The Victorians

Bishop Road was officially opened in 1896, towards the very end of the Victorian period, yet very little changed…

The Victorians

Bishop Road was officially opened in 1896, towards the very end of the Victorian period, yet very little changed…

Bishop Road was officially opened in 1896, towards the very end of the Victorian period, yet very little changed for the next 10 or 20 years. In Bishop Road, schooling was only compulsory up to the age of 11 and many children left  at this young age to start working. Can you imagine getting to year 6 and worrying about getting a job rather than transferring to secondary school? 

Now that education was free and compulsory (you had to attend), the focus was on attendance and high expectations. If children had 100% attendance and punctuality in a year, they would be awarded the ‘Never Absent, Never Late’ medal.

Most of the teaching was by drill and rote learning but the curriculum didn’t just cover reading, writing and arithmetic. There were additional lessons in geography, history and drawing. The boys learned woodwork and science while the girls did sewing and cooking instead. If pupils failed, they would have to repeat the year with children in the year below them. 

Bishop Road illustrates the changes in school buildings at the end of the Victorian period, Most teaching before then had been done in single school rooms with up to 150 children being taught by one teacher. Gradually, this changed and by the 1890s most schools had individual classrooms circling a central high-roofed hall.

Below are the only remaining archival materials we have left of this fascinating time period in school. Excitingly, a whole stash of letters has recently emerged that were written by pupils of our school back in 1916. Whilst not from the Victorian era, the letters give a flavour of life in our school at the turn of the century and show that little had changed since our school opened. The letters were written by pupils in Miss (Katherine Vera) Thomas’s class when she got married to Arthur Greenway and left the teaching profession. Just look at that handwriting! Also included in the photos is Reginald Lane, an old boy who went to Bishop Road in 1902. His end of year ‘Examination Report’, military service and wedding photographs are all below too.