Published in Windlesora 09 (1990)
© WLHG
Victorian Childhood in Windsor by Judith Hunter was published in March 1990. It will rank as a major contribution to the study of social conditions in Victorian Windsor and this review will be mainly concerned with this. Its more immediate purpose, however, is to provide the children who live in Windsor or who visit Windsor with material that will help them to a greater appreciation of life and conditions in the nineteenth century town. It has been commissioned by Madam Tussauds in association with their Royalty and Empire Exhibition at the Central Station and there is no question that they have helped to make possible the publication of a book which has a much wider interest and importance than just for school parties who come to Windsor.
Strictly speaking, it is not a book. It is a folder or pack, consisting of over 80 double-sided sheets, each of which can be extracted from the file; ‘any part of this pack can be photocopied for use in schools’ says the blurb. The letterpress is so comprehensive that few schools perhaps are likely to use the whole pack – certainly not at one session. So it is a great advantage that sections or even single sheets can be detached and used independently. Each sheet consists of stout white paper, with the letterpress, diagrams and illustrations reproduced with attractive clarity ‘designed and typeset by Hurst Village Publishing’. No praise can be too high for the illustrations – they are numerous and relevant. Even if they were detached from the letterpress, they would make a vivid and informative scenario; with the letterpress they combine impressively. They are drawn from many sources, both local and general, and include a number of line drawings by Daphne Fido and Janet Kennish, both teachers.
The Preface summarises the aim of the pack like this: ‘A wealth of detailed information and original source material provides the scope for exercises, project work and class discussion before, during and after a visit to the Exhibition. Both junior and senior children will gain a unique insight into the living and working conditions, education and leisure pursuits in Victorian Windsor. Indeed, parents may well encourage family projects themselves, for local history is an important element of the new ‘national curriculum’‘.
The aim throughout is to ‘bring history to life’ and use of the pack should not only achieve this result but perhaps pave the way for similar studies in other towns and communities.
The use of sources is a model. Nineteenth century records are naturally more voluminous than those of any preceding century and their very volume creates a problem for the historian. Among the local sources used in Victorian Childhood are directories, the Census records for 1851 and 1881, Edward Creasy’s Report to the General Board of Health on sanitary conditions in Windsor (1849), parish magazines (especially those of Holy Trinity), the Windsor and Eton Express, Minute Books of the Windsor Poor Law Guardians, school log books, reports on Windsor schools by H.M.Inspectors, diaries. In addition to the illustrations, there are over 60 maps, graphs, plans, tables, and various reproductions of printed matter.
The first half of the pack covers social conditions in Windsor in the nineteenth century. The contrast is illustrated between the extremes, the Castle and the upper class housing at one end of the scale and the horrendous conditions in slums such as Bier Lane, South Place and Clewer Fields at the other. Whatever can be said by way of criticism of the Victorians, they did not shirk statistics. There are statistics here in plenty. 32 out of every 100 children born in Windsor died before they were 5. This was in 1849 and conditions were slow to improve.
The second half of the pack is devoted quite rightly to Windsors’ schools, with a final section entitled ‘Out of School’ which covers aspects such as Working Children, Children in trouble, Victorian Sunday and leisure activities.
At the outset the author refers to the ‘bewildering number of schools in Victorian Windsor’. Their variety is analysed and described in clear detail. They ‘provided’, says the author, ‘an education for almost all classes of children, from the poorest and dirtiest urchins to sons and daughters of the gentry’. The class basis of the schools is emphasised. ‘Not only were the children from the different social classes expected to go to different schools, but they were given different types of education ……. Schooling, it was believed, should make a boy or girl better suited to the life style and work to which he or she belonged’.
The major part played in the growth of education in Windsor in the nineteenth century by the Churches is brought out to the full. In fact they enjoyed almost a monopoly and, when the Education Act of 1870 made plans for ‘secular’ local board schools where there was need, the Churches made haste to forestall such an unwanted development – no Godless Board Schools for Windsor! No non-church school of any importance was founded in Windsor until after the turn of the century – following the 1902 Act.
I was particularly interested in the descriptions of the ‘Ragged Schools’ for the children of the very poor. There were at least three in Windsor, but they were all short-lived. Their story, however, illustrates the conscious effort to bring some sort of education, however elementary, to every child. In 1845 a Ragged School was opened in Goswell Lane for children who were too unkempt and poor to attend other schools. At first it was only a Sunday School run by the Congregational Church. Alexander Elliot’s diary contains a description of this Sunday School: ‘The school met in a coal-shed and the scholars were as dingy as the place of meeting’. There were many problems. The children were unruly, filthy and verminous. However, the school attracted large numbers of children. It was reported that in 1851 the average number of scholars was 80; there were eleven voluntary teachers.
By this date the original school-room had been demolished to make way for the Great Western Railway Station. The Company gave compensation and a new room for the school was found in Clewer Lane. Two years later the school became a daily school for about 30 girls; about 30 boys were taught in a twice weekly evening class.
The author’s narrative continues: ‘The school was now managed by the Windsor and Eton Ragged Schools Committee and was supported by most of the churches of the town. The reports and speeches given at the Annual General Meetings were published in the local newspaper: “The great worth of the Ragged Schools was the repression of drunkenness…the reclamation from the impure habits of life…there were many instances of the vicious being reclaimed who now lead honest and industrious lives… Many men in the 97th Regiment had been scholars at the Windsor Ragged School“’.
‘By 1853 the schoolroom had become too small and was too dilapidated to enlarge. A new site was given by Alderman Bedborough, and money raised by a bazaar in the Town Hall to build a new school. The following year the new schoolroom was opened in Clewer Lane (Oxford Road). A schoolmaster and mistress were engaged at £50 per annum. No records have been found to tell us what happened to the school after this, but it seems to have been closed some time in the next few years.’
Perhaps its place was taken by St Stephen’s Mission School, in which the Sisters of the Anglican Convent of St John Baptist played a vital part. Often the dirty, bedraggled children who came needed to be washed and fed before they could be taught. Many of them usually slept rough and foraged for their own food. But the nuns were already familiar in the neighbourhood and had helped many destitute families and individuals, and the school soon began to grow. A room was hired in Bexley Street for the school, and in 1867 two gifts of money enabled the Sisters to buy land on which to build a mission house. The ground floor was used for a chapel and the upper floors for the school.
Yet another and similar school, St Mary’s Mission School, was started in Bier Lane, another terrible slum area, in 1866, mainly through the efforts of Rev. Stephen Hawtrey, the socially-conscious Rector of Holy Trinity. All these schools, however, had to work in cramped and difficult conditions and could not hope to satisfy the Inspectors who had to concern themselves with the efficiency of schools. Both St Stephen’s and St Mary’s Mission schools were closed in the 1880s. There was then no ragged school in the town.
There are fascinating sections too on the content of the teaching in the main subjects – the three Rs of course, together with Geography and History. Some examples are taken from a book once owned by Frederick Rainer Jnr., who lived in Bexley Street and was a scholar at the Royal Free. The Rev. Henry Mosely, one of H.M.Inspectors, who inspected the schools in Windsor, made the comment: ‘The geography, history and grammar of the elementary schools are mere fact teaching – the teaching of facts from which no conclusions are drawn, and which follow one another in an endless cycle, and with continual repetition’.
It is impossible to do justice to Victorian Childhood in Windsor within the confines of a review. It would be splendid if the subject-matter (together of course with the illustrations) could be published separately for the general reader. In the meantime, do not miss any opportunity of seeing it and studying it. If you read it, you can acquire a greater knowledge of Victorian Windsor than that provided by any other book that I know.
Published by Madame Tussauds and obtainable at their Royalty and Empire Exhibition, Central Station, Windsor, price £14.95
Raymond South
Windsor Local History Group 