Summary of Back In Time For School – Episode One

We watched Episode One which is summarised by the BBC as follows:

“Starting at the very close of Victoria’s reign they discover how national attitudes to class, race and gender filtered into the classroom, before entering the turbulent years between the World Wars. They experience lessons that seem bizarre by modern standards – from musket practise and mother-craft to deportment and duck herding – and take part in activities that we all remember from our own school days – the classic 80s cross-country run, the day Encarta enters British classrooms, and perhaps even master the puzzling gadget that was the 1960s slide rule.

Their experience begins in 1895. The smell of coal burners wafts down the corridor, and a portrait of Queen Victoria hangs proudly in the school hall. Our class discover what it was like for the lucky four per cent of children able to attend school in this period, when education was still seen as a preserve for the rich, but a handful of schools offered affordable places to ordinary families for the first time. In this age of Empire, the class comes to understand just how much attitudes have changed, and are shocked to discover that Victorian notions of Empire and citizenship are very different to modern ideas. School dinner is a silver-service affair, presided over by the teachers, whose authority is absolute. Alien to our 21st-century pupils’ eyes and palates, the menu offers them fish pie with a tapioca pudding, a meal the Victorian schoolchild would have been grateful for, at a time when many pupils worked part-time to support their family’s income and food supply – as some of our boys find out. With the advent of flash-photography powder, their chemistry teacher introduces them to a new scientific formula with an explosive bang, and one of the pupils is disciplined in an era-appropriate fashion by having his left hand tied to the desk.

With the death of Queen Victoria in 1902, the pupils and teachers enter into the Edwardian era. Segregation is common place in schools at this time, so our pupils are separated for gender-specific learning. While the boys enter into the possibility of the professions by learning Latin, the girls are tasked with more ladylike lessons – making beds, cleaning and putting up wallpaper, as they are taught the art of the housewifery. In 1904, the class and teachers gather with friends and family to celebrate Empire Day, a pageant common in schools throughout the Edwardian era. With students playing the roles of Peace and Britannia, their classmates flank them with banners proclaiming the reach of the British Empire, before singing the national anthem.

Towards the end of the era, the threat of war means the boys are trained in musket practise and learning to fight. The building desire for democracy has begun, and the girls come to understand how important the vote was to British women, as they learn the art of self-defence Suffragette style. As their time-travels draw to a close in 1914, and the pupils reflect on their Victorian experience, the school holds a prize-giving ceremony. A mark of academic achievement, which seeks to imbue the children with a sense of pride and responsibility, in order for them to fulfil their roles in society, in the testing and troubling years that will follow.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bx7lxt

Here are our thoughts following the programme:

  • Only four per cent of children able to attend school in this period. Feels disgusted mainly, but a small part relieved as school didn’t sound so nice.
  • Most children left school at 11 to go to work.
  • One of the pupils is disciplined in an era-appropriate fashion by having his left hand tied to the desk. Literally something he was born with. We feel this was inhumane and insane.
  • Girls were taught the same as boys up until 1902 when there was a change in the school system. Science and maths were very important subjects but replaced by Latin for boys and Needlework for girls. Children were now taught separately according to gender.
  • Empire was a key topic in Geography. Empire Day was celebrated by 55,000 schools and 7 million children across the globe. We remarked on how racist attitude was taught as fact and how shocking that was.
  • We had a change of monarch in 1901. Edward VI, the son of Queen Victoria became King. We think the children would have been upset by her death. We read more about mourning in the Victorian period here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/understanding-grief/201812/death-and-mourning-practices-in-the-victorian-age

Victorian Inventions at Home – Are They Still As Great?

We have been reading Great Victorian Inventions by Caroline Rochford and this time we are going to look at what was designed for the home. MrsDTB thinks its a good idea that we have a hunt for items in that chapter that we use in our home today. MasterKAF is happy to join in and so here are the results of our search:

Moveable House (1884). One of the first people to market a “moveable house” was Monsieur Poitreneau in 1884. Today we call them caravans or flat pack buildings. We have plenty of outdoor buildings but not a caravan. MrsDTB’s sister, however, is about to buy a Motorhome, making us bang up to date with the developments from this invention. 

Radiators (1885)

They used to call it a House Warming Apparatus. MasterKAF says they are heckin’ useful as it makes getting through winter much easier. Can you imagine trying to get to sleep in conditions such as -5degrees? Even with global warming, it’s still pretty cold in the winter! 

Inventions that we wish we had

The Automatic Egg Cooker (1892). We don’t have this in our kitchen but can’t think why! We do have an egg timer but this would be so much easier! MasterKAF said he does not care what universe you are from if you like eggs then you need this machine. 

Next time we are going to look for some more inventions for the home and see if there are any we wish still existed. 

Workhouse – three words – hell on earth.

Who worked in The Workhouse?

Master, Matron, school teacher and a part-time clerk. The ratio of staff to inmate was practically non-existent. Punishments were harsh. Riots might have happened but there was nowhere else to go.  We found out about one such riot at a Workhouse in Andover.

What were the jobs and punishments?

Jobs included:

  • Crush bones to make fertiliser
  • Breaking stones to make gravel for the roads for example.
  • Turning a mill, used to make flour and other products.
  • Cleaning the building (which was huge)

The jobs were not nice, laborious, slow, menial, boring, dull, lacking interest and sometimes painful. It must have felt degrading to do those jobs. Some people might have felt like they were dying. 

Punishments such as solitary confinement were used and the first line of action was no food at the next meal. We read about one lady being sent to prison for 2 months for breaking a window.

We are really glad that we were not living in a place like that and worried that people must have suffered ill health, mental health and maybe even taken their own lives. It feels really sad. 

How could you end up in a Workhouse?

You could end up in the workhouse for many reasons; because you were robbed, your house burned down, you had a run of bad luck. To call the inmates idle and profligate could have been as an insult in itself because there was no kindness or thought that the person found their way there through no fault of their own, there was only suffering. (MasterKAF is thinking like a depressed philosopher!)

MrsDTB decided to end the session here as, to be honest, it was getting very sombre! We feel very lucky to be living in this day and age and have the opportunities that we do. 

Strike!

The third episode finds the team facing the gruelling inequality of the Potteries. These were the factories that were the powerhouses of the Industrial Revolution.

Amidst the bottle kilns of the Staffordshire potteries, it’s not just the machinery that’s revolutionary! With no break since leaving the 19th-century equivalent of the motorway services – the coaching-inn the team now have kilns to keep alight, clay to prep and pots to make. It’s hard work for very little pay, and dissent is in the air. Will our apprentice potters, like their forebears, take up the call to arms for better working conditions and pay?

What?

The Pottery Riots in 1842 were part of the General Strike which happened in many places across the country including but not limited to, Hanley and Burslem in what is now Stoke on Trent. As the strike gained momentum, Chartists lent their support, soldiers were called in to fire on the protestors who then, rightfully, stoned them back. In the end, people were wounded and killed and property was destroyed. By the end, it would have looked like a setting in a war movie!

Where?

Staffordshire, The Black Country and North Wales were three areas where strikes have been recorded.

When?

In the middle of 1842, riots became more common than ever and the movement of Chartism received a lot of support. We will find out more about Chartism in another session.

Who?

There were people known as flywheel turners, turning large wheels used to spin pots. They worked in a team with the potter. There was a one-legged dancer who had to pump with their right leg to power a pot makers machine. Over time due to what they had to do, their body became deformed and they had one very strong leg and one normal leg. There were also clay ballers which is pretty self-explanatory!

The people were working class.

The people who were middle class would work as overseers, over the working class. They would have better pay.

The customers were intended to be middle class, but the upper class also bought from the potteries too. 

Why?

It was done to make wages and fuel the industrial boom of Victorian Britain. The strike began to happen as more people were promised payment but did not get it when the pottery broke in the kiln. The pots can sometimes explode in the kiln if the clay has not been balled properly. If one person messed up in the process, then everyone lost out. This made people feel pretty terrible, angry and rebellious.

How did the Strike change Victorian Britain?

It ended up changing workers’ rights for the better. Also, the County Police was formed.

 

Things to find out more about

Chartism

The General Strike.

The rise of British Armed History on the Beeb

The British Police Force

 

Victorian Coaching Inn

Episode 2 focused on the Coaching Inn. Here is our write up. MasterKAF chose the words and MrsDTB typed it up ?

What was it?

Where the richer folk would stop on journeys to eat and sometimes sleep. It was like a motorway service station and overnight hotel. It was also a chance to replace horses or resting them so that they could continue the journey.

Where were they?

The episode was filmed at a renovated real-life coaching inn called the New Inn. Coaching Inns were dotted along the roads in the country.

When were they used?

The mid 18th Century was the point when they were most common. After this point, they began to go out of business as there were not enough customers because trains were becoming more popular and cheaper to run.

Why were they used?

It was the fastest mode of transport at that time. Today you might be able to out cycle a galloping horse though! But then bikes were incredibly expensive and not even that fast, plus they were very hard to ride as they made a massive front wheel and a tiny back wheel!

Penny Farthings were not practical or fast!

The mail coach also used Coaching Inns so they could get a fast turnaround of their carriage.

Who used them?

Coaching Inns also had local farm workers as customers. They were not given nice food though. Sometimes they only got bread or cheese. Richer customers were supposed to get meat soup or good quality fish or rabbit, but in the episode, we watched, the people were given their food so late that it was too hot to eat, even though they had already paid for it. The coaching inn owner planned to sell the soup again later! Not the most ethical thing to do.