Stow cum Quy: Education

EDUCATION.

There was a schoolmaster in 1579, (fn. 1) and another was licensed in 1584, but no organized schooling was recorded from the early 17th century (fn. 2) to the early 19th. (fn. 3) By 1818 there was a dame school with 12 children, and into the 1850s the lord of the manor paid £1 4s. annually for teaching three poor girls to read. (fn. 4) After 1826 the curate, Edward Ventris, started a Sunday school which had 100 pupils, half girls, in 1833, when two dame schools taught 50 in all. (fn. 5) Ventris's school lapsed briefly c. 1836, but J. T. Martin, the squire, undertook to revive it and build a schoolroom. (fn. 6) By 1846 the Martins had provided two rooms, in which a master and mistress whom they paid taught c. 35 boys and 50 girls. (fn. 7) A mistress, once their maid, taught c. 85 schoolchildren in 1851. A master and his wife kept the school, by then a National one, in 1861. The village wheelwright's wife, certificated by 1873, was in charge between 1866 and the 1880s, when the older of 65-70 pupils taught the younger. By 1875 instruction included geography and physical drill to music. The school building north of the Stow road, still owned by the squire Clement Francis, who managed the school, was enlarged in 1873. In 1876 c. 65 out of 90 children paying schoolpence attended regularly. (fn. 8) Night schools were also held in the 1870s (fn. 9) and 1890s. (fn. 10) In 1888 only 27 out of 60 villagers with common rights could write their name. (fn. 11)

A new vicar taught at the school twice a week in 1897. (fn. 12) Only in 1929 did the county council take it over, the customary religious teaching continuing. (fn. 13) Between the 1880s and the 1920s attendance had usually been 40-50, rising to 60 c. 1897 and falling to 35 in the 1930s. (fn. 14) Among new subjects taught were drawing from 1893 and history and nature study in the 1920s. (fn. 15) From 1937 the older children were sent to Bottisham village college. (fn. 16) Although numbers rose temporarily in the late 1940s, they fell back from 60 (fn. 17) to 30 by 1973. Closure, planned c. 1955 and in 1973, was effected in 1978. (fn. 18) The children went initially to Lode primary school, from 1985 to one at Bottisham. (fn. 19) The building, reverting to the Francises, became the village hall. (fn. 20)