AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
page ten
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
Such work lasted until dinner at half-past twelve, and then came a short time for play until one-thirty. Three hours’ work in the afternoon followed; the class at school in the morning changed places with the class at work outside so that each day each child performed its dual task. What energies then remained were spent in an hour and a half’s play until supper at six, but as far as the boys were concerned ‘the three hours’ spade labour made them more inclined to spend their leisure in reading and preparing their lessons than in outdoor amusement.’ At seven schoolwork began again with half an hour’s English grammar, succeeded by half an hour’s scripture lesson, in its turn followed by the reading of a chapter and the thankful retreat to bed.
Saturday afternoon was a half-holiday and on Sundays the routine was changed. Half an hour before morning Meeting at 10.30 came a Bible lesson; another half hour was used in the same way before Meeting for Worship in the afternoon, and during the last hour in the evening one of the children read aloud from the life or writings of long dead and distinguished Friends. The scholars thus at any rate heard of Barclay’s Apology, of Penn’s No Cross, No Crown, and of the Journal of John Woolman; they learnt something, too, of Fox and Dewsbury and Pennington and of Stephen Grellet’s preaching in an empty barn. They listened also to expositions of the history and historical principles of Friends. Indeed Mary Awmack herself ‘drew up for the girls several little books on this subject.’
This division of work in the School into mental and manual was deliberate. The Committee had specifically started a School ‘in which agricultural and other labour may be combined with learning in perhaps a greater degree than in the case of any of our schools, Brookfield (Ireland) excepted.’ From the very beginning the boys worked in the field or garden for about three hours a day. As the school did not obtain immediate possession of land suitable for digging the first boys occupied their three hours a day in making paths through the wood and by the beckside. These paths are the ones used now in those pleasant places and the shades of their boyish makers, the Watsons of Norton, Simpson and Coning, Nellis and Legg and Jasper Jackson from distant Shropshire, still make their printless way along the trodden paths.
When the tenant vacated the field destined for the school garden the Committee engaged a young man, Joseph MacQuillan, himself but seventeen, to look after the boys at their outdoor work in the garden. The field chosen stood in the corner made by the road as it turned east. It consisted of four acres of rig and furrow grassland. The gardens of the adjoining cottages which were bought for the School by Thomas Richardson, were soon added to make a total of five acres. As the surface was ridged, and the land undrained, the committee engaged labourers who trenched, levelled and drained the field. The sods and best soil were often buried in the furrows and a large amount of a rather harsh subsoil was left exposed, difficult of cultivation. Nevertheless when the land was ready the boys gave it its final preparation and planted potatoes and Scotch cabbage, some mangels and turnips and some Italian rye grass for feeding the cows in winter.
If a large garden was to give profitable employment to the boys it must be looked after by a skilled gardener. So in 1846 a professional gardener, William Gray, a one-eyed Scotsman, was engaged. He was an able gardener and a character. He nicknamed every one and used only the nickname. He would send a boy with vegetables to Emma Walker, the housekeeper, telling him to take them to Eway Dolly. ‘So much to do and go’ was his motto, which suited the boys, for when he had passed their work they gained some little time for private pursuits. Gray planted the beech hedge down the middle of the garden whose protection speeded the growth of early vegetables and increased their value when marketed in Middlesbrough or Stockton. He put up a glasshouse where he grew grapes and cucumbers and forced profitable early lettuce and rhubarb. Gray’s end fitted him. On 13th March 1849 the committee minuted that ‘report having been made to this committee of an unsatisfactory character touching the conduct of William Gray, the gardener, William Hartas and Isaac Sharp are appointed to see him.’ At the interview Gray admitted having been present at a recent cockfight near the Middlesbrough new road, ‘on considering which it is the judgment of this committee that he be discharged from their employ forthwith.’ And discharged forthwith he was.
The work in the garden did not wholly occupy the boys’ outdoor time. George Dixon said that ‘the winning of the hay in summer, and the reaping of the grain in autumn gave pleasant employment. I had learnt the use of the sickle and was able to teach the boys how to handle it. Some made bands, others bound the sheaves and the young scholars carried them to John Moscrop to put up into stooks.’ The boys looked after the pigs, too. The one who had the office wheeled over the kitchen waste in a barrel swinging in a one-wheeled barrow and poured the swill into the pigs’ troughs. One budding young Quaker caused an immense squealing and grunting by braying the pigs with a broomstick in order to make them have silence before their meal. His office soon another took.
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