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Whitfield Endowed School. |
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Whitfield Endowed School. |
| Head Teachers of the school were:
George Roberts 1779 - 1800 John Dearnaley 1800 - 1843 James Bosley 1843 - 1844 John Ball 1844 - 1853 John Bardsley 1853 - 1872 George Ford 1872 - 1878 Noah Booker 1878 - 1881 Walter P Evason 1881 - 1925 |  |
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Reminiscences of Hague Street School by Eric Parkin, who was a pupil in the early 1920’s.
Outside the school, on the front wall, was a tablet telling all about Joseph Hague’s endowment and another over the door, with a beehive on it symbolising the hive of industry. The schoolmaster was Mr Evason who lived in the schoolhouse with his wife. He was a gaunt figure of a man with a flowing beard. He was a very learned man and very understanding and kind in his ways, but could and did deal out discipline with the aid of his stout cane, when he thought anyone was in need of it. Sometimes we used to make the cane mysteriously “disappear” in his absence but he would wait patiently for the first boy needing to be caned and would send the luckless one down to Mr (Skippy) Mays workshop at the corner of Derby Street and Victoria Street where they made cane skips and baskets for the cotton mills. Mr Evason would send you along with a sixpenny piece (tanner) 5p in today’s money, and Mr May with long experience in these matters, would pick the ideal cane, making it swish about a bit before handing it over. Needless to say when the said boy returned to school he was the first to get a taste of the new cane. All the scholars used to pay a weekly fee of sixpence in summer and seven pence in winter. The extra penny being for fuel; we had it seems fuel charges even in those days. The fuel was in the form of coke for the pipe-stove in the middle of the room. The monitor or head boy used to gather all the writing slates together and put them on top of the stove to warm them in winter as the slates were very cold and your fingers went numb. Yes, we used slates and slate pencils for lessons such as arithmetic when we could, after checking sums, wipe the slate clean and start afresh; it doubtlessly saved a lot of paper, what a boon today! Mr Evason taught us Latin, but it was not a compulsory subject. In general I would say the standard of education was comparable with all other schools with a leaving age of 14 years. Every day half an hour before school dinner time, all those who had to take their father’s or someone’s dinner to one of the various local mills, were allowed leave. There were of course no canteen meals in those days and often a long walk home from work with no buses or cars. Wednesday afternoon was always free as we never did physical exercises at school, or even possessed a school yard. We were expected to go to a small field about 50 yards from Moorfield House, which belonged to the school and was quite a long way from Hague Street and from most of the children’s homes. A few of the boys would take a football up there and have a kick about; this was alright for me as I lived at the top of the field at Kidd Road Farm. |