AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
page twenty-one
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
No technical difficulty arose; plenty of room was available and the benefit was manifest. The cost at first was estimated at £343 13s. 4d, but added improvements increased this and the payment that Thomas Richardson made for the completed building and plant came to £500. On the 13th December 1850 the taps were turned and the fish-tail burners flared. John Dunning who had arranged the fittings, Isaac Sharp, Friends from Middlesbrough and the village, and all the workmen enjoyed a commemorative supper.
The children found that they could use the evenings as well as the days for their work and that gas illumined the dormitories. Here ‘they were allowed to take their Bibles with them when they retired to rest, and many a scripture text was committed to memory ‘while they were lying in bed. Cleveland Lodge also benefited by the change to gas and within a couple of months eight applicants from the village applied for the same favour. Their pleas did not avail for ‘the minute respecting gas in the village’ was ‘discharged for the present.’ Six years passed before the committee agreed that ‘Jeremiah Thistlethwaite be supplied with gas at the usual Stokesley price,’ and the burners burned for many more years before the click of the first switch made them obsolete.
The fourth volume of minutes will serve as an example of the Committee’s deliberations. It consists of 406 pages. The pages 1 to 24 are a thumb index with a page to a letter as J and U are omitted. The indexed items are carried on to nine additional pages at the end.
Thoroughness marks this index. The name of each child coming to or leaving the school during the period covered by the book is entered. The minutes of the ordinary Committee meetings have a keyword entered in the margin, and this keyword is duplicated in the index. In spite of the absence of the letter U one entry is ‘Umpirage.’ This attractive word stands in the margin on page 107 where John Richardson of Langbaugh, the committee’s nominee, and George Coats, ‘appointed by our friend Joseph Pease,’ are to have power to fix upon an Umpire to decide on the price to be given for Cleveland Lodge.
Save for sixteen pages embodying the School report and accounts for 1853 as presented to the adjourned General Meeting held at Darlington in 1854, and for eight pages embodying the report and accounts for 1856, the minutes are written in the clear flowing writing of Isaac Sharp, the devoted secretary to the Committee for thirty-six years. Hardly a mistake, hardly an erasure spoils these legible pages, and the even, unhurried signature at the end of the record of each meeting testifies to a humble pride in essential work admirably performed.
The task which Isaac Sharp enshrined in his minutes the Committee undertook with the utmost regularity each month. The first minutes in this volume are entered under date ‘4th Month, 25th, 1853,’ the last ‘1st Month, 11th , 1859,’ and within this period only four months passed without the Committee’s meeting.
In the normal ordering of their work the committee first dealt with the numbers of pupils, the leavers, the newcomers. Then they considered the accounts, including the current pay-bill. Business connected with the actual running of the school came next, and finally they considered other matters affecting the school. This routine they regularly followed.
Occasionally a little personality crept in. Some of the members of the women’s committee had a conference, and the school Committee decided, on the women’s report, that ‘arrangements be made forthwith for the return home of’ X.Y. of Z, ‘her association previous to her coming to school and her conduct and conversation while here having rendered it entirely unsuitable for her to remain as a scholar in this Institution.’ And next month George Dixon reported that ‘he went with’ X.Y. to Z, ‘and there gave up his charge to the care of her mother.’ Another minute noted that ‘leave of absence for two weeks was granted as a special case to H. & M. Manners in consequence of the marriage of their Father.’
But formality usually prevailed and the constant flux of scholars each month, for neither terms nor half years had yet entered into the dimmest consideration, needed careful recording for accuracy. The first minute of the volume noted 74 children in the School.
With the treasurer’s report and the
pay-bill the Committee considered in the second place the financial
position. They had constantly in their minds the need for the strictest
economy in spending for they knew how small a margin lay between excess
of income or expenditure. In the year ending 31st December 1856 the
total expenditure was £1,734 5s 7½ d., the odd halfpenny
coming from the clothing account which stood at £166 16s 7 ½ d.
The other main items were ‘provisions and meal 2,083½ stone £250
1s. 0½ d,’ butcher’s meat ‘4,5821 lbs., £135
14s. 0½ d,’ ‘coals for gas and fuel 2,168 cwt., £115
8s. 2½ d.’ The year’s washing, ‘including
soap and soda (584 lbs.), starch, blue, and wages’ came to £21
12s. 11d. They used 4,460 gallons of milk at a cost of £131 13s
5d. The whole cost of salaries and wages amounted to no more than £335
17s 7d, and stationery came to just over £28. One non-recurring
item was the repair of ‘the damage sustained by the Mill Dam
in consequence of a water-spout’ which cost £94 6s 9d.
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