Lost Voices of the Edwardians: 1901–1910 in Their Own Words

I used to get clothes from the Free School. I got a corduroy jacket and trousers, and a pair of boots. I had difficulty lifting them. You could hear somebody walking in those boots a mile away. We got them once a year before Passover. We also got free dinner tickets – but they only gave a certain number of tickets to each class, so if you were lucky you got the meal, and if not you had to go home. And in the morning, if you came before time, you used to get a chunk of bread and an enamel cup with some milk in. At dinner I had to eat whatever Mother made. We had to be satisfied. It was a lousy life. During those years I was always very frail because I didn't get the nourishment needed.

Alfred Anderson

When I was ten I got a job before school, delivering milk from Denend Farm to people nearby. By the time I was twelve I'd saved up enough to buy a bike, and I used it to earn pocket money to do more milk deliveries. I used to have milk churns hanging off the handlebars.

Bessy Ruben

We used to do a school play at Christmas time. This particular year we did Sleeping Beauty. One of the older girls in the Seventh Standard chose the characters. She chose a girl named Annie Silverman for the Sleeping Beauty and I was Fairy Crocus. She showed the list to Miss Poole, who used to stay behind and rehearse us. She looked at the list and said, ‘We can't have Annie Silverman for Sleeping Beauty. We'll have Betsy Schiffenbaum instead.’ That was me. There was a feud between Annie Silverman and me for years. We put the play on in Toynbee Hall and it was a great thrill – it was wonderful.

John Wainwright

There was no thought of my going on to further education. When I got to the top class, X7, two of the older boys were studying for the Grammar School examination, but presumably their parents were better off than mine. I wasn't entered. In fact, when I was twelve and a half I was put in for the ‘Labour Examination’. I went down to Wigan on a Saturday morning and I had to answer written questions and oral questions. I passed it and so I left school.

John William Dorgan

I owe a lot to the headmaster of the Colliery School, Mr Alcock. When I was supposed to be leaving school at thirteen, my mother went to see him and said that I was worth something better than going down the coal mine. She asked if I could stay on at school. The headmaster said yes. Another person stayed on at school – a girl called Mary Carr. We sat together at an old iron-framed desk made for two at the back of one of the classes. We didn't have a teacher so the headmaster gave us a book that he called a ‘classic’. He told us to read the book and write an essay on it. Mr Alcock was very painstaking. He corrected our spelling and phrasing and then he would make us write the essay again. Sometimes I had to write it a third time. Mary Carr never had to. She was brighter than me.

Fred Lloyd

I stayed at the school until I was thirteen, and I was very good at writing and arithmetic – that was my thing. My writing was put up on the blackboard for other children to copy and when one of my brother's girls was at the same school twenty years after I'd left, she came to me one day and said, ‘We've been looking at your writing, Uncle. It's on the blackboard.’

Don Murray

They had a scheme in those days called the ‘Half-Time system’. You could work in the morning and go to school in the afternoon, and the following week it would be reversed. It didn't matter which way round you did it, you couldn't win because if you were at work in the morning, you fell asleep on your desk in the afternoon and got a clout from the teacher. If you went to school in the morning and went to work in the afternoon, you fell asleep at work and got a clout from the overlooker.

Jim Fox

Our headmaster was a strict disciplinarian. We called him ‘Bossy’ Read. He earned the name. If you met him on the Saturday morning and you were on the opposite side of the street and you didn't pitch your cap as you passed, he would bring you out on Monday morning and he would say, ‘Look, Fox. I saw you on the other side of North Road on Saturday and you didn't touch your cap. Did you see me?’ If he thought you had seen him, you got the cane.

Arthur Harding

I had a special pal called Peaky. His people were on the respectable side. The father was a collar-and-tie man working for the Port of London Authority. We were always together and always playing truant from school. Peaky couldn't read or write – he couldn't even sign his name. I did try once or twice to take him home and teach him the alphabet but it was hopeless. He didn't have any ambitions to be a scholar. So one day, we were in Brick Lane and they were playing a gambling game in the street. One boy there had a metal watch and chain on. So I said to Peaky, ‘Let's have his watch.’ I took it out of his pocket, it was quite simple. I put my hand up and swivelled it off. Just as I handed it to Peaky, the boy tumbled me. ‘Give me my watch back!’ he said. I laughed and Peaky walked away with it.

Well, the boy knew us, knew our names, and he did a thing I never thought he'd do. He went to the police. To cut a long story short, I got twenty months and Peaky got nine months. We became the first boys ever to be sent to Borstal. It was called Borstal because it was in the village of Borstal, near Chatham in Kent. We were the first guinea pigs in 1903. When we got there, they made two cells into one for us. There was a bit of a school there, where they had proper teachers. The governor, Mr Weston, wanted to make the new system a success. We were given library books and I read Oliver Twist – that was the first time I found out about Dickens. You weren't kept in a cell all the time and there was plenty of physical exercise outside. I also learnt a lot of woodwork in the carpenter's shop. Even though the more backward lads were taught to read and write, they couldn't teach Peaky nothing there. He did his nine months and when he came out, his parents had moved out of the East End to give him a fresh start. Not long after, he got a splinter in his hand and he died from blood poisoning.

Ernest Hugh Haire

I attended Tranmere Higher Grade School, Lancashire. It was a fee-paying school and the quarterly bills were sent to my father. I started as a small boy in the Infants and we used slates and pencils, which were marvellous because you could easily cheat. You just had to lick your answer out and copy what the person next to you had written. We had reading, writing and arithmetic. Spelling was a matter of repetition. I remember getting out early one day at the age of six because I was the only one who could spell the word ‘yacht’. We were reading very fluently between six and seven. We sang our times tables. We had geography lessons, which were taught by rote at first. At seven, I remember reciting the rivers of England: ‘Tyne, Wear, Tees …’ all the way round. I didn't know where all these rivers were, but I knew the names and I could look them up on a map. As we moved on, we did geometry and algebra, and at the age of eleven we started Latin. It was a very wide syllabus and very well taught. The discipline was excellent. The boys played cricket and football and the girls played rounders. After that school, I went to the Liverpool Institute.

My brother and I used to take the half past eight Rock Ferry boat to Liverpool. It took twenty minutes. We would pass four or five big sailing ships – it was still the days of sail. We went across to the landing stage by the Liver Building, the Cunard Building and Mersey Docks Building. From there, we walked up Duke Street to the Institute.

The headmaster there was ruthless. When he arrived at the school, he came into our form room and set a history exam. During it, he spotted a history textbook under a desk, so he ordered us all into the school hall, where he stood us up on the platform and he sticked every one of us. ‘I'll purge you lot!’ he said. He was the only master who gave the stick. Usually, you went into his study and you were tapped down below to see that you didn't have an essay paper shoved down your trousers and then you received three strokes. Once, he spotted me running down the corridor and he sent me straight to his room and caned me. He wouldn't let me explain why I was running. The next day, he found out that I was running a message to a physics master, so he sent for me, apologised, and gave me two tickets for a Shakespeare play on the Saturday.

Tom Kirk

In September 1908, I went to a boarding school in Lytham run by an old family friend. He was determined that his boys should see life from as many angles as possible, so we had expeditions of all kinds. We took a cruise on the ‘mud-hopper’ up the Ribble to Preston and we watched Preston North End, the premier football team. The most exciting event was the first Air Display in 1909, where we watched Paul Chan sailing serenely above us in his Voisin biplane. The following year, Blériot arrived in his biplane, having just made the first crossing of the Channel.

We concentrated a lot on sport, which is common, I suppose, to all boarding schools. I think I fancied myself as a future county cricketer. On wet days, the headmaster would spend hours with us in the gym, bowling a tennis ball to the batsman or wielding a cricket stump – excellent practice for playing a straight bat. At soccer I played left back. We won many games against bigger schools, possibly due to the headmaster's dubious advice – ‘Go for the man, never mind the ball!’

Jim Davies

I was at minor public schools. I learnt French, German and Latin, Mathematics, Algebra, History, Geography, English. I didn't do very well. I was too lazy. I got as far as lower fourth, but the fees weren't paid because my father went bankrupt and I never went back again.

Maurice Edward Laws

For a career in the services, my public school background was invaluable. It taught discipline, and the idea of working for a team and not just your miserable self. Also, you met others of your own type. Nine out of ten officers came from public schools. Discipline was good at Lancing. I got beaten at times, for my own good, no doubt. In fact, I made it possible to insure against the cane. Three of us started a system whereby the small boys could insure at the beginning of the term for a small premium and if they were caned, they received sixpence a stroke. Some boys, of course, were on the grey list and had to pay a higher premium and some were on a blacklist and we wouldn't insure them at all. These were the bad risks. The scheme went very well for a while and we were paying out, but unfortunately, towards the end of the term, the numbers of beatings went up. The boys were short of money and so they started misbehaving so that they could be beaten and subsequently claim on their insurance. The headmaster inquired into the situation and shortly afterwards, the scheme went into involuntary liquidation. I don't think the headmaster particularly applauded our initiative.

Norman Musgrave Dillon

I went to Haileybury College in 1910. It was originally the student college for the students of the East India Company. It had many associations with India, such as the names of the houses and the servants. It was a fairly primitive place. The dormitories had boards on the floor and the food was pretty primitive. It was not a luxury school. Many of the public schools were much the same – at Eton, the bathing facilities were even less adequate than our own. We were out of bed at seven o'clock in the morning and down for chapel at half past seven. At quarter to eight we had our first lesson. Breakfast was at half past eight. The second lesson started at quarter past nine and on we went until noon. At noon, there was a break for lunch until one o'clock. The afternoon was taken up by games or a seven-mile run until four o'clock. From four until six, there were more lessons, ending up with supper at half past six. Supper was left-over bread with cocoa. Then we had ‘preparation’ – homework – and we were in bed by nine-thirty with lights out by ten.

The lessons you had depended which side you were on. If you were on the classical side, you had the normal English lectures and subjects but you had Latin and Greek thrown in. If you were on the modern side, you had a much more modern approach, with Physics and Chemistry. I was on the modern side and I did a great deal of handicraft work in the workshops. I had no bent for the classical side. I was intensely practical and I liked using my hands. When I left, I passed out top of the engineering branch.

Discipline was pretty severe. Most of the discipline came from the prefects. Their word was law. If you were late in the dormitory, they beat you. I was beaten once when I arrived as the clock was striking ten. The prefects kept bullying down. You only got into trouble with your housemaster if your form master found you unbearable, and he would give you a note to carry to the housemaster, who would give you the appropriate number of smacks with the stick. I would have thought that most boys passed through Haileybury with only two or three beatings.

The fagging system was in full force. An excellent system it was too. During the first three terms at the school, you were subject to this tyranny and you were liable to be a fag. Coming out from breakfast, you might hear a shout from across the quad: ‘Fag! Fag!’ Every boy had to run and the last one to arrive got the job, which might be to go down to the grub shop and buy something or collect some books or collect some boots from the bootmakers. If a prefect wanted a fag, he would call ‘Fag!’ in the dormitory and any boys liable to serve had to trot along quickly to his bed to see what he wanted. At Haileybury, each fag was at the beck and call of anybody senior.

Tom Kirk

I won a scholarship to Giggleswick – which relieved my mother of any further worry about school fees. What a joy after Seafield! A swim every morning in the cold swimming pool, Greek with dear old Hammond, Latin with Douglas, Maths with the genial Clark, French with Neumann – who took a fancy to me and gave me books until I was warned not to let him get too friendly. In those days nobody talked about homosexuality, bachelorship was a common occurrence. In fact, my final year at school was clouded by the ‘Jepson Affair’. Douglas Jepson was a keen cricketer who used to practise with me in the nets. I also shared a study with him and he developed a sort of ‘pash’ on me. Stupidly, I did not nip it in the bud and he became jealous and possessive and estranged many of my friends. Hindsight tells me that this was homosexuality, but at the time I was bewildered. He used to say, ‘Can I come and stay with you and perhaps marry one of your sisters?’ He did come too, but my sisters would have nothing to do with him.

Norman Musgrave Dillon

Sport was very important at Haileybury. In fact, the main aspiration above work and a classical knowledge was to become a member of the rugby fifteen. I failed to make it because my nose was broken the day before a crucial match. Had it not been, I would undoubtedly have had my colours. We played rugby football over the winter, association football and hockey during the spring term and cricket during the summer term. There was tremendous competition between the Houses at sport. There was a cup for which the Houses used to compete with tremendous enthusiasm.

Gordon Frank Hyams

At thirteen, I started at Charterhouse. Straight away, we were given an exam by the house monitors, who asked us lots of questions about school institutions, the things you were allowed to do and the things you must never do. They also gave us awkward questions, such as having to name a monitor, and listing the colours he'd won. We had a system of fagging, whereby each monitor had a ‘study fag’ who had to look after his study and keep it neat. I was in a house called ‘Robinites’ and my housemaster was Oswald Latter, a well-known naturalist.

Being in a house meant you lived there, you slept there and you had your meals there. The house system was very strong and there was great competition between the houses over football and cricket. The dormitories were very good. They were divided up into enclosed cubicles, each one containing a bed, a chair and a hand basin. Our clothes were looked after by the matron, who cleaned and distributed them every week. The food was good, on the whole. We had porridge and a fried egg for breakfast, a main course and a sweet for lunch and tea at six o'clock, which was a big meal.

The forms at Charterhouse were sorted by ability, rather than age, so you had some older boys in the lower forms. I started in a form called the Upper Fourth. I was rather fortunate. It was a classical form and the master in charge was a man called Girdlestone. He was a very old man who used to waddle like a duck. He had founded his own house, and it became known by everybody, including the staff, as ‘Duckites’. Girdlestone's method of teaching was very odd. When he gave Latin or Greek prep, you were supposed to look up any words which you didn't know and list them on a piece of paper. During the lesson, he called you up to read your prep and you handed your list in. If you stumbled over a word he'd say, ‘I don't see this word on your list. Why isn't it?’ and you answered, ‘I thought I knew it, sir.’ He was a dear old boy and we were very sorry to see him go.

Maurice Edward Laws

At the age of thirteen, I went up to the Admiralty for an interview to get into Osborne Naval College. The interview was designed, not to test your knowledge, but to see what kind of boy you were, and how you would react to an unexpected situation. I was asked all sorts of silly questions. The final question was asked over a blank map of Africa. One of the examiners, some old admiral, asked me what a particular river was. I said, ‘That's the Congo.’ He said, ‘No, my boy. That's the Niger.’ I said I was sure it was the Congo and someone else piped up and said he was sure it was the Niger. They went into a furious discussion and a porter brought in a proper map with the names on it and I took no further interest in the matter because my time was up. I never found out whether it was the Niger or the Congo. I didn't get into the Navy, but it was nothing to do with the interview. I failed on medical grounds.

Helen Bowen Pease

We were educated by a governess, Miss Cornish, who was the daughter of the headmaster of Eton. Our education was entirely literary, as girls' education usually was. It puzzles me, because Father was an engineer and the tradition in the family was in science and engineering, but they never took us to see a canal or a tunnel, we were taken to see Dr Johnson's house in Lichfield. They didn't show us Erasmus Darwin's house up the road. Sometimes, Mother taught us, and that was always rather unfortunate. Father took Maths sometimes and that was very entertaining. Father was a terrific historian and he used to ask us questions at dinner, like, ‘When was the battle of Waterloo?’ and if you said, ‘1815’ he said, ‘Silly! I didn't mean the year! What month?’

Dorothy Wright

I never went to school. I had governesses who taught me reading and writing and Mathematics and History. I got through an incredible number. Having a ‘gov’ wasn't like being in a classroom. The gov watches you day and night. I had other classes as well. A French class was got up for the children of the district. Monsieur Poiret came from Leeds University every week to teach us. We had dancing lessons in the Town Hall. It could be trying, because one was made to do the waltz or polka with some little boy that you couldn't bear. We had a drawing class taken by the headmaster of Leeds Art School. I had always been interested in drawing. My mother used to illustrate all her letters to me when I was at the sea with my nanny. And at Easter, she used to paint my Easter eggs. I wasn't particularly musical – I liked other things better. My mother bought me a violin in the hopes that I'd learn it. I did for a bit but I sold it to buy a pony. By the time I stopped lessons, I was leading a life of leisure and a great deal of enjoyment. I was learning how to live with older people and how to treat them.

Ernest Hugh Haire

Father decided to put me into teaching. In 1908, I went to St John's College in Battersea in London. We were affiliated to London University. The syllabus was very wide, and in the first year I did English, History, Geography, Science and Maths. The discipline was extremely strict. We had lectures every morning at seven o'clock and you had to be there on the dot. It was a bind – there was a competition to see how late you could stay in bed to get there for seven. Three mornings a week, the lecture was Chaucer, the other two it was Maths. Breakfast was at eight-thirty, then chapel at nine. We had lectures until twelve-fifteen, then lunch. We had splendid food and we were waited on hand and foot. In the afternoon, we had one lecture between two and three, but on Wednesday we were free all afternoon. We had another good meal at six, with beer provided at the table. I didn't drink at that time, but two prefects used to arrange to sit at a table with ten teetotallers each evening until it dawned on people that they were getting tight every night. After dinner, we had chapel at quarter to seven, and supervised private study between half past seven and half past nine.