Saved from the Silver Fish

Muston School Photograph 1902 - Can You Supply the Missing Names?

Mr. Alan Hodgkinson of Muston recently allowed us to copy this wonderful photograph of the pupils of Muston School in 1902. The picture is beautifully sharp and detailed, except where some of the very small children haven't quite managed to sit still for the length of exposure needed. Even better, Mr. Hodgkinson's mother, who appears on the photograph at three years old, recorded the names of every child on the photograph. Only three names are missing, eaten by silver fish. Perhaps someone can supply the missing names.

Mr. Hodgkinson's mother, the late Mrs. Basil Hodgkinson, was Dorothy Donger, seen second from the left in the front row  (row 5). Also on the photograph are three older sisters, Ethel, Mabel and Margaret and her older brother, Reginald. Dorothy and her sisters and brother are all beautifully dressed, as are almost all the other children in the picture. The taking of the school photograph was obviously a great occasion. They are clothed in their Sunday best; sailor suits, lace collars, ruffles and bows. Their shoes, though, show signs of hard wear and careful repair.

Many of the boys wear button holes. The image is so sharp that it is possible to identify the flowers they have picked from the village gardens on their way to school. They are mostly chrysanthemums, suggesting the picture was taken in late Summer or early Autumn, perhaps at the start of the new term.

We are especially delighted with this photograph since it is the oldest school photograph we have seen for Muston or Bottesford. So far all the school photographs which we have been allowed to copy for the Community Heritage Project Archive have been from the late 1920s or after, and we have been hoping for some time that an older one would turn up.

The date of this photograph makes it possible to find the names of many of the children on the Muston census for 1901, though some identifications are necessarily speculative. The census was taken on March 31st 1901.The ages given for the children on the 1902 photograph are based on the assumption that the children are one year older than the age given on the census. However, since the photograph appears to have been taken around September, some children may be older.

In 1901/2 the official school leaving age was 12, but there were many exemptions, especially in rural areas. There does not seem to have been any official starting age. It is not uncommon to find children as young as 3 on the school roll, though two year olds are rarer. Some children would have left school at ten. Others, where the family could afford to support them, might stay on until 14. The older children in the photograph may well be monitors or pupil-teachers.

 

The 1901 census does not give addresses as we understand them today, but it does give road names which can be roughly matched to the map to show the part of the village where families lived.

Some of the children of school age who are listed on the census do not appear on the photograph. There are many possible reasons for this, most obviously illness or a need to keep them away to help at home or at work. Some children may have gone to school elsewhere, a few Muston children were enrolled at Bottesford school. In the year between the census and the photograph some families may have moved.

The children in the picture are mostly informally arranged in family or friendship groups, rather than being placed entirlely by age or height as is more often the case. Below we have tried to reorganise the pictures into family groups with information taken from the Muston census.

The 1901 census tells us that Tom and Caroline Burrows, who lived on Chapel Lane, had three children of school age.Twenty-eight-year-old ironstone labourer, Tom Burrows, was born in Muston. His wife Caroline (31), was born in Wilsford. Cecily L.Burrows,wearing a dress with a velvet yoke and a lace collar, was born in Muston, Hilda A. Burrows,in a dress with a wide lace collar, was born in Grantham and little Bernard, wearing the most elaborate lace collar of all, was born in Bottesford. He was already at school at the age of three.

A relative of the Burrows family (see comment below) has contacted us to say that sadly Cecily Burrows and her husband were killed in an air raid in 1940, but Cecily now has 29 descendents.

Samuel G. Burrows, first cousin to Cecily, Hilda and Bernard, was the son of George and Sarah Burrows, 38, from South Collingham. George was a 37 year old threshing machine driver who was born in Muston, the older brother of Tom. On the 1871 census he, Tom and his parents, Henry and Ann, all lived in the household of Sedgebrook-born grandfather Henry Burrows, in a part of Muston known as Down Fields.

In 1901 George and family  lived on Grantham Road. Samuel stares out of the picture with an air of self-conscious dignity, head held unnaturally high, perhaps because he is the only child in the photograph to be wearing a wing collar. Like many of the boys, he wears a chrysanthemum in his buttonhole.

Muston-born farmer, Joseph Calcraft (45) and his wife Ann (45), from Aslockton, had ten children, of whom five appear on the photograph. The oldest four children, born in Sponden, are grown up and working. The fifth, Mary E. Calcraft, is probably the Nellie Calcraft on the photograph; Mary Ellen Calcraft, born in Shardlow in 1886. She is unusually old to be still at school in 1902, unless she was a pupil teacher.

Four boys, Arthur (13), Albert (8), George (6), and Edward (4), appear in the photograph, but Frank, listed as nine years old on the 1901 census, is not there The Calcraft name can be traced back to the sixteenth century. They are listed as as farmers on the 1851 census, when their farm was on Syke Lane. On the 1901 census their farm is not named and they appear on the section for Woolsthorpe Road.

The Carter Family On the 1901 census the Carter family are listed on Grantham Road. John Carter (34) was a waggoner from Screveton. His wife, 35 year old Edith, came from Whissendine. Two of their six children, 12 year old John W.  and  10 year old Sarah A. do not appear on the photograph and have presumably left school. The third, George P, aged 9, may be the 'P. Carter' on the photograph.The other three children are listed as May, aged six, Ernest, age three and Betsy, aged one.

Betsy would  have been one of the youngest children in the school. Village schools sometimes seem to have been willing to enrol children as young as three, though two is more surprising. Possibly very young children were accepted because otherwise older siblings who were responsible for them  would not have been able to attend school.

In 1901 12-year-old Nellie Challands is shown living with her grand parents, 66 yr old ironstone labourer, Joseph and 69 yr old Elizabeth, on Woolsthorpe Road. Their sons, George and William, live nearby Could the Lizzie Challands on the photograph be Louie Challands ? On the census Louie is the 2 year old daughter of  George (30) another Muston man working in the quarry, like his father and brothers. His wife is  Lizzie Challands (24) from Barkestone.

George and Walter  are the sons of William and Sarah Challands . On the 1901 census William is listed as a 37 year old ironstone labourer, born in Muston. Sarah, 36, was born in Cotham. They live on Woolsthorpe Road, close to William's parents and his brother, George. Frank, another brother, still lives at home with their parents. All have exchanged  agricultural work for quarrying, according to earlier census.

The 1901 census includes eight children of George and Annie Donger. 48 year old farmer, George Donger ,was born  at Alton, Hampshire. His wife, Annie, 46 years old, was born in born Old Dalby. The oldest three children, George, 19, Annie, 15, and Donald, 13, have left school.  Five of the children appear, a year after the census was taken, in the 1902 photograph. Thirteen  year old Reg was born in Kinoulton. The four youngest , Ethel,10, Mabel,8, Margaret,6, and Dorothy,3,who later recorded the names of the children on the photograph so carefully,  were all born in Muston.  They lived on Woolsthorpe Road.

 

Charles Gale (29) a 'horseman on farm' born in Muston and Isabella (25) his wife, from Plungar, had three sons listed on the 1901 census, Charles, Christopher and Cyril.

  See comment below.

The North Family lived on ‘The Green’ in Muston. The 1901 census describes 43 year old James North as a ‘machinery joiner (engineer)’. He was born in Ropsley, Linolnshire. His 41 year old wife was born Rebecca Elizabeth Patchett at Manor (or Manners) Cottage, Muston. Patchetts appear frequently on the Muston Parish Registers, first in 1562; ‘Alice Pachett daughter of Richard christened 31 May’.

The Norths had 9 children, three boys and six girls. By 1901 the four oldest girls had left home. Three of the five children listed on the census appear on the 1902 school photograph. Gertrude, (Jane Gertrude M.)11, and Edwin, 8, were born a few miles away in Great Gonerby, just over the county boundary in Lincolnshire. Five year old Arthur was born in Muston. The remaining two North children on the census do not appear on the photograph. Harry was 3 and the baby, Doris, was less than two.

Albert E. Oliver (5, born Sedgebrook) and Charles C. (Cecil) Oliver (4, born Barkestone) appear on the Woolsthorpe census for 1901. Their parents were waggoner John Oliver, 54, and Mary, 44, born Great Gonerby, Lincolnshire. John Oliver was the youngest son of Thomas and Ann Oliver. In 1851 the Olivers farmed 144 acres at Hospital Farm, Muston. By 1901 the only Olivers on the Muston census were John’s three older brothers. Robert was a 63 year old gardener. Edward, 61 and William, 60, were both on parish relief.

Harry, 12, Marjorie, 6, and Gwedoline, 5, were all born in Muston, the children of Thomas and Louisa Shipman. Thomas Andrew Shipman, 38, was a farmer, born in Harby, while Louisa, 37, came from Stathern, where her father, George Braithwaite, was a butcher. They had a younger child, Nina, aged two. The 1891 census gives the Shipman’s address as Hospital House, presumably Hospital Farm, so called because the farm, owned by the Duke of Rutland, had provided an income for the Earl of Rutland’s Hospital, an almshouse in nearby Bottesford. The census includes two servants in the Shipman household. The dress of the children suggests that the Shipmans were amongst the more prosperous families in Muston.

 

Ten year old Harry and eight year old Jack (John) Simms were the sons of 38 year old groom, Harry Simms, from Brailes, Warwickshire, and his wife, Annie, 35. Annie, described as a grocer/shopkeeper, came from Thorpe Arnold. She is one a very few women to have an occupation of her own listed on the census. They lived on The Green.

Five year old William Smith was born in Edwalton. He was the son of 29 year old shepherd, Arthur Smith, born in Shepshed. His mother, Mary, 32, was born in Muston. The Smiths lived on Woolsthorpe Road in the household of Mary’s mother, Mary Kirton, who was 75 and on ‘parish out-relief’.

(Robert) Louis Tinkler (1893—1987) was the son of Edward and Priscilla Tinkler. Edward was 44 and worked as a ‘yardman on farm’. His wife, Priscilla, (nee Stokes) 42, came from Birchwood in Derbyshire. They lived in a part of Muston called Down Fields. Robert Louis was a cousin of Lois and Amos. Their grandfathers, Robert and William Tinkler were brothers. 

Lois (11) and Amos (8) Tinkler were the youngest children of George Tinkler, a 45 year old ironstone labourer who was born in Muston. Their mother, Ann, 43, came from Corby. George and Ann had six older children who were all, presumably, out at work by 1902. The family lived on Chapel Lane.

Eight Topps households appear on the 1901 Muston census, five have children of school age, though only three have children named on the photograph.

Dora, Beatrix and Lawrence were three of the four youngest children of John Frederick and Ellen (nee Durant) Topps. John F. Topps was a 49 year old agricultural labourer, born in Muston, grandson of William Topps (born Allington around 1806) and Ann, nee Gibson, (born Hose around 1806). Ellen, his wife, was 49 and came from Allington. The family lived on Grantham Road.

There were eleven children in the family. The four oldest, David Durant, John William, Gertrude Flora and Walter had left home by 1901. Seven children appear on the 1901 census. The two oldest, George and Ernest, are already working on the land like their father. Twelve year old Reginald has presumably left school, though no employment is given for him. Another daughter, Cecily (Lily) is not named on the school photograph, though she may be one of the girls whose names are missing.

Fourteen year old Annie and twelve year old Kate, or Kitty, Topps also lived on Grantham Road. They were the daughters of John and Elizabeth Topps, nee Dewey. John, a 48 year old railway platelayer, was born in Muston, while his wife, Elizabeth, 49, came from neighbouring Bottesford. John Topps was the son of Henry Topps, born in Muston around 1808 and Mary, born Granby, 1815. Elizabeth’s father, John, was a railway labourer, while his wife, Ann (nee Hallam) kept the railway crossing.

John, or Jack, Topps was an ironstone labourer, born in Muston in 1871, the son of William (born Muston 1834) and Eliza Topps (nee Croft, born Ropsley 1836). He married twice. His first wife, Charlotte Annie, mother of Jessie, Bertie (Herbert) and Gladys, died in 1899. The two younger children, Bertie and Gladys, were born in Muston, but Jessie, was born in Newark in 1885. They lived on Chapel Lane.

In January 1901 John married a Muston woman, 28 year old Ellen, daughter of Thomas and Ann Geeson. When the 1901 census was taken in March, Gladys, then two, was staying in the household of her grandparents, also on Chapel Lane. By 1911 the family was living in Sedgebrook and had three more children, Arthur (born 1902) Aubrey (born 1905) and Percy (born 1910). Since all three boys were born in Muston the family must have moved quite recently. Bertie, aged 5 on the photograph, was 14 and working as a cowman on a farm.

Unfortunately, the names of three of the girls on the photograph have been lost, eaten by silver fish. The girls appear to be around 5 years old and it is possible to suggest who they might be through the 1901 census. There are four girls of approximately the right age who do not appear on the list of names. Possibilities are:

Ethel M. Dunsmore, born 1897, daughter of Herbert and Ann Dunsmore,

Sarah E. Goodband, born 1897, daughter of John and Mary Goodband,

Cecily Topps, born 1895, daughter of John F. and Ellen Topps,

Lucy Topps, born 1897, daughter of Ada Topps, father away in army.

Another Topps family, that of Henry (44, born Muston, ironstone labourer) and Lizzie (34, born Swinstead) appears on the 1901 census. They had 8 children of school age, including Ida M. Topps, aged 4. However, since none of the children appear on the photograph it seems possible that this family left Muston between 1901 and 1902.

 

Sisters Florence and Martha Watson came from Norton Juxta Kempsey in Worcestershire, where their father was a farmer. Thirty year old Florence and 24 year old Martha were two of five daughters, of whom the three eldest became elementary school mistresses.

On the census, Martha, the younger sister, is described as ‘certificated’. They lived together on Grantham Road, presumably in the schoolhouse next to the school.

Right : Muston School House today.

 

 

The lives of all of these children would have been changed by the First World War. Some would have fought in the trenches, some even further afield.

Daniel Johnson returned from India with dysentry and malaria. Some did not return. Dan Johnson's brother, Isaac, served with the Northumberland Fusiliers. He was severely wounded at Armentieres in 1917 and died of his wounds in October 1918. He is buried in Muston churchyard.

Cyril Gale, who appears aged three in the photograph, died aged 19, in April 1918,when serving with the Lincolnshire Regiment. He is buried in Le Cateau Military Cemetry.

Please let us know if you can correct or add to the information here.