learn where or how the following generation was educated, but even if they were home schooled they should have all received a broad education from their parents knowledge.

Back to what I had started now, having been pleasantly distracted, and rewarded.

#52Ancestors, Week 35, Back to School

My Mum was a teacher – now retired.

When we were at primary school she used to help out in class with reading – what would eventually become reading recovery. Before she married she had trained as a nurse, but could not complete her training because nurses weren’t married women in the 1950s.

She decided to become a fully fledged teacher at some point in the late 1960s, but first needed to get some qualifications. This meant studying a couple of School Certificate subjects by correspondence and sitting the exam at the end of the year. It was probably good for our future years to see her commitment to study too. I have vague memories of Dad studying when I was much younger, but with Mum we would all be doing homework or study together.

Our move to Wellington most likely disrupted Mum’s plans, and for the first year there she worked at a clothing importer. In a dreary grey building which looked out onto the big deep hole in the ground which would become the BNZ Building at the Willis Street & Willeston Street corner.

She became a student teacher in 1974 and loved the experience – or most of it – graduating in 1977. I remember taking the day, or afternoon off work to go along to watch. Primary schools were where she worked. Khandallah, Newlands, Tairangi, Maraeroa…

Reading and literature were important, Math meh ! (until the 1,2 & 5 cent pieces were discontinued – then there were cages rattled). In the early 1980’s she was the teacher at Hutt Hospital’s children’s ward and in the later years of that decade began to specialise in working with children with special needs as they were integrated back into mainstream classes.

This role morphed to become Resource Teacher Learning and Behavioural and was itinerant; working with a group of schools in a geographical area. She became an advocate for children. Supporting their teachers; searching for solutions and opportunities to enable every child to be the best that they could be and often supporting their parents through the ups and downs that red tape creates.

Don’t tell her something can’t be done; there is bound to be a solution. This is a lady who is determined in everything she does. You need her on your side – you won’t get far trying to go against her, believe me.

Teaching lit her passion, and it is still burning even now.

#52Stories, Week 25, Describe your family legacy regarding education. Do you come from a long line of scholars ? Were you the first to earn a degree ? Are you forging a new legacy with your own children ?

Be the best that you can be.

I would say that was an underlying motto in the family. Dad had a degree in Engineering, Mum studied while we were at college to become a teacher – she had studied nursing when she left school.

There wasn’t any pressure to go and get a qualification or go to university. If that was what we chose - well and good, if not – no matter. In the 70’s you didn’t need a qualification or a degree for the majority of jobs. If you did many workplaces trained you as you worked – apprenticeships and the like. If you weren’t interested in a trade, or nursing, or teaching, or doctoring and dentistry – you just looked for a job doing something you could “just do”.

To work in the bank or insurance you just needed to show an aptitude and demonstrate a good work ethic, not like now when it seems you almost need at least a BA to look at the positions vacant. If you had studied shorthand or typing that would assist you into an office role in most cases, and accounting might have helped you into a junior role in an accounting firm.

I took languages at college – Latin and French. They didn’t really get me anywhere. I had thought when I was 13 and had to choose course options that maybe I might do Law – and that Latin might be handy. But plans change. To be truthful I have never known what I want to do when I grow up !

Teaching ? Nursing ? Almost I did Home Science to become a dietician – how much different would life be now ?

But no – no formal qualifications – and I have done okay. Sometimes I think what if ? But what if might have changed my whole path and there are definitely some things I wouldn’t want to change. So.

I’ve been a bit the same as a parent – it takes time to work out the path you want to take in life. The pressures are different and today’s youth a made to feel they need a degree to do the most menial jobs, and that if they aren’t academically amazing, then they are at the bottom of the pile. Who are we then - parents with no qualifications – to lecture our children that that must have this degree or that ? To encourage them to embrace lifelong debt in their early 20’s and beyond.

So far it has worked for me. For myself and as a parent - I think.

#52Stories, Week 24, What are your memories of school lunch ? Did you bring it home or eat at school ? How did the food and your experiences change from school to school ?

Sandwiches.

White bread with marmite and cheese, or just jam, wrapped in greaseproof paper, a teeny pack of Cinderella raisins and cordial in a drink bottle. Sometimes a biscuit or some fruit, even a tomato with a little bit of salt twisted in paper. In the winter, maybe a thermos with some soup.

I think mostly I ate what I took to school. I don’t remember swapping with other kids, ‘though I think we did often compare what we had. Anything uneaten was chucked in the rubbish at school – or taken home to throw in the compost.

It was all pretty much the same all through school, though sometimes there were gourmet sandwich fillings: vegemite, lettuce and chopped walnuts and the like.

Some days we’d be allowed to order a school lunch – usually a pie and a doughnut – nothing fancy or particularly nutritional.

At college the theme continued, but often using my “own” money I would buy lunch on the way to school. Some kiwifruit from the little fruit shop at the station – gone now like the Terminus milk bar where the boys mostly congregated waiting for their buses across town. Four kiwifruit for “sikitty cent” from the elderly asian lady who ran the shop.

Other times a sandwich and a cake from the bakery on the corner of Molesworth Street and Sydney St East (now Kate Sheppard Place), or a filled roll and a can of Apple and Orange Fresh Up from that café on the corner of Aiken Street and Mulgrave Street about where Subway is now. What was that place called ?? (was it Subway too ? I’m sure it started with “S”. We went almost every day for a hot chocolate on our way from the station to school – and to put on our ties before we got too close and were caught out not wearing correct uniform.

In 7^th form when we were allowed to leave the school grounds during the day (not like now when everyone just escapes into the CBD at lunchtime) sometimes we’d go and get fish and chips from Molesworth Street.

#52Stories, Week 23, What sensory details can you remember from each of your past schools ? The colours of classrooms and lockers, the smells, the texture of the carpet or tiles ?

Well this one will have me racking my brains !

I don’t remember too much from kindergarten, but two things I do recall (or think I do) are the carpet “the mat” that we sat on together for stories was striped and that the big log or tree stump we used to climb on had the most amazing fungi or lichen on it with quite a distinctive damp sort of sweetly pungent odour.

From primary school my memories are just as sketchy. Although I am pretty sure that the Ministry of Education must have had a bulk order for that stripey carpet as I seem to recall something very similar in most classrooms. It must have been very durable.

Other smells I remember are wet coats in the cloakroom, and chlorine smelling wet togs and towels after swimming (remember when ALL schools had their own pool, and we all had swimming lessons as part of the curriculum ?). The smell of paints, paste, pencil shavings and the ink from the BANDA machine – back in the day before we had photocopiers. Chalk dust. That awful screechy sound chalk can make on a blackboard. Also the antiseptic=y smell in the “murder-house” – or was that just fear ?

At college, damp woollen blazers or cardigans at a full assembly, 1000 pairs of wet shoes on the wooden floor in the hall. Damp bare wood floors in prefabs in the winter and slippery vinyl as you raced along corridors in Brook and Tower. (“Walk girls, don’t run”). The incinerators in the toilets – just gross. Ink bottles filled with ink to refill your fountain pen, blue/black or radiant blue. Twink. Wooden chairs made of plywood that would split and splinter and snag your tights – always the new ones. 1000 girls’ voices talking all at once leaving assembly.

#52Stories, Week 5, Do I remember how my primary school smelled ? or where my desk was in primer 4 ?

It is funny what you remember from your childhood. Maybe not so much WHAT you remember but HOW you remember it.

I’ve been thinking about school memories. My first “school” was actually kindergarten – more of a preschool though as you went to afternoon "kindy" 3 days a week initially, and then morning kindy 5 days a week as you got closer to starting school and your fifth birthday.

I went to Miropiko Kindergarten on River Road in Hamilton. It is a small brick building with children sized everything, cubbyholes, coat racks, toilets and washbasins at 3-4 year old height. There was a big sandpit area outside in the front and a big tree stump and log to climb all over and jump off. I don’t remember swings or other playthings. We would have story time on the mat inside. It was set back off the road and down a drive or path, on the river side of River Road. I remember this driveway/path as being quite steep, and being warned against playing on it, riding pedal cars (or did I just imagine them) down the hill. They were fun times though; I still have a friend who was a kindy buddy from way back then.

I used to walk past with my daughter many years later. I attended the farewell for the teacher who was there when I was there in the late 1980’s – how is that for career stick-ability ? Something that we rarely see today. That big steep hill pathway ? Not steep at all ! I can’t remember if the log and tree stump were still there. I bet they aren’t now – it will have been deemed a health & safety hazard for sure.

After, kindy I attended Fifth Avenue Primary School, located in Fifth Avenue as you would expect. There were no other avenues nearby though; 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th not even 6^th. I guess it was just named as it terminated at Five Cross Roads and they needed a name for the 5^th road ! It was just about 5-10 minutes walk from home. On my first day, I walked with Mum and my little brother and I think one of the girls who lived next door. I remember it was a misty foggy morning – or I think I remember that. I also think I wore a dress which had a border print of kittens chasing a ball of wool. I had my little brown case with my lunch in it – and that is all. What else did you need ? At school we had milk delivered to the classroom to drink straight from the bottle at morning tea time until they stopped that a couple of years after I started. I was buddy-ed up with someone to show me around the classroom, and I remember being mildly devastated to turn around and discover that my mother had just left me there ! Still, I enjoyed learning, and it wasn’t so bad. In the summer the whole classroom had afternoon naps outside on the concrete play area. 

This was the school where I learnt to swim (in the school pool), began doing gymnastics, where I would go across the road at lunchtime to have a piano lesson, where I broke my front tooth, wrote to my first penpal, learnt to cross the road and look after my bike. Back then the Ministry of Transport had their own traffic police and educators who would visit schools to teach kids these basic skills. Now, they’ve been absorbed into the actual Police force and schools probably never see them. I remember where my desk was in most years and thanks to painstakingly named class photos (thanks Dad), I can remember the names of people from my classes. Mum and Dad were on the PTA and the School Committee, we were really involved in the school community and I enjoyed my five years there progressing through Primers and then Standards 1-4, before moving on to Intermediate School.

My next school was Peachgrove Intermediate, for just two years, Form 1 & 2, (Years 7 & 8 in today's lingo) it was supposed to prepare us for high school or college. Kids came from many contributing schools, some by bus from the country. Some walked and many, like me, rode our bikes using all those skills we had learnt about road safety from the traffic cops. We wore a uniform as well. I got mine from my cousin I think who had just left and started at high school. Were there gloves ? I know there was a beret for winter and a panama hat for summer – these were abolished in the year I began so I didn’t need to get hat hair riding to and from school. I made lots of new friends here, some came with me from primary school as well – and I got reacquainted with my buddy from kindy. We had new classes like sewing and cooking – the boys did metalwork and woodwork. You could join the choir or play in the orchestra, art was a whole different subject with a teacher who just taught art.

At the end of Form 2, we moved to Wellington. Just a bit of culture shock. No riding bikes to school for me now – those hills were killer. Suddenly I was at an all girls school, catching the train there and back. There was a co-ed college closer to home, and I had been going to attend a co-ed college if we had stayed in Hamilton, but not now. There were many more parts to the uniform - but no hats or gloves. Sensibly, given Wellington’s windy reputation, hats had been abandoned prior to my arrival. My first day was very scary. I don’t remember if I had caught the train independently beforehand or not. It was arranged that I would go with the girl next door who was a year ahead of me. One of her friends had a little sister starting too. Wellington Girls' College is a BIG school, over 1000 pupils, probably closer to 1200 then, I think. There were so many buildings to find your way around.

I knew no-one. Other girls in my form class knew girls from their old schools, or had sisters already there. The little sister of my neighbours' friend had her own friends from Intermediate. I think we only spoke a few times in the 5 years I was there. It felt like a pretty lonely year.

Over time I did make some friends. Many of them were other girls who like me - knew no-one. I didn't really start to find my feet until 4th Form. We mostly had all our classes together during the first two years – but we had to cross the school to go to Latin in Brook Building, French and Science in Tower Block, English back in the prefab classroom which was also our Form room. Where was Maths ? maybe in another prefab. 

Teachers wore black gowns and strode like dementors down the corridors. At assembly Miss Fraser told us firmly what was expected of us. For example we were not to wear our sleeves rolled up looking like "washer women". "Girls" was always said in a tone that you knew you had better stop and listen - and do as you were bid. There were sometimes reports of misbehaviour on the trains or the buses - most often the girls on the Karori Park Special or Mornington bus were "requested" to stay behind after assembly. There was no eating in uniform outside of school grounds and there was definitely no chance of going off school grounds at lunchtime. Even in 7th Form when we could wear mufti and were less conspicuous, getting off school grounds during school hours was an art.

When I look back though, it was okay. I might have been lonely, but I do have some friends who I have stayed in contact with over the years since school.

It was fun going back for the 125 year celebration in 2008 walking the halls and chatting to people I hadn't seen in 30 years. 

I had been back before. Some of my stories must have left an impression as my daughter chose to go to there too. The scariest part of that was the teachers (there were two) who had taught me. One in particular made me feel like she was telling ME off in a parent/teacher interview. Some things never change.

Lumen Accipe et Imperti - Take the light and pass it on. Words that bind students past and present together still at Wellington Girl's College and Wellington College.