The Railway and Hullavington School

In the 1890s, every effort was being made by the Great Western Railway to speed up train services, and to streamline the services further, plans were made and Parliamentary sanction obtained for a general streamlining of the main traffic routes of the Company. One of these routes was the line to South Wales. At that time, despite the completion of the Severn Tunnel, trains still had to pass through Chippenham, Box Tunnel, Bath and the eastern outskirts of Bristol on their way to, or from, Wales. To avoid this particular "Great Way Round", the GWR promoted what was called the South Wales and Bristol Direct Railway. In fact, in building the line, the GWR had more than traffic to South Wales in mind, but had full expectations that Milford, in West Wales, would develop as the port for dealing with extensive overseas traffic.

What has all this to do with the Hullavington School? Those of us that live in the village know that the line passes just to the north of Hullavington and it is the quite startling effect that the building of the line had on the school that gave rise to this article. At least as far back as 1860, successive Headmasters of Hullavington have maintained an almost day-to-day diary of events in the school. A number of years ago, I was allowed to read through the diary for the period 1884 to 1903 and, as a railway enthusiast, I immediately turned to the late 1890s to see if any mention was made of the building of the railway. I was pleasantly surprised at how often it was mentioned, but even more surprised at the effect it had on the school.

By the end of the nineteenth century, compulsory education was about in its 25th year, and it is thought that the salary of the teachers at Hullavington School was influenced by the attendance at the school. Hence, successive Headmasters, during this period, were very much concerned with attendance figures and much of the diary deals with the daily attendance, often giving reasons why it was either up or down. In May, it would be down because it was the potato-planting season, in September, because it was the potato-picking season, and again in November because beaters were required for the local landowners shoot. During the period from 1897 to 1903, however, there was another factor that influenced the attendance of the school and that was the building of the nearby railway.

The first official step towards its construction took place on 29th November 1897 when the Dowager Duchess of Beaufort cut the first sod at the village of Old Sodbury. Nevertheless, preparations were already underway along the length of the line because the headmaster had made his first reference to the railway when his entry was as follows:

Week ending 29th October, 1897
"A full school this week - there have been several children admitted whose parents are brought to the village to work on the new railway"

During the early 1890s, the number of children on the register at the school had been just over the 100 and, at the start of 1897, stood at 110. This was soon to change!

30th November 1897
"There are now 122 children on the books - and the school for elder scholars is inconveniently full of children"

10th January 1898
"Re-opened school. Admitted 7 new scholars this morning. Six are children of Navvies from Kingway. On books 130. The room for elder scholars is inconveniently crowded."

The above is the first mention of the Kingway settlement. This was the temporary settlement built by the navies alongside the new railway close by the point where the A417 Chippenham to Malmesbury road passes under the railway and it was used for the duration of the building of the railway. A site nearly one mile to the north east of Hullavington and a distance which in itself caused the school problems as we shall see later. Still the numbers increased:

17th January, 1898
"There are now 135 children on the books. The Board has appointed another teacher to assist in Infant Room or where required".

31st January, 1898
"Admitted Heather Leak - a child from the Kingway navies' huts – said to be very nervous and she has a bad impediment in her speech".

Obviously, as work began seriously to get underway, it became quite an attraction to the villagers of Hullavington because, on the 11th February 1898, the entry read:-

"A low attendance this afternoon. Several families are gone to see the Railway Works!"

And still more children arrived:

18th April, 1898
"School re-assembled (after Easter). Admitted 10 new children. No. now on books 150. These children are nearly all low in attainments"

29th April, 1898
"159 children are now on Books".

The school year started in June at that time and the subjects to be studied during the following years 1898-99 reflected the coming of the railway. The object lessons for the infant department included a Railway Station, while on top of the list for the elder scholars were “A steam engine" and "A railway".

Although the number was now nearly 160, overcrowding was not always the problem that it might have been because, much to the frustration of the headmaster, large numbers stayed away as indicated by the following entries.

8th July, 1898
"This afternoon 61 children are away. For their absence there are only trivial excuses. I simply cannot teach as is expected of me whilst the School Board allows gross irregularity!!"

22nd July 1898.
"80 away"

1st August, 1898 Bank Holiday
"There was a very low attendance today, there being 93 children absent in the morning and 92 in the afternoon. There is, of course, a holiday for the Railway employees and no railway child was present this morning."

By the time of the start of the new term after the Harvest Break in September 1898, the number had reached its maximum of 175, as indicated by the entry for the 12th September when 141 children were present and 34 away. The practice of the railway children being away on a Friday afternoon frustrated the Headmaster.

23rd September 1898
"48 children were away this morning - several of these were from the Railway huts at Kingway. The children here have the pernicious habit of staying away on Friday afternoons"

As mentioned earlier, the distance of the settlement from the school did not help attendance figures, especially on wet days as indicated by the following entry: -

23rd November 1898
"A very wet day indeed. No child from Kingway present. Over 90 children were absent each session today"

Not that the problems of the school were going completely unnoticed by the authorities, as is indicated by the Report of the Diocesan Inspector, who visited the school and reported as follows:

"This school has received a large addition to its numbers as the result of the adjacent navvy settlement at Kingway, many of these children are ignorant and untrained. Apart from these, this school has reached a level above the average of County Schools".

The lack of education of the Kingway children is again emphasized by the entry for:

15th December, 1898:-
"Admitted Maria Fountain of Kingway. She is 12 years of age and unable to do the simplest Stand. I sum! She seems, however, to have a very fair intellect, and will progress if made to attend regularly."

Still Fridays continued to frustrate the headmaster:

Friday, Feb 1899
"A great drop (20) in the attendance. There is a custom it seems among the more ignorant villagers and the railway employees very generally, of keeping their children away from school on Friday"

Sanitary conditions at the Kingway camp were probably extremely poor and illness and perhaps even death were not uncommon, as indicated by the entry as follows:

6th March 1899
"FEVER. It is reported that there is Scarlet Fever among children at Kingway, one child Jimmy Smith (Infant) is said to be suffering from the disease. No official notice has been given me. No other child from the same house is present today".

Week ending 10th March 1899
"A good attendance this week.
One other case of fever is reported - Sarah Smith of Kingway huts."

As well as poor sanitary conditions, there is no doubt that the educational standards of the children of the navvy families at Kingway were well below the normal levels of the time, as shown by the entry for:

21st March 1899:
"Admitted Mary Ann Cook of Kingway - a child 12 years of age. She cannot remember when she last attended school. She has been living a year at Kingway "helping mother". She is deplorably ignorant of anything beyond Infant works."

An amusing entry appears against

17th May, 1899:
"I have noticed an improvement in the cleanliness of the hands of the railway works boys. I find the only remedy for filthy hands in these cases to be regular inspection, cane in hand."

Still the opportunity for employment by the railway works continued to keep boys away from school:

19th February 1900
"Win Mears has returned to school after continuous absence for 7 months, during which he has been illegally employed by Messrs. Pearson on the Railway. More these gentlemen always dismiss such boys when informed they ought to be at school."

Obviously, extremes of weather conditions were experienced during the year 1900 as shown from the following entries:

10th July 1900
There was great heat in the schoolroom today. 86 children had to be taught in a space 29 ft x 16 ft.

26th October 1900
"A very wet day - small attendance. Several children from Kingway were rather wet, but I had their clothing well dried when they arrived at school."

5th December 1900
"A very wet morning. Many Kingway children were very uncomfortable when they came and had to have clothes well dried."

The frustrations experienced by the Headmaster in trying to maintain good attendance figures are summed up in the following entries:

17th December 1900
"Removed Wm Mears name from Register. He has for months been (according to Admission reg) illegally employed on the railway. On being summoned before magistrates, his mother produced a certificate of birth of some child with quite another name and swore that was the child in question and that the school books were wrong as regards name and age!! The sympathetic magistrates let her off!! The boy is, therefore, still at work. He could not pass a Standard I examination, and is very small and apparently young."

5th February l901
"Scarlatina has broken out at Kjngway among the children of Mr John Smith. So far five children are withheld from school on account of the outbreak."

18th April 1901
"A poor attendance today, 39 children being absent. This is perhaps partly accounted for by Alderton Races- and there is a partial holiday at the railway works - potato planting takes others"

As the first years of the twentieth century passed by, life with the railway children must have settled into a fairly familiar pattern because particular mention of them almost disappears.

26th/27th July 1902
"Coronation Holiday. Although the Coronation did not take place, the school did not meet on these days. Neighboring villages were en fete, also the Kingway navvy settlement."

All good things come to an end and as the year 1902 began to close work on the railway began to come to an end as indicated by the following:

30th September 1902
"The school board informed me that owing to the removal of railway employees - as yet only anticipated having lost only a few children and having now 159 on the roll - they should forth with give two teachers notice."

So in due course the line opened and with it the station at Hullavington. It was opened for freight traffic on the 1st January 1903 and to passengers on 1st July 1903 and appears to have required no particular mention by the Headmaster of the time. If there were any celebrations of any kind, they are certainly not mentioned by the head and with the departure of the navvies, school life must have resumed much as it had been five years earlier. Today, the number at the school is much the same at around the 100+ mark, but the school is now on a new site. High Speed Trains race through Hullavington at 125 mph on their way between Paddington and South Wales, but, unfortunately, the Station, along with all the others on the line, was closed both to passengers and freight in the 1960s and little remains. Nevertheless, the embankments, deep cuttings and tunnels remain as a monument to the work of the navvies, some of whom made Hullavington their home for those five years at the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century.

The accompanying photograph is a copy of a photograph that the late Molly Gale of Green’s Close had in her possession. She believed it was a picture taken during the building of the line through Hullavington although I believe I have seen it in a railway book that said it was a picture taken in Devon. Judging by the depth of the cutting it could well be the line through Hullavington but nevertheless indicates the degree of manual labour involved even at the end of the nineteenth century. No man is without his cap!