Video transcript
What might your local area have been like in Victorian times? And how would you find out? I am going to look at the different ways you can discover the history of your local area. I am going to begin by looking at a school. Here behind me is a Victorian school and I am going to start by looking at the building to see what it can tell me. I know it is a Victorian building because I found a plaque which tells me when it was built. This stone was laid by the right Honourable Lord Carrington on the 13th day of October 1873. To find out more I want to have a closer look at the building itself. First of all I am just going to look; this is the first step of LACE: Look, Ask, Conclude and Expand. I will write things down as I go along. Girls and infants, that’s interesting. Now what does that make you think? Public Elementary Schools, now what could that possibly mean? I really like the stonework above the doorway. I am going to start sketching it. Another interesting thing I can see is this tower, now you don’t see that on every school. I am going to make sure I get a record of it. These are tall windows. If I wanted to record just how tall these windows were, I would get a friend to take a picture of me standing in front of them. What I would like to do is make a plan, so I need to know how big the building is and to do that I am going to pace it out. As well as looking at the outside of the building, I am interested to see what clues I can find inside. I am halfway up the tower that I saw from the outside and I have discovered that it is in fact a bell tower. And listen the bell still works. I wonder what it was used for. I decided to ask some of the pupils from the school if they could tell me about the kinds of things they had noticed.
Boy 1: This has brick walls and astonishing windows.
Girl 1: They are really beautiful.
Rebecca: They are lovely aren’t they? And have you seen windows like this in other old buildings?
Girl 1: I have definitely seen them in churches.
Girl 2: They look like stained glass windows. In the winter it is quite drafty because the roof isn’t very low so the air can go around.
Rebecca: What is it like to be a pupil in this classroom?
Girl 2: When you first come in here you feel a bit intimidated.
Girl 1: The ceiling is very high and it makes you feel quite small. These are more steady bricks and hard whereas over here, this is more smooth and makes a different noise. This one is older seeing as this one is more modern.
Rebecca: Why do you think that is?
Girl 1: Well, I think maybe this was all one big room and it got cut in half to build two separate rooms.
Rebecca: Do you think it would have made a difference to how you were taught and what your experience in the classroom would have been like having a classroom that big?
Girl 1: Well, I think maybe if that was the front of the classroom and that was the back it would have been hard for the people nearer the back to listen and hear and learn more things than at the front.
Talking with the children has helped me think about what it might have been like to be a pupil here back in Victorian times. I wonder if there is anything else in the school that might help me. Every Victorian school kept log books. Sometimes like here they have been stored in the school but in most cases you will have to track them down. I am going to look at them to see what I can find out. Here is an entry from the 19th of May. Mrs Hirons visited the school in the morning and expressed herself please with the neatness of the first and second class copy books. I wonder what copy books are? The sewing is again very satisfactory and the order is so perfect that there ought to be no doubt about the ultimate success of the school. So it looks as though sewing was an important part of the curriculum. 23rd of December 1875: The attendance has been very poor this week girls being wanted at home to assist in the Christmas preparations. So, the girls are wanted at home to prepare for Christmas, looks like those were their Christmas holidays. There seems to be a separate book for boys and girls. Let’s have a look at the boy’s book. February 20th: cautioned the boys about damaging the grass around the walnut tree in the playground. Alright, now here is a summary of everything they had to do and there is quite a lot so I am going to record it. This helps me get an idea of what it was actually like to study here. It mentions things like singing, drawing and drill. I wonder what that must have been like. Another thing I have been given is the register for this time. Now, it has not only got the names and where they lived it even got what their parents did. Ah, here we go; July the 26th 1875. Mary Horseman, she lived in new land meadow and her father John Horseman was a carpenter. Annie Rolls who lived in Oxford road, her father was James Rolls and he was a chair maker. Emma Berry and her father Edward Berry who was a paper maker. Already I am beginning to get an idea of what it might have been like to go to the school. The classrooms felt big, it might have been drafty and difficult to heat. The classrooms might have been bigger than they are today. Like me, you too can find things out by looking at Victorian buildings near you.
So far I have looked closely at a school that was built in Victorian times. I discovered it was Victorian because I found a plaque on the wall with a date. I made some notes and sketches of the sort of things that seemed unusual about the building. Now I am going to have a look at some of the buildings nearby to see if I can get an idea of what it was like around here in the Victorian times. Maybe I will see some of the houses the children or the teachers of the school might have lived in. The first thing I can see is that the houses in the street have the same tall thin look and that the roofs make the same short of shape above the windows as I noticed at the school. And if I look back at my sketches I can see how the kinds of decoration in the brickwork and in the white stone parts are similar to some of the stone patterns I also noticed at the school. This certainly makes me think that these houses were also built in Victorian times maybe at the same time as the school? I wonder which was here first and if any of the children from the school might have lived here? What I have also noticed is that some of these homes have names. This one; West Cliff. This makes me think that these homes must have been quite grand in their time. This one is detached not joined together which also suggests to me that it is one of the more expensive houses in the area. I am going to capture my thoughts whilst I am here. I am standing outside what I think is a Victorian home because it looks like the decoration on the school. This building also looks similar to the school. It doesn’t look like a home it looks more like an official building of some kind. This church also looks similar to the school in some ways. For instance these windows, let me take a look at the photos I took of the school. Yes, I see, look at the tall windows with the flower like shapes at the top. Here, look this tells me when it was built. It’s the foundation stone. It was laid on Tuesday October 3rd 1865. Lord Carrington, that’s the same name I found on the plaque on the school wall and also what I found in the log books, that is worth noting down. By looking closely at the buildings near to the school I am beginning to get the idea that they might have been built around the same time. I need to think about how to find out more.
So far I have looked at different buildings but I want to find out more, more about what it was like to live in the area and go to the school. One of the things I can do is look at maps and other documents from the Victorian times. Some of these will have been stored and archived. One of the places where you can go and look is at a record office. It is a place where you can look first hand at documents made at the time, look at letters written by Victorians or look at the maps they might have used then as well. I am going to see what I can find out and try and answer some of my questions. I am going to be working with one of the archivists: Sarah. Sarah is an expert in historical documents and is responsible for keeping and looking after them. She can also help by suggesting others that I may not have thought of.
Rebecca: I have been looking at my local primary school and I am really interested to find out more about the surrounding streets and the houses. Is there anything I can look at that can help me?
Sarah: Yes, there is quite a variety of things actually that we have. There are things like photographs. We may actually have some records of the school itself and of the area. And particularly maps are rather useful because you can just really find the place that you are interested in and if you look at a few maps over time you can see how that changed.
Rebecca: I think I would like to have a look at some maps first, that would be brilliant.
Sarah: This is an old survey map showing High Wycombe. It’s a first edition and it shows in great detail the area in which the school you are looking at was built.
Rebecca: That’s amazing, you can see it there, there is the school. I would like to firstly check when this map was actually made. Right it says here: surveyed in 1875.
Sarah: Yes.
Rebecca: Now I am seeing here that there are only plots of land, there aren’t actually any houses. Now when I was walking around there and looking at the surrounding buildings, I noticed that there were quite a lot of houses, it was quite built up. Is there anything that can show me how it has been built up with new properties?
Sarah: Yes, of this particular part of High Wycombe we can and this deed in fact records the sale of the land immediately around the school.
Rebecca: So is there anything else I can look at that can tell me more about the people that lived there, what they looked like, what the school looked like?
Sarah: Yes, we have got some photographs of old High Wycombe. There we are, there is the picture of the school at the end of the Victorian period.
Rebecca: Now just from looking at these three documents, I have found out so much already about the school and about its surrounding areas and the buildings. Now I can see from here on this map that was published in 1875 that the surrounding area of the school is just allotments at the moment whereas if I looked at the deeds that were a little bit later on you can see the different plots of land that Lord Carrington owned and sold to various people. Now I wanted to find out also about the different values of the houses and of the plots because nowadays around the school some of the buildings look quite well to do. Now looking in the deeds you can see there were different prices for specific houses. I found it quite interesting that it was around about 400 pounds for a single plot or 700 pounds for a pair. I wonder how much that would be today. Now by looking at the photograph of the school, well firstly it has a different name, it was called the central school then so they must have changed the name at some point. I can also see that the children are all wearing uniform. And I can also see that it is not as built up as it is now. Now, what I would like to find out is what the area around the school looked like before the school was actually built.
Sarah: Right this is a tithe map of High Wycombe. It is made in the middle of the 19th century and as you can see it is one large map.
Rebecca: So how can I find out exactly where the school would have been?
Sarah: I think it would be helpful to get the older survey map we were looking at earlier.
Comparing the two maps helped me see how things have changed as well as help me find on the old map the site where the school was to be built.
Sarah: So that is Castle Hill House, so in that case the school would be there.
Rebecca: That is so interesting. So I have been able to find out about the actual area surrounding the school and what it was like. I wonder if there is any way that I can find out more about the people that actually lived around there.
Sarah: Yes, at this time in the 19th century you can. Census returns are a wonderful resource for finding out who lived where.
Rebecca: A census return records everybody living in the country on a certain date. It is carried out every ten years. It can tell us who lived where, where a person was born, the size of the family, who was the head of the household and what jobs people did. Another useful source of information is the business directory of the town, a bit like a local directory today. Here I have got Kelly’s directory for the town in 1891. This lists the different businesses and trades in the town a bit like the yellow pages or a local directory would today. Now I can find out more about what people did for a living. Here I found out about the school that I was looking at earlier and it says here that the master is Alan H Plowman. So, if I type in Plowman and I am going to click search and here we have a copy of the original. It shows the numbers of the houses on Priory Road and sometimes the names of the houses as well and you can see Alan Plowman here, certificated teacher. It says number 300, the School House. I can see here that he has got four children and he also has a servant that lives with him as well.
Rebecca: [VOICE OVER] In the records office I have been able to look at different kinds of documents to help me put together a picture of what it was like around the school. I have also been able to look at the census information and most libraries or records offices will let you explore this information online for free. Looking at this has helped me learn about the families who lived near and around the school. What I would like to know next is what their lives might have been like.
So, I know the names of some of the people that lived in the area. I know where they lived and I know what some of them did for a living. Now to help me get a better idea of what life was like for these people I am going to visit some museums. I hope to see some of the things people might have used at work, at home and the sort of clothes they might have worn. In a museum objects are often grouped together for display. This display has objects from school. Children were using these very things over a hundred years ago. Now like a real historian I am going to start by looking carefully at the objects. These are my sources and I am going to record what I see. I am going to remember to use LACE; Look, Ask, Conclude and Expand. So I am going to look and think before I read the labels. How different is this desk from those we have today. It looks as if two people might have sat at this at the same time And the seat; it looks like it is fixed. You couldn’t move it around as you do a chair and it doesn’t look very comfortable. Also, there seem to be two ways of writing. I wonder why? I wonder what these clay balls are. Are they marbles? If so, they are very plain. I wonder why? The pictures in the books show us examples of what people might have worn. In this one I can see women in white skirts, cloaks and shawls, hats or bonnets and I can see a child wearing a similar dress but shorter. I wonder what other things I can notice. As well as objects there are photographs. Here I can see what people were wearing and what they made. I like the look of this, so finely made. I don’t know if this is everyday clothing or something special. I wonder just who did wear it and when. You might also find objects from the home. Some of them look similar to things we have now but they are not quite the same. They make me think how life was different. This to me looks a bit like a bottle. It might have contained a liquid. I wonder how it was used. Most museums will have some Victorian objects that you can see. Some of you might be lucky enough to have a museum in your town or near your school. Here you might learn more about the people who lived in your area. I am visiting one near the school that I studied earlier where I learned that in Victorian times some of the parents of the children were chair makers. I like this photo it is really interesting. There is so much to look at. You can see that they are wearing flat caps and some of them are even wearing bowler hats, they have got aprons on. Some of them have got waist coats on which is quite smart. I wonder if I can find out more. This photograph was taken about 1870. It is workmen and the apprentices which will explain the difference in age and they are outside a traditional chair factory. You can see some of the chairs there on display. Like any museum there will be things that have been kept because people felt that they were important. However what is just as interesting is to see ordinary objects that have survived and help tell us more about everyday life. Looking at these objects first hand helps me begin to picture what people’s lives were like. But it also helps me ask new questions that I would like to explore further.
By looking at different things in different places I am beginning to put together a picture of the lives of real people back in Victorian times. Now I am going to collect together everything that I have found out; the photographs of the school, the photographs of the surrounding houses, their names, all the signs that I have found. I have also got copies from the log books from the school. I have even got a copy of the gazette which was the local paper. And I have also got some information here from the census telling me more about the people that lived in the surrounding areas of the school and I have got my own recordings that I am already starting to listen to and make notes on. I am going to choose one of the houses I visited and I am going to try and illustrate what I think life might have been like in the Victorian times. You might think of different ways of showing some of the things you have learned. For instance, what would a day in the life of a child have been like who lived in a street near you? Draw your own sketch map of the area to show what you have learned. Or choose an object and by making a poster show how it might have been used, by who and why? Whatever you produce may help others ask new historical questions about what life was like in Victorian times.