Staff at the School

 

The 1841 census lists Elizabeth Giles, aged 70, as schoolmistress and Robert Giles (40) as schoolmaster, as they still were in 1844. The 1851 census that appears to locate the school elsewhere has as schoolmistress Henrietta Percy, aged 21 and from Bermondsey. Elizabeth Horne, living with her parents at number 13 next to the old school is an infant teacher.

 

A record in 1854 gives Miss Susan Worsfold as the Mistress of “the National School, Englefield” but the 1861 census has Miss Emiline Vick and the school is by then back at the Mission Cottage with no trace of any building on the road to Theale. Elizabeth Horne (married to Thomas Herbert in 1858) is still Infant School Mistress but seems to have ceased that as a full time occupation by 1865 because the school log records that in June that year "Mrs Herbert took sewing in the afternoon". Thomas Herbert was a shepherd and in 1871 he and his wife are living at Mile House Cottages and her occupation is "Shepherd's wife".

 

The turnover of headteachers in the early years seems to have been fairly rapid. Miss Vick is still listed as Mistress of the National School in 1863, the year the new school was opened, but by 1866 H W Bellows was the school master of the new school. The following year it was A Compton, then the year after that Henry S Brickhill. Brickhill was dismissed instantly by the managers on 13 June 1870 for behaving improperly towards Sarah Burgess, a pupil who was engaged as a pupil teacher in that year. He initially denied the accusation made by her mother, but later admitted it and left on 17 June, and the school closed. After some difficulty in finding a qualified teacher at short notice the managers obtained the services of Mr Berry from All Saints, Paddington and with the assistance of his sister he reopened the school on 4 July and ran it until the end of term on the 29th. On 12 September the school was reopened under a new headmaster, John Eastman, but by 1883 he had been replaced by Henry J Best. Best's tenure seems to have been the only time when a good deal of corporal punishment was inflicted and he gave way to Henry Sait in 1887. Sait stayed for only two years and in 1889 Albert E Robinson took over. Some stability at last followed, for he served until 1903 when he moved to Bradfield school, although he seems to have remained closely involved with the cricket club and workmen's club, and his place was taken by Thomas Golding. Golding also stayed for a reasonable period but the 1920s seem to have been another period of rapid turnover with first John Wittenham and then by 1926 Mr Denchfield. In 1930 John Turnbull took over and stayed until he was succeeded by John Hayes in about 1951.

 

There was a succession of assistant mistresses - never masters,although men must have gained their experience somewhere because the head teacher was always a man between 1866 and 1959, since when it has almost always been a woman. Mabel Reid took over the infant class in 1918 from Miss Janes and remained in post (as Mrs Claydon from 4 August 1919) until retirement 40 years later. She had previously served as a Monitress at the school from 1908 to 1912. Miss Giles was another long-serving member of the school staff and both these ladies can be seen in many of the group photographs.