However, the time came for me to go to boarding school, and 3 months before I was 9 years old I was sent to a Mr William Ross at Woking. It was only about 18 miles from home, but it was away from home; whether my father wanted me to get on better at school, or perhaps it was the family coming on quickly, or it may be that I was needing more discipline than I received at home - and, well, boarding school was the place for boys, and so to Woking. Old Woking was 1½ miles from the railway station of that name, and the old River Wey ran near, where I used to put out eel lines at night, and go early next morning to see if anything had been caught: many times I went for nothing, but one morning one line had got a fish about 1½ pounds, so far as I can remember, and it was cooked for our dinner. As the old river was not navigable just here, a paper mill had been erected right across it, and the full current could be used as power for the mills, and it was quite interesting to watch the process, from rags or spanish grass to paper, the pulping, bleaching, ironing, cutting etc. The new River Wey was miles away, and ran through Guildford, the county town [44] where we used to walk, rather than walk 1½ miles to Woking Station and take the train for Guildford.
I remember going two nights running to head Gadsby lecture; he was a traveller in the East, and had written a book called “Gadsby’s wanderings”, also he was related to the author of Gadsby’s Hymns, many of which we sang at the little chapel where we went on Sundays – this was a Countess of Huntingdon connexion and highly Calvinistic; there was another less than 2 miles away. The annual tea and anniversary of the little chapel was a great time, people would come miles to be present, and many walked those miles. After the afternoon preaching service tea was partaken of on the lawn, at the rear of the building, and I have heard some of the women say they had drunk 14 and in one case 16 cups of tea.
Not far from Woking was West Horsley, the seat of the Earls of Effingham, where I used to visit the gardener, a relative [45] of Mrs Ross; I used to go for seeds or seedlings or cuttings of flowers, as Mr Ross was quite a gardener and secretary of the local horticultural society, and besides having a garden front and back of the house had also a greenhouse and potting-shed, where also was the stove that heated the water for the greenhouse pipes. Here I worked after school hours, keeping up the heat in winter etc and painting and glazing in spring, potting and watering in summer. Also in this connexion we boys used to go for silver sand, peat and leaf mould, driving into the country a donkey and cart borrowed from Mr R. This was usually on a Saturday, so as not to interfere with school hours. Also, another Saturday excursion was to a farm about 4 miles away, where we went for vegetables in summer and fall; we used to borrow a truck (footnote 1) and bring it home loaded. On one occasion we encountered a spring-heel-jack (footnote 2); this was a man dressed in a white sheet with springs on the heels of his boots, who to [46] play a practical joke would caper about after dark and frighten people, and on this particular occasion hopped about the road in front of us, and when we reached the place where he was first seen, had sprung over the hedge and was leaping along in the field. So we boys took to our heels and ran until we got away, but we were just frightened.
Mr R was registrar of births and deaths; this occasioned a monthly visit to two large institutions some miles away, and we went in a farmer’s 2-wheeled cart, and as I helped in the garden I was often the one who got the outing. One was to the lunatic asylum at Brookwood, and the other the convict prison at Woking; in fact there were two prisons, one for men and one for women. I have seen gangs of convicts all chained together, de-train at Woking station and be put into breaks (footnote 3) for conveyance to the prison, [47] and they all looked very pallid and half starved. Some of the prison warder’s sons came to our school. Also in this neighbourhood were many florists gardens – a delightful locality.
In connection with the Asylum, I remember one of the inmates; an exceptional man, who when well enough acted as a bookkeeper, and on feeling a bad time coming on would give notice of the same to the doctor, and for a time was just one of the patients. The Basingstoke Canal ran through this country, and I’ve thought that if school got unendurable I would run away home, and this canal towing path would take me there - although not the shortest way, which would be to Guildford 6 miles, then to Farnham another 5 or 6 miles along the tops of the Surrey Hills known as the “Hogs back” (footnote 4), and then 6 miles home; but I never had sufficient cause to run away. [48] Another outing I had, and that was to the home of the Whig candidate for Parliament; Mr R was his political agent, and was invited to dinner, and I was one of 3 selected to go. And what a dinner – 6 courses. I had eaten enough after 3 of the courses, as there were things to eat delicious and plentiful; and we were waited on by 2 men waiters in livery. Well, we had walked there 7 miles, and at night we walked back, and the starts were out ere we got far on our way back.
One of my first jobs after I had learned to put glass into a sash (footnote 5), was to put a pane into the Chapel window glass; putty etc was put into my hand, and I was told to borrow a ladder at a house near, and I was expected to make a good job of it. I was not 10 years old. I used to be given a ticket for the local Flower Show each year, and as there was always a brass band [49] in attendance, I enjoyed myself immensely.
The front wall of our school, the Old Manor House, was covered with grape vines, green and purple, and in a border at the base were flowerbeds, laid out each summer in good style, and they always looked well.
I used to be sent to the Railway Station frequently after afternoon school, to get a paper at the bookstall, as there was no newsvendor in the village, and once on my return journey I met our postmaster in the charge of a policeman, and I learned later it was for embezzlement. He was convicted and went to prison for some years. Another police case was to do with people I knew; the man used to get drunk and beat his wife. This went on for some time, until the eldest son could bear it no longer, so on one evening when things were going pretty bad the son got a companion, a sailor home on leave, and they two went and gave the drunken wife-beater some of his own back. There was a prosecution [50] the son getting 6 months and the sailor 2 years in Horsemonger gaol London.
Our schoolroom was registered as a place of worship, and so in it was held a monthly communion service; a few of us boys were expected to go and help the singing, as we also formed the choir at the chapel. We had a drum and pipe band, and that is where I learned to play the flute; and we played the Cabul March, Rogues March, and 42nd Highlanders March amongst many others – the Rogues is what is played when a soldier is drummed out of the army.
Our school hours were 7 to 8am study, 8-9 breakfast, 9-12 morning session, 2-5 afternoon session (or 1-4, I forget which), five days a week; evenings 7-9pm home lessons in the house; no schoolwork on Saturday. On Sunday, bible lessons 7-8am. We were supposed to go for a walk on Saturday afternoons, and sometimes we all did, but us willing workers were drafted into getting vegetables, gravel, sand, loam.
[51] One other occupation I got a look at was land-measuring. Mr Ross used to do it for the farmers in the fall, in order to pay acreage reaped by reapers, but I only dragged the chain (footnote 6). Oh yes, I also did cyder-making and brewing, also the apples were taken to a neighbour farm where there was an apple-press; and the brewing was done in the school kitchen, those helping could have a drop of the malt liquor called sweetwork, but not the beer after the hop liquor was added and fermented. And again, there was a wood-burning bread oven, and we used to bake our own bread, and as I could mould (footnote 7) was taken on as assistant to Mrs Ross.
One bad railway accident occurred while I was living there. A train was standing on the track in Woking station, when the Portsmouth (footnote 8) express was due to rush through, and on it came, and leaped up on the rear coaches of the standing train; it was a terrible smash-up as the express was travelling at 60mph.
Well now, about the school and my part in it. [52] This was about the period 1864 to 7, before there was any compulsory attendance or any school Act in particular, and no Government inspection of private schools. Dickens gives an eye-opener of what they were like in his day (footnote 9), and although I daresay he exaggerated somewhat, Squeers was a typical schoolmaster of those days. We the pupils had to learn; we were not taught much in those days. Mr Forster’s Education Act was not in force until 1870, so I got no benefit from it. The master’s son acted as his assistant in school. He could play piano, harp and flute, and he was bandmaster and choir leader. But he used to like to see boys fight, and I with others had to get up at 5am to make sport for him.
There was a dramatic college a few miles away, where pensioned actors were cared for, and one, a Frenchman, came and taught French, and a music master taught piano at our school. [53] I had about 10 lesson books to get a piece by rote (footnote 10) each day from each book, and the result – I had as a prize one small book worth 6-12 cents; 10th prize 4th class shows I was not thought much of in that way by the master.
Mr Blank is a very good man,
He tries to teach us all he can
To read, and rite, and rithmetic
And don’t forget to give us the stick
Is about right, for our “Mr Blank” used to wield a stick about 2 feet long and about an inch thick – and I’ll say, I had my share, and all over arithmetic. I was going out of school one windy day when the door blew shut, and pinched the top of my finger off (footnote 11); a cobweb was got and put on, and that stopped the bleeding, and it stayed on until the finger healed. I don’t think I had a swim more than once, and that is because the river was considered dangerous on account of the current, but once I went in and remember the long weeds around my legs, which gave me an uncanny feeling.
Transcriber’s footnotes:
1. Not a lorry – a wooden cart on wheels
2. Named after the perpetrator of a number of attacks on women in the late 1830’s, which would account for the frightening aspect; see for example http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Meteor/3602/springy.html for the story.
3. Probably brakes – an old name for a wagon (as in shooting brake).
4. The diary adds “I repeat, the Hogs back” owing to slight illegibility the first time. These hills are well-known to motorists in the area to this day …
5. A sash window was one where the entire frame of glass moved up and down on rope pulleys; now only found in older houses.
6. A chain is an old English measure (22 yards = 1 chain, the distance between wickets on a cricket pitch). Here a real chain was being used to measure the land, as short a time ago as approx 1870.
7. Moulding the bread into shape.
8. Travelling from London Waterloo to Portsmouth (expresses take their name from their destination)
9. No doubt referring to Nicholas Nickleby, with Whackford Squeers as headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, written in 1839.
10. By rote means “learn, and play or recite it from memory” – usually 100 percent accuracy was required.
11. The doors at that time would be very solid wood, probably with iron bars. The idea of using a cobweb to stop bleeding was very common, and is still a “trick of the trade” today in 2000.
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