Bream School Records (General)

by downunder @, Friday, August 02, 2013, 12:31 (4126 days ago)

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a couple of queries.

On the attendance records for Bream school in the 1920's, two of the children in the family are said to have "transferred to CE". The girl was 8 and the boy was 9 when they transferred. The family was probably living in Bream's Eaves or maybe West Dean. What school would the "CE" stand for?

Also, on the Evacuees Class Attendance Records for Bream school some of the children aged 6 and 7 are referred to as "left" in 1945 while a few are referred to as "transferred." Did this mean the same thing - ie that the children were going home - or did the "transferred" possibly mean that those children were transferring to other schools within the FOD area?

Kind regards from OZ

Bream School Records

by Roger Griffiths @, Friday, August 02, 2013, 14:48 (4126 days ago) @ downunder

Good chance it means transfer to Church of England School.

Roger

Bream School Records

by Jefff @, West London, Middlesex, Friday, August 02, 2013, 14:54 (4126 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

My thought too Roger but as I have NO experience/knowledge whatsoever of schools at that time I didnt like to say. Do we know what form of school Bream was (ie was it a NON C of E ?)

Here is just part of an excellent history of the schools in the Dean, Bream gets mentions elsewhere in the attached webpage too.

"Henry Poole established a day school for the children of Bream, where he was minister, and the adjoining part of the Forest in 1830. It occupied a new building north of the Coleford road at Bream Tufts, erected by subscription and incorporating a schoolhouse, and was run on the National plan with boys' and girls' departments. It taught 80 children in 1847. Poole supplied the deficiency in its funds, which, despite support from the Crown and Mary Gough's educational charity for Bream, were insufficient because of the poverty of local residents. Poole's successors at Bream kept the school open and in 1862 the Revd. Cornelius Witherby moved it to a more central position at Bream's Eaves, where the Bible Christians had started a short lived day school at their chapel the previous year. The new National school and schoolhouse, provided with financial help from Alice Davies, stood east of the Parkend road with separate accommodation for the junior boys and for the junior girls and infants. From 1865 the departments were run as separate schools and in 1874, following some additions to the building, an infants' department was formed. In 1888 the junior schools were merged and in 1889 the school had an average attendance of 176. The building was enlarged in 1893 and 1900 but was overcrowded in 1904 when the attendance was 382. To provide more places the county established a temporary infants' school in the Primitive Methodists' nearby schoolroom in 1905 and opened a new infants' school opposite the C. of E. (formerly National) school in 1907. In 1910 the new building, called Bream Council school, had an average attendance of 153, including some juniors, and the C. of E. school remained overcrowded with an attendance of 311. The council school was enlarged in 1912 and again in 1927, when it was reorganized to take junior girls and infants and the C. of E. school was left with junior boys. In 1938, when their average attendances totalled 367, both schools had many spare places and in 1951 the C. of E. school, which had accepted controlled status in 1948, became a junior mixed school and the girls' department at the council school a secondary modern school. Following the secondary school's closure in 1973 the C. of E. school moved into the buildings west of the Parkend road and in 1992, as Bream C. of E. (Voluntary Controlled) Primary school, it had 222 children, both infants and juniors, on its roll. The building which it had vacated became a youth centre and library."

"In the 1930s the county ran technical classes in several Forest schools, and following the Education Act of 1944 it had secondary grammar, modern, and technical schools in Cinderford and secondary modern schools at Five Acres and Bream. All of those schools were affected by later reorganizations of secondary education in the Forest area."

From: 'Forest of Dean: Education', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 405-413.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23274 Date accessed: 02 August 2013.


Note the references to the "C. of E. school, formerly National, School".

Hope this helps.

Bream School Records

by downunder @, Friday, August 02, 2013, 15:14 (4126 days ago) @ Jefff

This helps very much.

Excellent!

Cheers.

Bream School Records

by downunder @, Friday, August 02, 2013, 15:13 (4126 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

Yes, I thought Church of England school too. Just not sure which one.

Thanks!

Bream School Records

by Roger Griffiths @, Friday, August 02, 2013, 17:25 (4126 days ago) @ downunder

There is one CE primary school at Bream now, but it only dates from 1907. State education was initiated around 1830. Govt. suggested that the county gentry provide premises and teachers. Church incumbents (C of E and non con.)were involved from the beginning. Obviously, CE schools could be used to counter the growing influence of the non conformist churches.

Roger

Bream School Records

by downunder @, Friday, August 02, 2013, 20:37 (4125 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

Ta muchly!

Excuse my extreme ignorance, but why would people suddenly change from the regular school to the C of E one, especially after two or three years? That's probably a very silly question. It's just that two daughters stayed at the regular school, going on to the girls' section there, according to the records while the other son and daughter changed to the C of E. I'm merely curious, especially as the evacuee grandson seems to have changed schools too.

I suppose there could have been teacher trouble since the family doesn't seem to have been particularly religious.

Thanks again.

Excuse an Aussie's woeful geography again

by downunder @, Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 06:55 (4072 days ago) @ downunder

Would someone be able to tell me if West Dean Infants (Christchurch) and West Dean Council Junior Mixed schools are/were anywhere near Parkend Road, Bream's Eves? I'm probably way out geographically.

Many thanks

Excuse an Aussie's woeful geography again

by slowhands @, proud of his ancient Dean Forest roots, Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 07:24 (4072 days ago) @ downunder

Its all relative :-)

on my wall map Perth and Sydney are close by - well a few inches...

Christchurch to Bream is around 5 miles

regards

s

--
Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>

Excuse an Aussie's woeful geography again

by downunder @, Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 11:04 (4072 days ago) @ slowhands

Thanks!

I'm 4,800km from Perth and 2000km from Sydney as I sit. So from the Aussie equivalent of Bream I think.

xx

West Dean School Buildings

by Jefff @, West London, Middlesex, Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 17:52 (4071 days ago) @ downunder

No probs DownUnder, you are of course excused, I was born and lived 20 years in the Eastern Forest yet my knowledge of Bream locality is poor to put it mildly (or anyhting else west of Coleford!). In fact I'm not sure I even went to Bream til I bought a Vauxhall (GM-Holden) car after moving away and found to my surprise there was a dealership hidden away in "sleepy little" Bream, rather than say Gloster or Chepstow. It's name rather summed up this excellent little garage's location, "Maypole".

Re the Schools, I wonder how this ex-school building in Bream fits into the equation, found by searching "West Dean" and ignoring the many Sussex & Wiltshire hits. Is this one of those you quote, perhaps your ancestors went there, hopefully Slowhands can please enlighten us ?
http://www.grcc.org.uk/village-hall-database/village-hall/west-dean-centre

Finally, a general question re school buildings. The building shown is a close replica of others in the area, high roof and large arched windows etc. Was this presumably-standardised layout common throughout the UK, or just the West Country ?

West Dean School Buildings

by downunder @, Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 23:37 (4071 days ago) @ Jefff

Thank you as always. That's excellent.

West Dean School Buildings

by Jefff @, West London, Middlesex, Thursday, September 26, 2013, 00:01 (4071 days ago) @ downunder

Hi,
probably nothing new fact-wise but here's a nice West Dean site including a concise history of Bream including the schools, it may help fill some gaps
http://www.westdeanpc.org.uk/bream/

Some old photos
http://www.forestprints.co.uk/bream_school.htm
http://www.archive-images.co.uk/index.gallery.php?gid=163&img=6
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/index.php/bream

West Dean School Buildings

by downunder @, Thursday, September 26, 2013, 05:20 (4071 days ago) @ Jefff

You're a legend. Thanks.

xx

West Dean School Buildings

by downunder @, Thursday, September 26, 2013, 05:50 (4071 days ago) @ Jefff

And yes, my relatives did indeed go to the C of E school in Bream.

Took me a while to work it out, but with lots of great help from great people on here, I finally did.

The admission records from Bream Infants' says that two of the four children transferred from the Infants to the C of E in 1921 and 1925. The other two girls went to the girls' department in 1927. This Aussie was a bit baffled. Then from one of the links on here I read that in 1927 the Bream council school was reorganised to take junior girls and infants and the C of E school was left with junior boys. So that was why Phyl and Allan went to the C of E while Winnie and Renee didn't. Little things like that are so helpful in putting a complete picture together.

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

West Dean School Buildings

by Jefff @, West London, Middlesex, Thursday, September 26, 2013, 14:00 (4071 days ago) @ downunder

Re the separate boys and girls schools, as I'm sure you know it was generally accepted then (post WW1) that boys would be the bread-winners and girls would be the home-builders, so each would need different skillsets on leaving school. Even the girls going into work would be still using the same skills albeit it in someone else's home while "in-service" until they became married and setup their own homes. One of the older secondary schools near me (so not in FoD but still perhaps typical of the larger Dean towns) has two separate entrances at either end of the building; above these doors the words "Cookery" and "Technical" are carved into the stone lintles, aka separate "girls" and "boys" departments. Indeed, as late as 1974 I was one of the first of the boys at Berry Hill Grammar School to do compulsory Cookery & Needlework as part of the new "enlightened" craft course.

West Dean School Buildings

by downunder @, Thursday, September 26, 2013, 14:38 (4071 days ago) @ Jefff

Very true and you were "enlightened" earlier than here in Oz. We all went through the Catholic education system and boys still went off to be educated separately at age 8 until well into the 1980's. Likewise, girls didn't do subjects like woodwork and metalwork until then. Actually, until the early 80's the local girls convent only went up to Year 10 - Junior - and not Senior like the local Christian Brothers school for boys. Girls clearly didn't need much secondary education in the nuns' eyes and if the convent girls wanted to go further at school, they had to transfer to the local high school or the Anglican convent.

West Dean School Buildings

by Jefff @, West London, Middlesex, Thursday, September 26, 2013, 15:47 (4071 days ago) @ downunder

Re me being "enlightened"...?.... I've just returned to the thread in between car-bashing as my brain belatedly switched-on and realised that you're asking about the younger children - I suspect all probably had much the same education at their age in the 1920s, the 3 "R"s (bring them back !), upto finishing and probably leaving Elementary School. I guess the domestic skills were learnt young as part of routine life at home in those make-do-and-mend etc days. Perhaps the boy-girl separation was more for discipline reasons ?. Sorry to mislead you.

You mention you all had a Catholic education, presumably ?? by "all" you mean your family, not ALL Aussies ?. Sorry I don't know, I married a Catholic girl from well-outside the Forest - til then I knew nothing of that religion whatsoever, my family were all CofE Sunday School and Church goers. Mum had a good wellrounded 1940s Forest Grammar education and is very bright, yet apparently she was rather fearfull what our wedding service might bring, having only seen Catholic services on tv & film. I guess her school RE was like mine, more CofE Bible Studies than a study of other religions as us kids thought it should have been. She was genuinely surprised and pleased to find our wedding was "normal", of course, very much like the CofE ones ! I'm pleased to see that modern schooling of RE does indeed introduce schoolchildren to many different religions as well as CofE, so they can make their own educated choice as they wish.

West Dean School Buildings

by downunder @, Thursday, September 26, 2013, 17:01 (4071 days ago) @ Jefff

No, you haven't mislead me at all. On the contrary, it's all very interesting and thought-provoking. The topic of education in the FOD, whether for the older ones or younger children, is really interesting because it's also got me thinking about what ages they might have left school and started work. Next step in the research and another intriguing one because it was the time of the Great Depression and at least two daughters ended up working elsewhere by the mid 1930's - one in London we know and one in Devon we think. Given that the former got married in Kensington and the latter married a man in Devon early in WW2 - who was then killed a year later and her second marriage was in Hendon. So you see the intrigue grows!

Not all Aussies went to Catholic schools, lol! Actually my family is pretty well divided between staunch Catholics and less-than-staunch Methodists. The Methodists all went to state schools and look rather askance at the Catholic side sometimes. Surprised just like your mum when something is rather "normal". We're a weird mob as they say :)

Dean Schooling

by Jefff @, West London, Middlesex, Friday, September 27, 2013, 21:56 (4069 days ago) @ downunder

Re our ancestor's schooldays in the Dean, this prior post (by a very "weird" poster indeed !) contains links to two truly excellent websites which give highly detailed histories and personal accounts of life at my old Primary School in Cinderford, many years before I attended. I'm sure their daily life was much the same for all the Forest Schools including Bream of course, I hope it's of interest to you.
http://forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=40025

ps re the three Rs, and "weird", I've just noticed that word disobeys the spelling Rule "I before E, except after C"..... that word is truly weird ;-)

---------

Re your 1930s ancestors in Kensington, West London, and Devon then Hendon, also London; such moves wern't at all unusual as I'm sure you know from reading this forum - the GWR main line into Paddington West London encouraged many Foresters to move to London to find work. My mother thought her mother-in-law(in Lydbrook West Dean) was "originally from London", purely because her only surviving sibling Maud was living there. We now know that Maud was the only one of nine siblings who left their Lydbrook homeland, she moved to Ealing to work in service by the 1911 Census. (They were all much older than my Gran so we only knew of Maud.) Maud's moving seemed odd to me until I found another young lady working in Kensington who'd been a near neighbour & probably school pal to Maud in their younger days, I assume they moved together. Ealing is a major West London station enroute into Paddington, Kensington is just down the road from Ealing, both were and still are affluent areas so plenty of scope for employment. Since then I've seen several similar cases.

Re Devon and Hendon during WW2, could there be an RAF link ?
Hendon was a very important centre indeed for British aviation before and during WW2, and now houses the main RAF Museum. Perhaps the first marriage was at a Devon posting ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Hendon

Dean Schooling

by downunder @, Saturday, September 28, 2013, 04:06 (4069 days ago) @ Jefff

That’s brilliant - thank you so much. It’s terrific background material for us.
I recently found a Gloucestershire newspaper report of Allan T, aged 9 in 1925, going to the petty sessions for nicking coal from the colliery heaps. (I hope he didn’t get into too much trouble from his dad for getting caught since I think we can safely assume it was his dad who told him to do it). Just before the General Strike when the miners were on short time.
And what you describe about your family and the moves to London is exactly what I think happened in mine so thanks again. I’ve found one Preest girl from Lydney working in London as a chambermaid on the 1901 and 1911 census records.
Then in the 1930’s Renee, the youngest girl in William and Edith’s family, went up to London to work. When she married in January 1936 she seems to have been in service at a rather posh block of flats. And we think it was her cousin Rosie who went up to London with her. Just like your Maud and her school pal. 1935 is the most likely year Renee and Rosie went to London, based on what we know so far.
Your info about the RAF is so helpful too. Phyl’s first husband was in the army – his name is on the war memorial in Bideford, Devon. But I do indeed think that her second husband was in the RAF. I wonder if she met him in Devon after her first husband’s death.
Getting married in Hendon would make sense too. Renee and her husband had a flat there. It was where their two children were born.
Actually at first it seemed odd to me that Renee had her second child in Hendon in 1940 when she could have given birth in the FOD in more safety. But now I think it was because London was much more central for soldiers on leave and her husband might well have been on leave. He’d just been at Dunkirk with the Glosters. Travel to rural Wales would have been much more difficult than to London.
And now, you’ve got me thinking about the war-work that women did. I know that Renee did something while her children were evacuated. Very interesting.
Cheers!

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