Skirlaugh School photo from Mary Ferguson
Although there had been schools in England dating back as far as the 6th Century many Victorian boys and girls did not have the opportunity of going to school. When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 education was still mainly for the privileged. Rich children might have a governess to teach them at home until they were old enough — or, if they were boys — to go to Public Schools such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby where they would learn classical subjects such as Latin and Greek, study classical history and classical literature.
The girls continued to be educated at home. Most poor children did not go to day school, but earlier, Robert Raikes had started a system of education based in churches, the Sunday School, and by 1831 1,250,000 children went to lessons in this way. That was about a quarter of the population at the time.
The origins of Education in Skirlaugh
There may have been a school at South Skirlaugh before 1582, when it was complained that there was no curate to teach the young, and a school of some sort in 1609, when Marmaduke Langdale (who died in 1611) left money for teaching there. There was certainly one in 1615, when a servant of Langdale’s heir was teaching without a licence. Langdale’s school was later held in a schoolhouse on the south side of the chapel yard (chapel is the then name for St Augustine’s church). The building incorporated a cottage belonging to the Chapel Estate, now called Church Cottage and used for church meetings and as a ‘New to You’ shop.
Marmaduke Langdale was the local squire and he lived at Dowthorpe Hall. In his will of 1656 he left £200, the yield of which was to be applied by the “most substantial men” of the place, among other things for teaching the children of Skirlaugh and putting some of the poor ones to apprenticeships. Langdale had decided views about the personal attributes of the teacher who was to be the recipient of his benefaction as you can see in this description: “a diligent and painful teacher of the children …an honest, vertuous and godly man, to leade a single life, neither to be a married man, nor to take or marry a wife for his owne use or company; neither to be a whoremonger, fornicator or drunkard, nor a great company keeper, but a civill honest man in living to all mens judgements; and to behave himself according to God’s holie lawes … and not to run a fleshing and eating flesh on forbidden days …for a diligent teacher …in that place called Skerley chappel shall have little occasion to have the use or company of any woman …being in such a bare and barren place as Skerley chapel stands in.” ?use as image(“Primary Education in East Yorkshire 1560-1902” by J Lawson)
Schooling in the 1700s and early 1800s
By the mid-18th century the Church school had c. 20 pupils, four of them taught for free, paid for by a donation of £2 a year from Langdale’s charity. By 1820 the trustees of the charity were paying £10 10s a year for the teaching of 10 boys and girls. By 1833 the charity was supporting 17 pupils in the school, with another 20 pupils who paid for their schooling with ‘school pence’, a small sum (typically 3d per week per child), but which many parents struggled to find.
There were evidently also one or two Dame schools at South Skirlaugh in the mid 19th century. Dame schools were small, cheap private schools run by women (usually widows or spinsters) who taught very elementary skills in reading, writing and arithmetic. Initially intended for very young children, some taught children up to about 12 years, and included skills such as ‘plain sewing’ and basic housekeeping for girls. A very critical report in 1861 led to their closure nationally and the creation of a universal education provision.
National education
Langdale’s charity helped in the building of a new National school with a master’s house on Benningholme Lane in 1860. National Schools were run by the Church of England, whilst British Schools were run by the Non-Conformist churches. The new National School was supported by school pence, subscriptions (including £20 from Langdale’s charity), and from 1863-4 by an annual government grant. There were 49 in attendance at inspection in 1871, and infants were accommodated in 1877.
Average attendance at the school declined from 115 in 1906-7 to 59 in 1937-8, but c. 20 pupils were received from Ellerby school in 1947 and, despite the transfer of the senior pupils to South Holderness County Secondary School in 1954, additional accommodation had to be hired for the school in the 1960s. The village continued to grow in the second half of the 20th century.
The school today
A new Church school was built nearby and opened in 1968; nearby Swine school was then closed and its pupils transferred to this new school in Skirlaugh. There were 268 on the roll at Skirlaugh in 1990 but this has declined to c150 today, and a falling birth rate nationally indicates that a further decline is probable. The old school buildings were used from c1972 as a village hall.
So what of the school charity set up by Marmaduke Langdale in 1611? By a New Scheme of 1900 South Skirlaugh school was assigned ¼ of the net income of Langdale’s charity and the half then allocated for apprenticeships might, in their absence, be used to encourage education in the form of prizes and grants. In the earlier 20th century the school’s share was £6-9 a year and the trustees spent c. £10 on prizes. Today the charity supports the church and students in further education or apprenticeships.