The ratepayers of Glemsford were quick to react to the requirement to bring Board School education to the village. The new Act was passed by Parliament, after intense debate, in August 1870. As early as 10 February 1871 a meeting was called in the village to pass a resolution to form a Board; an election was held on 4 April and the Board was in action by 20 April.
Henry Canham, of the Sudbury Union, had called the meeting and was appointed Clerk to the Glemsford Board. His signature appears in the log book until the Board itself was dissolved after the 1902 Education Act passed control of the Schools to the West Suffolk Education Committee at Bury.
Although the Glemsford Schools were non-denominational, the local clergy played a central and important role in their creation and operation. The Rev. George Coldham (Rector) was the first Chairman of the Board; he was a frequent visitor to the Schools until he left the village in 1887. His successor, the Rev. Herbert Hall, was immediately elected to the Board, and he visited the Schools almost monthly to maintain the Church-Board-School links.
There were four other original Board members, all ratepayers of substance. Alfred R. Clarke ("shopkeeper") became the first vice-chairman, supported by W. Byford ("farmer of 260 acres, carrier, & coal merchant employing 19 men & 8 boys"), J. Game ("agent to silk manufacturer") and G. Copsey("shoemaker"). All Board members made it their duty to visit the school on a regular basis.
It might be natural to assume that the first consideration of the Board of 1871 would be to build the Schools. There seems to have been little discussion of the possibility of using the original National School on Hunts Hill (now the Church Hall) which was still in operation. But to assume that all their time would have been thus used would be to forget the niceties of Committee work. Much time was spent debating the weighty matter of their Seal. These debates are quite revealing about life in the village in the 1870's. The main contenders for the design of the Seal involved not a plough, or a barn, or a farm wagon, but a palm tree with a silk worm, and a mat-loom. There should be no surprise in this. After all, coconut fibre and silk were the threads which held the village together, and the creators of the Village School recognised this.
Despite such debates, little delayed the real matters with which the Board had to deal. By 13 June, 1871, not only had a site been decided upon but steps had already been taken to acquire it. "Twinn's Lay" belonged to Mr Eaton of the Silk Factory. It had a tenant in "the widow of the late Mr John Bigg", but her tenancy expired that Michaelmas. By August 15th, Mr Eaton had agreed to hand over the land, or at least just over one acre of a nine acre site. What became of Mrs Bigg is not recorded in the Board minutes, but the Board duly acknowledged Mr Eaton's generosity and proceeded, on two fronts, to request designs for a school building to serve an anticipated total school population of about 400 (later revised upwards), and to seek funding, by Mortgage, of the building.
The successful design was submitted by Messrs. Salter and Firmin, after an original list of submissions had been reduced to two, protected by the telling pseudonyms "Pro Bono Publico" and "Scientia". The former won the vote, for the good of the people.
Next came the matter of builders' tenders. There was no shortage of willing members of the construction industry at that time; the Board faced the problem of, again, having to select one from a list of nine. While these matters were being discussed, and design approval sought from the Education Department in London, Mr Salter and the Board held a site meeting in February 1872 to investigate matters such as the availability of a water supply, and the proximity of gravel for building use. Presumably, this was successful. On 23 April 1872, Mr C. Theobald agreed a slight adjustment to his tendered sum, and on 6 August, when all the legal issues had been settled, the Board and Mr Theobald signed a contract for the building of the Glemsford Schools, "to include playgrounds and residences for the Master and Mistresses", at a cost of £2800.
Apart from building the schools, the Board's other main task in 1873 was to create the framework for running the schools. In July, they approved a standard set of bye-laws for the schools, including the provision that attendance should be compulsory for all those between the ages of 5 and 12. Although the 1870 Education Act allowed for the creation of Board schools, such as Glemsford's, it was not until 1880 that attendance was made compulsory nationally. Glemsford's Schools were thus several years ahead of the country as a whole. The same was to be true on other occasions.
On 15 September, the Board made its first educational appointment. At an annual salary of £90, Mr Arnold from Oxford was given control of the Boys' School. His contract included the use of "furnished accommodation" in the house which now contains the offices, library and clock tower - the Boys School occupied the wing of the present school nearest Fair Green.
Under the terms by which the Board Schools were created, fees were to be charged for all children. At their meeting on 27 October 1873, the Board approved a scale of fees which, allowing for concessions to families with more than one schoolchild (more the rule than the exception in 19th Century Glemsford), set a fee of 2d a week for children over 7, and 1d per week for those who were younger. As early as 1873 the Board, though obliged to admit children from the age of 5, was making accommodation available for children from the age of three. Arthur Clarke, for instance, started school on July 16th, 1897. In October the school discovered that he would not be three until December 3rd. He had started school at the grand old age of 2 years and 7 months! Many other children were admitted on their third birthday. Quite what they were being committed to is worth noting. When the Schools opened, the day started at 9 a.m. and finished at 4.30 p.m.. There was a lunch break from noon until 2 p.m., but since no provision was made for a "school lunchtime", let alone a school lunch, it is likely that many of the children had to make a double daily journey to and from school. Perhaps such journeys also explain why a sizeable minority of the younger pupils tended only to attend regularly in the spring and summer terms.
The final stages of the Board's early work were completed with the appointment of the Misses Martha Jones and Annie Forbes to take charge of the Girls' and Infants' Schools. While Mr Arnold earned the princely sum of £90, Miss Jones was to be paid £70 and Miss Forbes £50 per year. Equal treatment of the sexes was a long way off; the Misses Jones and Forbes also had to make do with "joint occupancy" of the school house provided in the area of the former staff room and infant cloakrooms, now the nursery unit.
On March 2nd 1874, Miss Jones admitted 73 girls and Miss Forbes, 51 infants. Miss Forbes commented at the end of her first week: "I find them exceedingly backward." But the start had been made. In little more than three years, the new Board had managed to construct the shell of their new establishment on a "green field site". Glemsford's schools were ready for use two years before, for instance, those of its more energetically industrial neighbour, Haverhill. Although a comparison between Glemsford and Haverhill might seem ludicrous, the populations of the two places, according to the censuses of 1871-1901, were surprisingly similar:
| 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | 1901 | |
| GLEMSFORD | 2252 | 2490 | 2375 | 1975 |
| HAVERHILL | 3031 | 3685 | 4560 | 4862 |
Glemsford's need for a new school was nearly as great as Haverhill's, as is shown in the speed with which the buildings were provided. Putting life into that shell was the task of the early teachers and their Board. There were problems ahead.
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This text is Copyright (c) Steve Clarke