St. Michael's School
Education in Stoke Gifford. Material courtesy of Mike Stanbrook.
1641 The inventory of Robert Lawford Yeoman/Schoolmaster shows that he combined school teaching with farming. The school which was attached to his house consisted of 2 rooms, school house chamber and lower room. As `the skole house chamber' was used to store oats and wheat, `the lower roome in the skoole house' accommodating Packe saddeles and other furniture and other impellments', one wonders where the pupils were accommodated, it would seem that the school room was no longer functioning.
1741 We hear no more of schooling until 1741 when John Silcocks of Stoke Gifford insisted that the trustees of his £200 endowment for schools at Stoke Gifford, Winterbourne, Almondsbury and Filton should put it out 'in interest only' and not in land. Nothing further is recorded about this school if there was one at all.
1786 A Sunday School Private Plan started. The school was probably held in a private house, possibly that of the master or mistress. The school day commenced at 9 am with the reading of the psalms then morning service a the church. After church the children went home to dinner. The afternoon commenced at 2 pm with the catechism and reading. This lasted until 8pm in the summer and 5 pm in the winter.
Numbers of poor children admitted to the Sunday school:
In 1786 it was 37, in 1787 it was 35, in 1788 it was 28 and in 1789 it was 26
1815 Winterbourne school opened. This was run under the National School Plan and was attended by children from Westerleigh, Frampton Cottrell and Stoke Gifford.
1842 Frampton Cotterell opened its own school. The Stoke Gifford parish map shows a small building in the village green opposite the St. Michaels school site marked as a school being listed as owned by the overseer of the poor.
1854 School room built into newly built Walls Court farm for the children of the farm workers
1863 Stoke Gifford Village School built on the edge of the Village Green
1870 New National School at Winterbourne
1959 Filton High School Opens
Number Of Pupils in St. Michaels School on the 1st April 1945
| Ages | 4/5 | 5/6 | 6/7 | 7/8 | 8/9 | 9/10 | 10/11 | 11/12 | 12/13 | 13/14 | 14/15 |
| Pupils | 2 | 21 | 11 | 20 | 11 | 15 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Reports were made by inspectors of Schools. Some of these from around 1910 can be found on the links below. These are all .jpg files of about 120 Kbytes each which will take about 30 seconds over a telephone line.
Material courtesy of Mike Stanbrook.
Report 11 Report 12 Report 13 Report 14 Report 15 Report 16 Report 17 Report 18 Report 19 Report 20
Report 21 Report 22 Report 23 Report 24 Report 25 Report 26 Report 27 Report 28 Report 29 Report 30
Report 31 Report32
Here are some attendance registers, the names of the pupils have been removed but these give a good idea of the problems the school had including disease, bad weather. They also record the death in service of two of the teachers. Material courtesy of Mike Stanbrook.
Miss Mathlin had a severe cold on 14th Feb 1919 and died of Pneumonia 4 days later
Around 1922 Margaret Rowland, the head teacher for the last 27 years retired. Born in Edinburgh in about 1860 she moved to Torquay where her father got a job as a butler. From there she moved to Holne in Devon to be a school teacher and thence to Stoke Gifford.
As the records show she was at one time teaching 53 children with only a supplementary teacher to help her. Her work is summarised in these extracts from the inspector's reports.
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Margaret Rowland Head mistress of St. Michael's School c. 1895-1922 Photographs courtesy of Lowri Jones |
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St Michaels School class of 1946 |
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Ms Maude Rooke, appointed Head Teacher in 1924, was taken ill and required an operation in May 1941 and died in March, a year later.
School attendance 1906_1909 Larger record
School Attendance 1910_1913 Larger record
School Attendance 1913_1917 Larger record
I am indebted to Margaret Richards, archivist to the Duke of Beaufort, for the help in identifying the coat of arms.
The coat of arms is that of the 8th Duke of Beaufort impaled with those of his wife, Lady Georgiana Charlotte Curzon, eldest daughter of the 1st Lord Howe.
The Old School Rooms, given to the people of Stoke Gifford as part of the Duke of Beaufort's Estate, is now administered by the church. It was in use as the village school until 1986. A coat of arms can be seen just under the apex of the eaves.
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The arms have been constructed such that the left hand side
of the arms are those of the 8th Duke, the right hand side
those of Lady Curzon. The supporters or the animals are,
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Details of the shield |
The arms of the Duke of Beaufort |
A View of the 2003 extension
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The arms of Lord Howe
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