AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
page nine
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Appendix
Other entrants quickly followed the Watsons and by the end of September 1841 the young school had eight boys and eight girls, all that could be taken till W. Holmes had finished the extension. Isabella Appleby from Houghton-le-Spring was the first girl to arrive.
By the end of 1841 seventeen boys and sixteen girls had entered and by the General Meeting of 26th July 1842 the numbers had increased to twenty-five boys and twenty girls. In the Heseltons’ old house the boys slept in the big room at the top, once a granary, the girls in a room below. In the new building the boys had ‘thirteen single beds on the South side large room, twelve on the North side large room and eight in the middle; that is room for thirty-three boys in all, but eight more if double beds in the middle room.’ The girls then occupied all the sleeping room in the Heseltons’ house. They had ‘thirteen double beds in the girls’ large room, four double beds in the back high room and three double beds in the front high room,’ that is twenty beds for forty girls. The Committee anticipated forty boys and forty girls as the maximum, for they declared that to be ‘the extreme number for which the rooms are adapted and they believe the premises will in other respects admit it’, but they thought that ‘considerable attention should be paid to increased ventilation in the sleeping rooms.’ Perhaps it was just as well that George Dixon was a stern disciplinarian.
The Committee, too, authorised in general terms the diet for the children. Breakfast was timed for eight o’clock and consisted regularly of oatmeal porridge and milk and only that. The minutes exactly recorded the weight of a cask of oatmeal given by Anna Pease as I cwt. 3 qrs. 4 lbs., and noted that the milk varied occasionally in price from sixpence to sevenpence a gallon; the milk furnished by the school farm was booked at sevenpence. Dinner came at half-past twelve and consisted of meat and vegetables, or pies and puddings. Instead of the pies and puddings fish and potatoes were occasionally supplied. The fish generally came by hawker from Staithes and George Dixon told a story of Thomas Richardson and the fish which, he said, exhibited ‘one of the prevailing traits of Thomas Richardson’s character, strict economy in all his transactions.’ George Dixon’s story was that ‘Thomas Richardson purchased a fish at the lowest price young Humphrey, the hawker, would take, then told him to call at the school and tell them he had sent him. I enquired the price; he said threepence a pound and that Mr. Richardson had paid him that price. I gave him to understand that Thomas Richardson was a gentleman, that he only purchased a small quantity, that we should require a great many pounds for our large family, and offered him twopence halfpenny which he took reluctantly. In the evening Thomas Richardson paid us his usual visit and asked if the man with fish had called on me. I told him that he had and that I had purchased sufficient for a dinner for the whole family. “How much did thou give? I expect he took thee in,” he said. When he heard the price, twopence halfpenny a pound, he shook his coat tail with his hand and walked off.’
The meat used in 1841 cost fivepence a pound. Gregory Rowland ‘tendered to supply butcher’s meat of various sorts’ at that price. In 1847 William Fairbridge of Middlesbrough put in a tender at sixpence farthing a pound for ‘ox and heifer beef, and mutton. Also Veal and Lamb when in season.’ The beef was ‘to comprise useful parts as Rounds, Flanks and Brisket, with Ribs occasionally for the committee etc.’
Suet pudding days alternated with meat days. The puddings were helped down with a ‘sweetened sauce’, which, as George Dixon wrote, ‘the housekeeper called melted butter; but the children did not believe it had any butter in it and it was so like the paste used by the men in putting up the placards against the walls it received the name of stick-a-bill.’
At six o’clock came the third and last meal of the day, a supper of bread and milk. ‘Unbolted wheatmeal,’ that is wheatmeal not sifted but including bran and all, raised by leaven, made a healthy and substantial brown bread called by the children, sideways glancing at their superintendent’s name, brown Geordie. No white bread was provided. Modern critics might possibly find the diet narrow and the food monotonous, but the amount was generous, the bread homemade and wholesome and milk the only drink. This food with fresh air and exercise, regularity in times and plenty of sleep kept the scholars healthy, robust and ready for work.
Their work began at six o’clock. The boys, partially dressed, ran across their playground to the washhouse, a weaver’s old cottage, where they washed with water drawn from the adjacent pump. The girls washed in their bedrooms and later in the girls’ lavatory. At seven all assembled in the schoolroom for Bible reading followed by a short silence. The rest of the time until eight o’clock breakfast they spent in learning ‘tables’ and in mental calculation.
After breakfast the superintendent read a
chapter of the Bible; then the children all went to the schoolroom
for a short spelling lesson. Work proper began at nine. One class went
to school and the other class according to sex laboured in the farm
or garden and at their domestic duties. The girls worked hard at these
duties for ‘by the training of the girls in domestic employment
in almost every department, the housekeeper, children and one servant
have been found competent to meet the household duties of the family,
a little help for washing etc. excepted.’ Mary Awmack, the third
governess, writing of 1847, said ‘a great deal of housework was
done by the girls and in addition to their “offices,” changed
weekly, a whole class would be called out of school not unfrequently,
particularly when there was extra to do, there would be cleaning, ironing,
mending, etc., preparing fruit and vegetables for the cook (calling
out of classes was very trying for me). The following headings may
almost be considered to cover the offices filled by the girls: schoolroom
maids, kitchen maids, chamber maids, dining room waiters, parlour waiters,
dairy maids, governess’s maids.’
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