Pearson clock

For some time we have known that the village had an 18th century clockmaker by the name of Pearson, purely from the fact that his rare clocks occasionally come onto the market. The chance to bring back to the village one of his beautiful longcase clocks to form the centrepiece to the Dore Collection was irresistible.

We are pleased to say that the society has now been able to do so and will be displaying the clock in our room at the Old School in the near future. All we need to do now is raise the funds to cover its purchase. If you think you could help with a donation, please contact David Heslop on 236 5043, or John Baker on 236 9025.

Little is known about Pearson even amongst clock experts. Few surviving examples are known, but between them members of the committee can account for seeing 6 or 7 over the years. Our 30 hour clock is signed 'Henry Pearson Dore' while his are usually signed just 'Pearson of Dore'. It could be that it was a father and son business.

Both 30?hour and an 8?day clocks are known. The dials are very idiosyncratic with bold designs quite different to those used by most other makers. They appear to date from 1740s?50s, but no firm dates are know for Pearson. From features present in pictures supplied to an expert, our clock looks to date from about 1750?60.

A check on the IGI (International Geneological Index - commonly known as the Mormon Index) has found a Henry Pearson christened 5 Apr 1703 in Dronfield, father Henry Pearson, and a Henry Pearson is recorded as marrying a Jane Stringfellow on 18 Sept 1721 in South Wingfield. This could be our man!

The milklads of Derbyshire

Twice a day summer and once a day in winter, milk was brought to Sheffield from farms up to seven or eight miles from town. It came in barrels by mules or Galloway's (asses or ponies) and was sold house to house, or delivered by whole load to some person appointed to retail it to weekly customers.

The price was two pence halfpenny in the summer and three pence in the winter. The beasts were conducted by boys who sat either aside or astride on the rumps of the animals, and with incessant application of the whips, galloped together in gangs. Sometimes there was a score of these milk lads and they endangered everybody on the roads while converting, as they did so, a great deal of the milk into butter on their way into town.

The rudeness of the boys and their reiterated insults to travellers of all descriptions induced the neighbourhoods to apply for an Act of Parliament for regulation of this trade. It was then enacted that the boys would not, under the threat of a heavy penalty, gallop down the road or behave in an indecorous manner. It was further ordered that every milk seller must have his name painted on the packsaddle, which supported the barrels.

Numbers of these boys came from Dronfield, Norton and no doubt from Bradway, Greenhill, Dore and Totley and it was said that the raucous behaviour of these lads, belonging to a "fraternity proverbially wicked and incorrigible" was hard to lose in later life. However some became good men and shining characters.

In his later years, Sir Francis Chantrey, the famous sculpture, advised a guest from Yorkshire. "You are going in the coach and will reach Sheffield in the early evening along with coaches from other directions and, a few miles this side of town, you will pass scores of asses carrying milk in barrels with boys sitting on their croups behind the saddles and jogging merrily along the road. Then you should think of your friend for I was once a milk lad and travelled in the same manner".

Chantrey was born on 7th April 1781 in a cottage still standing off Cinderhill Lane at Jordanthorpe, Norton. After working as a grocer, he became apprenticed to an artist and set up a studio in Paradise Square, Sheffield. Eventually he decided that his fortunes lay in London where he learnt woodcarving and sculpture before carving a name for himself with his statues and busts of the famous, including Victoria, Raffles and Sir Walter Scott.

When he died in 1841, his body was transported for burial in Norton and it was there that the twenty two foot high obelisk was erected by public subscription in 1854 and there it stands today close to the church. Not bad for a milk lad!

Brian Edwards

Boys Brigade camp

It's May 1959, and members of the 22nd Sheffield Company Boys' Brigade wait on Dore and Totley Station for a train to Liverpool. From there they caught the overnight ferry to the Isle of Man for their annual camp. The 22nd Company was started by the late Tom Wragg of Chatsworth Road in the early 1950's and is based at Totley Rise Methodist Church.

From left to right: Ian Archibald, David Smith, Mick Roebuck, Richard Beeton, John Morton, Brian Turner, Mick Savage, Billy Jones, Andrew Wilson, John Schofield Lt. Ron Wilson, Brian Savage (seated), Roy Letch, Dave Green, Chris Hustler, John Monks, Peter Bishop, Capt. Fred Savage, and Michael Reynolds.

THE OLD SCHOOL DORE 1800-1965

About the early history of the Old School we know very little, except that a school did exist in Dore from at least the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. Fairbank's pre-enclosure map clearly indicates the position of the school on its present site, and we have evidence that money was bequeathed in wills for the education of poor scholars of the parish. It seems fair to conjecture that a schoolroom existed to which the Master's house was attached, all to the right hand of the present front door.

Dore was at that time a small Derbyshire village with no proper centre, no church, a visiting curate and a few scattered cottages and farmsteads. In many ways the village changed little from mediaeval times to the beginning of last century. There would be no more than twenty children attending the school. Education was neither free nor compulsory; the monitorial system operated, whereby the Master taught the older pupils, who in their turn had to teach the younger ones.

A profound change took place at the time of the Dore enclosures. The enclosure movement was general throughout the country and the redistribution of lands in Dore came later than in villages elsewhere. The act for the "Enclosure of the Dore Commons" in 1809 appointed Commissioners to give practical expression to the Act, and when they made their Award in 1822 the village was almost completely redrawn.
The Commissioners set aside land for the building of a new church together with certain lands whose rents would provide a regular income for the upkeep of the school, including the salary of a Schoolmaster. These lands included the Village Green (now happily registered as Common Land), the land on which the Cricket Field now stands and land called Bread Doles at the junction of Shorts Lane and Whitelow Lane which continue to pay rent to the Trustees today.

The number of pupils had already begun to grow, and those prosperous and influential gentlemen who had benefited most from the Enclosure were doubtless among the first to offer to pay for an extension to the school building. This part of the School, to the left of the front door, bears a plaque with the inscription " Erected by Public Inscription 1821".

Contrary to popular belief, the Old School was thus not a Church school, since the school and its extension pre-dated the building of the church by several years. All that the commissioners stipulated was that the perpetual curate (ie the vicar) should always be, ex officio, one of the managers (or Trustees) of the school. These managers were indeed important personages: among the early managers established by the Act were the Earl Fitzwilliam, who was Patron of the living, The Duke of Devonshire, who owned a great deal of the land in the village, and Mr Bagshawe of Oakes Park, Norton. As time passed these august beings were represented by their agents or were replaced by substantial freeholders.

Richard Furness, a native of Eyam, was the first Master of the new school. Appointed in 1822 his salary was £18 per year, later raised to £30. He acquired some reputation as a poet and hymn writer and was clearly a very able, versatile man who became very popular in the village. He drew the plans for the building of the church. However he had neither training nor experience as a teacher, and serious friction developed between him and the Rev Martin who came to the village in 1840.

Hitherto, Dore had had only a visiting curate, but the Reverend Martin, who lived in what is now the Old Vicarage, was determined to use his position as trustee to dictate the curriculum and general direction of the education given, in particular "The daily teaching of scripture & the Church Catechism". A long battle of wits ensued; Furness acceded to the requests about teaching the Scriptures, but resisted other rules "for the guidance of the Schoolmaster" which the vicar had persuaded the Trustees to draw up.

Apparently the struggle was too much for Furness; he resigned in 1848 & was granted a pension of £15 per year by the Trustees. This was quite a burden on the trustees, who had limited resources, so the new master was appointed at a lesser salary. The fees paid for the children were increased to 4d a week for the oldest child, 3d for the second, 2d for the third and a penny for all the others. The fees were collected each week by the vicar, acting as agent to the Trustees.

The growth of population led to the building of an infants room behind the 1821 extension: the Trustees were happy to receive the first government grant in 1867. One of the Rev Martin's thrusts against Richard Furness had been to persuade the Trustees to invite a government inspector to the school and from the passing of Forster's Education Act in 1870 regular government inspections of the school was an important feature. Complaints from the inspector about the inadequacy of the buildings were commonplace, particularly the "offices" (an early master had used the boys offices as a hen hut).

The trustees were still responsible for the building; after the 1870 Act they clearly found it difficult to manage financially. They were frequently insolvent: their own records show arrears of rent from the tenants of the village land which they held. Mr Deane, a competent and qualified master resigned in 1882 because, he wrote, "the Trust cannot, or do not choose, to pay an efficient and experienced Schoolmaster a proper salary". He excepted the Rev Aldred, with whom he was on good terms, from this criticism.

The inspectors frequently complained of the lack of slates, or copy books and the need for more space; on the other hand their comments on the education provided were not usually unfavourable and they made a grant accordingly; in the 1880s it was usually about £80 per year, and depended, as did the Master's salary, on the tests of the children; it was "payment by results". Instruction was based on the 3Rs with a little history & geography thrown in: there was no science, though the girls were taught needlework and the boys had gardening experience. Drawing was a regular subject.

After the Rev Martin's death, relations between church and school seem to have been cordial. The Rev JTF Aldred, whose long incumbency saw six masters come and go, was an almost daily visitor to the school and regarded himself as the representative of the Trustees; he checked the registers, frequently taught Scripture and also examined arithmetic and spelling. Living as he did at the vicarage (now the old vicarage) the school was near and he clearly felt it his duty to guide the education given. More significant were the annual Diocesan Inspections from Derby which tested the pupils in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Catechism, the Prayer Book, hymns and collects, and Scripture. The comments here were invariably very favourable; obviously the vicars hard work had paid off! It is hardly surprising that the school was regarded as a church school.

A new Education Act in 1876 made education compulsory, though it was not yet free. More children in the school placed a great burden on the accommodation and the inspector complained constantly about the conditions.
By this time the Master had one or two "uncertificated" assistants; frequently these were the cleverer pupils who elected to stay on and help as "pupil teachers" or "paid monitresses". They were instructed by the Master for an hour before school; they had charge of a class all day; after that there was more instruction if they wished to qualify as certificated teachers, they attended (from 1900 onwards) the old Pupil Teacher Centre in Sheffield part time. If they passed the examinations they would earn the princely sum of £12-10-00 per year.

Hazel Hoffman
To be continued.....

Rinderpest

The present outbreak of foot and mouth disease has a number of historical parallels. In the autumn/winter of 1865 and through into the spring of 1866, the country was ravaged by Rinderpest, a virulent affliction of cattle (the name Rinderpest is derived from the German for cattle plague).

In this area the first case was recorded in September 1865, when a cow with the disease was offered for sale at Rotherham cattle market. At the beginning of October, the Hull dealer who tried to sell the animal was fined for "Exposing for sale in the Rotherham Cattle Market, a beast infected with Rinderpest."

Sheffield Town Council were sufficiently worried by the plague to debate the whole matter in Council on October 20th and by the 22nd the disease had made an appearance on a farm at Bradfield. By the 28th of the month the spread had rapidly extended.

The plague continued to spread and by November 19th cases had been recorded in Stannington. On December 6th the West Riding magistrates banned a sale of livestock at Loxley. December 12th saw the first case within the town of Sheffield and the Mayor took the step of closing the cattle market until February 1st and by the 18th Rotherham and Eckington magistrates had closed their respective markets.
The New Year brought no respite, all West Riding cattle markets were declared closed on January 8th. On January 16th, a deputation of Sheffield butchers persuaded the Mayor to re-open the cattle market, providing that all cattle brought to the market were slaughtered within 48 hours.

Nationally the whole plague reached such proportions that a Bill was taken through Parliament to restrict the sale and movement of cattle; this became law on February 20th 1866. On February 26th a case was reported on the farm of George Hawksley at Owlerton.
Then as now, farmers received compensation for animals that had to be slaughtered as a result of the disease, and in a Vestry meeting in early March, B Cartledge was appointed as valuer of cattle slaughtered in Sheffield township under the Cattle Plague Acts.
By April 6th the price of meat in Sheffield was raised by 1 1/2 d per pound due to shortages caused by the cattle plague; but by April 16th, the fat cattle market had to be suspended again to reduce the risk of disease.

Reports of the plague occur less often after this but at the Town Council meeting in May it was resolved to raise a special rate to pay for the salary of Mr Cartledge and to cover any additional expenses incurred as a result of the cattle plague. On August 29th the butchers and cattle salesmen of the town held a grand dinner to celebrate the re-opening of the fat cattle market - the dinner was held at the Bull and Mouth Hotel.
Information about the cattle plague was gleaned from the Sheffield local Register for the years 1865-66. The register is a chronological record of happenings in Sheffield and the surrounding district and can be found in the Local Studies Library.

Ed. This article first appeared in the Sheffield History Reporter, and is reproduced by kind permission of Sheffield Local Studies Library.

Go to Dore to Door Past Issues