Jean Wilson
In the 1980s I was fortunate to meet some of the pupils who had been at the Hayes Church School over a hundred years ago. Beatrice Russell and Grace Willis (née Knopp) started in 1908/9 and Bill Dance in 1918. In the classroom photograph of 1908, Beatrice is on the left in the second row and Grace’s older sister Ruth is on the left in the front row.
The head was William Plant who had arrived as the teacher for the senior pupils – those over 7 years old – in 1874. He was a keen musician and the school had regular concerts. He was also the Church choirmaster and there were plenty of schoolboys (not girls) in the choir. All remembered the strict discipline at school but they also enjoyed their schooldays and still had the books they had received as prizes and the silver medal given for 100% attendance and good conduct. Beatrice Russell recalled the cookery lessons which started with a visit to buy the meat from Miss Sands, the butcher in Baston Road, who once it was weighed made them work out the cost. Grace Willis remembered the strange way in which Mr Plant did the spelling tests, standing back-to-back in a circle. Bill Dance remembered that for woodwork lessons the boys had to walk to Keston School once a week and were punished if they arrived late. Football and also netball was played on the old cricket ground on Hayes Common. The boys carried up the goalposts and the pitch was marked out with sawdust.
Bill Dance also had some less pleasant experiences such as clambering over the old roof of the outside toilet to collect fallen walnuts and falling through into the bucket below. It resulted in a caning both from the head and from his mother!
William Plant retired in 1920 and some parents felt that the new head Mrs Burman was ‘too modern’ but they were pleased that she continued to encourage a love of music.
Winifred Timms, at school from 1917-1928 and her sister Dorothy from 1923-1929 recalled the many Nativity and other plays that were acted. Dorothy remembered being Molly Cottontail in a performance of Brer Rabbit. ‘I had a lovely rabbit costume with a super tail’. Her sister Winnie was one of the narrators. Winnie also recalled that as soon as they began school they had to start to knit vests. At first, she was slow and when she came home from school she had to sit and do so many rows before she was allowed her tea. However, at the age of eight, she knitted a jumper in pink with champagne colour around the neck and the edge of the sleeves.
Another school started in Hayes in 1919, Hayes Court School, but it was not for the local children. It was an exclusive girls’ boarding school opened in the rambling old house by Miss Katherine Cox.
In 1985 Roma Goyder collected and published the memories of pupils who had been at the school and I was delighted to speak with Elizabeth Belsey, who was a pupil from 1925 to 1930 and later returned as a teacher. Miss Katherine Cox was ahead of her time in her attitude towards education. She could be both autocratic and also allow the pupils considerable freedom. Described by one pupil as ‘tall, angular rather than graceful, she paddled along on low-heeled pumps dressed in loose, loudly checked clothes’. Nearly all the pupils disliked the school tunics – ‘a long-sleeved grey wool stockinette in winter, grey ‘sponge cloth’ in summer both garnished with green bobbles and fringes . . . We wore green-grey matching knickers under our tunics’. The traditional subjects were taught but there was an emphasis on English literature and also on science and mathematics. Pupils remembered lessons from her father, Professor Cox, a former Professor of Physics at McGill University who had published books on mechanics and ‘Beyond the Atom’. His lectures on astronomy ‘were well above our head’. Fanny Hopkins remembered that she was so inspired that until she was 17 ‘she read nothing except poetry and astronomy’. There were lessons from Mr Hamilton, ‘whose enthusiasm for Maths was so infectious that I actually caught a glimpse of what the subject was all about’. On the fringe of the Bloomsbury set Miss Cox was keen to ensure that art, music and drama were also well represented in the syllabus. Mr and Mrs Wheatley came once a week from the Slade School of Fine Art and his advice was to ‘draw, look and see where the lines go . . . put down what you see without fear or prejudice . . . never use a rubber’. Marion Richardson, a pioneer in art education for children, later took over and there were also talks from many famous artists including from the well-known mosaicist Boris Anrep, whose daughter was at the school. In 1926 Virginia Woolf came with her sister Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and her advice ‘Don’t read a book because you think you ought to; only because you want to’, remained firmly in one schoolgirl’s memory. It seems to have been an inspirational place and many pupils went on to achieve great success in many different walks of life. Please send any of your memories to: contact@hayeskenthistory.co.uk.
Jean Wilson