A New School For Fulwood
The school did not survive for much longer as, on the death of the headmaster in 1875, the newly created Sheffield School Board decided to build a Board school for Fulwood which after considerable controversy was built on David Lane.
The view from the Farms
A letter to the Sheffield Independent is transcribed in full. It uses local idioms and has a typically local sense of humour. I suspect that it may have been written by someone deliberately pretending to write as locals speak. The points made though are accurate as to history and raise some interesting issues. Several letters in favour of and against the new school were published in the local press for a lengthy period around this time, and it seems to have been a sensitive issue for local residents. As will be seen from the letter quoted there certainly seems to have been antipathy between the remoter Fulwood community and those responsible for the Fulwood church school- then the posher end of Fulwood.
Wednesday 8th March 1876
FULWOOD BOARD SCHOOL
To THE EDITOR
We were rare and glad to see what you said in your paper on Saturday about our old school. I wonder where you do get all your news. If it had been the chap at t’ other paper I shouldn’t be so surprised, for he was up in our country in very good time t’ other morning, before some of us were up, summat about a murder I think he said. You seem to have got to know a bit but you don’t know much. I see so I’ll tell you. That old school at Fulwood is a rare old ‘un – many a hundred of years old. There is a great stone fixed in the side of the building with the names of them folks on what gave money to build it – they are them sort of folks you sometimes hear called pious. Ancestors arn’t they. I know t’ first chap on t’ stone is down for 150£ and that would be a lot of money in them days. Someone went and planted ivy to grow and cover this old stone up as they thought it rather spoiled the look of the building, but some of us went and ripped it off, for we liked to look at the stone, and read the names on it sometimes.
When the old school was built it had a lot of land in front about an acre for t’ lads to play on. They called it “School Green.” They call it “School Green” yet, but all t’ green’s gone – it’s gone just o’er t’ wall into t’ next field. There were a man as had a turnip field there then, and he thought it were a pity for all this good land to be wasted with a lot of lads playing at wickets on, so he just walled it in with his turnip field and it is there yet. You know there is a nice little house for the schoolmaster to live in and some money and all. I think you call that an endowment don’t you? Well when t’church and church school were built they thought they would like some of this money for their school. What do you call that the word I often see in your paper – it means taking money from one lot and giving it to another -Dis summit? Well they dis-summited t’owd school out of ten pounds a year and stuck it on t’new – at least so they say in Fulwood.
I recollect t’owd schoolmaster, he were a queer chap. He were lame and used to nobble t’tads with his crutch. He were a rare good card player. I’ve had many a hand of whist wi’ him, and many a drop of gin at ‘Farewell’s’ at ‘t’Hammer’ but that’s a long while sin’.
Well when t’ last schoolmaster died, School board agreed to take t’ auld school, house, endowment and all bag o’ tricks, and build a regular good modern sort of school. Well the folks at the Church did not like this; they said the old school was good enough and big enough, and besides they were just going to make their’s bigger and so they thought it would be a pity to throw t’ ratepayers money about. So then School Board said if they liked they would take t’ school a bit out of t’ way like and that they agreed to. Well school board folks started and painted t’ old school up a bit just to make it look a bit respectable while they could get the new one built – They’ve got a mester there and tho’ about one-half of t’ children in Fulwood are badly at home wit t’ measles they tell me t’ ould school is quite full.
Well School board then got a chap to draw out maps and plans for the new building and began looking out for a piece of land to build on but one spot was too near to t’ church and another cost too much money and another wasn’t suitable and f hear now they’ve given it up altogether.
You see it’s this way, just while t’ School board are considering where to plant t’ new school, a gentleman turns up and says there is a Church girl’s school on his estate at Whiteley Wood, and it is a bit of a nuisance. You see a lot o’ little lasses that goes there don’t keep their noses very tidy, and they don’t look very nice on his carriage drives and so he wants school shifting, and he says if you will let me shift this school I’ll build you one bigger and better somewhere else.
All right says they, and then we shan’t need this fine Board school. And f am very much afraid School board as going to knock under and give in, so I am afraid we are done. But there is another thing f want to tell you. When this old school was carried on there were two and twenty children to go free, now they tell me this is going to be stopped for a neighbour of mine had a little child that used to go free but now he has to pay, and they tell him there are going to be no free scholars, so it seems to me we are going to be worse off than we were.
Now don’t think we are treated proper in Upper Hallam. They take about £130 a year from us as our share of the school rate and they’ve been spending that down in Sheffield where t’ schools are nearly as thick on t’ spot as ‘(publics’ and we’ve had nowt up to now; and now that we’ve turned our old school over to them with the endowment and schoolmasters house and all the lot, they seem funcky about building us one school. Although ours is t’ biggest ward in all t’ borough. I say if they won’t do nowt, they ought to let us off paying school rate. It’s as bad as the bridge rate. Why, there’s a lot of us up here at Redmires and at Stannedge Pole, and at Ringinglow (where that murder was), that have never seen t’ bridge yet; and we had to pay to it many a year.
Now if want to know what our fine Town Councillors is doing. Whenever we have an election, there is generally two of ’em that wants to thrust into t’ same seat; and you should hear how they can promise about looking after our interests! But bless you, after t’ election is o’er, they seem to be troubled with bad memories.
With these few remarks I will now conclude; and remain, yours, respectfully,
7th March 1876 REDMIRES
A Murder in Fulwood?
The reference to the’ murder’ needs some explanation. A few days before the letter was written, the Sheffield Independent had issued a bogus single copy edition that was given to an individual whom they suspected was always getting their first edition and running it round to their rival publication ‘The Sheffield Telegraph’ who were creaming off anything exclusive, and rewriting the information with trivial amendments. As a result, this ‘special’ edition contained a front-page article about a completely fictitious murder that it said had happened in Ringinglow. The rival paper fell for the deception and led with details of the murder on its front page that day. The Independent then took a great deal of pleasure in exposing its rival and its’ underhand methods in the following day’s paper.
- A hamlet about 3 miles north of Penistone ↑