Ref. 28985-05SHIRLEY MATHIAS charts the progress of schooling in Swindon in the 150 years since the Evening Advertiser was first published

WHEN William Morris published the first Swindon Advertiser and Monthly Record on February 6, 1854, probably only half the people in town could read it.

Until 1870 the number of schools operating in Swindon could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

It was not until the School Enforcement Act of 1876 that families were legally obliged to have their offspring educated and parents had to pay to have their children taught the three Rs.

A modest church school in a cottage in Newport Street was the first attempt to provide free education in Swindon. Funded by voluntary contributions and run by trustees, it had one master, Thomas Barrett, who lived in rooms in the cottage and taught reading, writing, arithmetic and the beliefs of the Church of England.

In 1835 it closed to make way for the National School, built with the aid of a Parliamentary grant administered by the National Schools Society, which opened the following year. Its head was a Mr Jenkins, who later started his own private school at the end of Bath Road.

The offices of Monahans, the accountants, now stand on the National School site and a blue plaque on an external wall is the only sign that children were once taught there.

Sunday schools run by Baptist, Independent, Unitarian and Wesleyan chapels also provided basic schooling for a small number of children.

At around the same time a clergyman was teaching the three Rs to a few farmers' children in a loft over his stable at Wroughton Vicarage, which is now called Ivery House.

But the arrival of the Great Western Railway in 1841 gave Swindon boys and girls their first real crack at scholarship.

Recognising the need for workers to be literate and numerate the company's directors had opened a school in Bristol Street in 1845.

It taught reading, writing, arithmetic, scripture and some geography and history.

Intended for the children of men who worked at the railway works, it charged 2d (just under 1p) a week for infants and 4d for juniors. Families not associated with the works paid a shilling (5p) to send children there if they were lucky enough to get in.

Records from 1850 indicate that 180 children were being taught there by one certificated master and a couple of pupil teachers, the standard of instruction was "sound and comprehensive" and discipline was "good".

Other GW schools in Sanford Street and College Street followed, but to begin with they were only for boys. And until 1890 many children had to scramble across the railway tracks to get there.

By this time 1,200 children were attending GW schools and 670 the National School.

Soon administrative districts of the town had established their own education committees and were raising funds to open neighbourhood schools. But money was tight.

The Even Swindon School, which was opened in 1880 by the Rodbourne School Board, reported frequent absences because large working class families could not afford the fees. And the headmaster had to beg businesses to pay for books, slates and pencils because the school could not supply them.

Shirley Mathias