
In 1731 the parish registers record the death of Richard Smith who had been parish clerk and schoolmaster for 36 years. The school at which he taught was unendowed, as is stated by the vicar in 1743 (Archbishop Herring’s Visitations), who wrote “There is no Charity School endowed or otherwise maintained in this parish, but as everyone pays for their own Childer”. This school was held in a cottage at West End which in 1752 was in the possession of the schoolmaster Thomas Ellerton. It was said of his successor Theophilus Dalwin in 1764 that “He teachers English, writing, arithmetic and instructs the children in principles of Xtian religion, according to the Church of England”.
The schoolhouse was owned by the parish and at the enclosures of Wallingfen and South Cave it was allotted 10 acres of land in lieu of common rights. Income from this was used by the churchwardens at first to repair the old buildings (accounts for 1784 and 1796). Then in 1796 the land was mortgaged for 30 years and the money raised with the help of public subscriptions, was applied to the building of the market hall with a schoolroom above and a master’s house behind. For the use of the house the master was to educate two boys free. This was the school to which diarist, Robert Sharp, came in 1804.
The Cross School
In 1817 a new vicar, Edward Barnard, the brother of Henry Gee Barnard, decided that the school should be attached to the National Society. (See Regulations) The school provided free education for ten boys and in 1819 was said to have over 80 pupils, whilst in 1823 it had about 50. By 1835 the master’s income had fallen to about £7, and there were said to be only 30 boys attending.
In 1840 the then vicar, Rev Hotham, proposed the forming of a new school because the Cross school had become “the wreck of what it once was”, the master’s stipend having dwindled to £7.10s. This was presumably still Robert Sharp, who would have been 65 then. Robert Sharp presumably served until his death in 1843, when he was succeeded by William Thomas Bruce (1815-1891, bn Grantham), who in turn was succeeded by his assistant James Johnson (bn.c.1848, Market Weighton) in about 1871.
The Cross school had an average attendance of 40 in 1861 (VCH). Accommodation in the century-old school was far from adequate and in 1893 the Infant’s Dept of the Boys’ school was condemned as unfit. This threw the vicar and churchgoers into a state of panic as they feared the “catastrophe of a School Board” which could lead to the “invertebrate jelly-fish sort of religion taught in some London Board Schools”.
However, the church retained control. Mr Barnard provided a school site (further south in Market Place) and a new Boys’ School was opened on March 6th 1895 at a cost of £600. The new school was administered by a body of managers and was under the headship of James Johnson.
In 1899 the school was at the centre of controversy. The vicar Rev. Miller, chairman of the managers, had a dispute with George Moverley, the people’s representative on the managing body, and he removed Moverley from the committee. This led a number of people to curtail their subscriptions. The vicar refused the usual church collections for the school and also withheld the £3-4 which went to it from church land. This seriously affected the headmaster’s salary. In February the vicar, as chairman, closed the school down and opened it anew with a new master, Mr Dennis, in charge. Only 4 pupils turned up, whilst the rest (79 and Mr Johnson, fully supported by Mrs Barnard) went back to the old Cross School, the National Union of Teachers paying his salary.
The question arose as to who owned the Boys’ School. It was decided that Mrs Barnard should bring a case against the vicar and churchwardens. The case was settled in her favour before reaching court. She took possession of the school, reinstated the managers and leased them the premises for one shilling per annum. On January 7th 1901 James Johnson returned to the new school after an absence of almost two years.
Girls’ School
It was not until 1841 that the village girls were provided with formal education; in that year Mrs Elizabeth Barnard established a girls’ school in a room in Market Place. A schoolroom was built in Market Place in 1844, with a parochial reading room attached by 1845. The room was replaced by a new building in 1866. The school was conducted on the National School plan and was generally known as Mrs Barnard’s Girls’ School. Average attendances were around 60. In 1865 35 girls, “Mrs Barnard’s scholars” paid one penny each whilst 35 others paid 3d. From 1867 the school received an annual government grant. Infants were also taught there in the 1870s.
Private Schools
One kept by George Windus and the other in Market Place under Francis Jackson. (Baines, early 1800s)
Thomas Holberry – Market Place, recorded in directoris between 1831 and 1851.
Rev. John Allen, the Congregationalist Minister, 1839-46, ran an Academy for Young Ladies at West End.
Sunday Schools
C of E – est 1834 by Rev. Hotham; Congregationalists by Rev John Allen in 1839.
Extracts from the (No.10) Report of the Charity Commissioners dated 28th June 1823.
Parish of South Cave
The School
Before the inclosure of the open and waste lands in South Cave, a parish School was kept in a cottage anciently used for that purpose the master being appointed by the parishioners. On the inclosure of South Cave lands and of Walling Fen, the following allotments were awarded:
In South Cave:
To the churchwardens, in lieu of School Stray 1a.38p.
In 1797 the several allotments were demised in consideration of £300 to Jonathan Scutt, for 30 years, at a yearly rent, reserved to the overseers of the poor of 1/- a year, and the money thus raised (which was a very large consideration for the lease) was applied, with other funds raised by a parish rate, in building a market house in South Cave, with a school room above and a house for the schoolmaster behind it. The schoolmaster was required, before 1817, to teach two poor boys free, but in that year the school was put upon the national system, through the exertions of the vicar, and the master has since received a yearly salary from voluntary subscriptions, for which, and a payment of 1/6 a quarter from each child, he engages to instruct all the poor children of the parish, above seven years of age, and he has at present about 50 scholars under his tuition.