I decided to give this "brief history" only because I felt I had to start somewhere and this seemed a good idea - at the time!
When William the Conqueror became king of England, the population, rich and poor alike, was mainly uneducated with only those who were part of the church having any form of education and that would have been religious.
As time passed, and commerce throughout the world began to blossom, England found she had a need for merchants who could speak Latin, which, at that time, was the universal language. In the major trading towns, schools were set up to teach Latin grammar to the sons of the merchants and these schools became known as "Grammar Schools". which is where we get the name from today.
Monasteries, Nunneries, the Church would also teach the young though this would have been religion, singing, and some Latin and only the young of the gentry; the sons of the ordinary agricultural labourers could not have afforded to pay. Girls were not taught as this would have been considered a waste of time and money.
None of these, however, was what we today would recognise as, a "proper" school.
In the later centuries, from parish records such as the overseer′s accounts, it is evident that the parish, via the overseers, paid for the education of some pauper children.
In the 18th century, over half of the population was poor and dependant on the charity of their richer neighbours; schooling was not seen as a way out of that poverty. Indeed, society was so stratified with a rigid class system that education, for the majority, meant being taught how to stay in one′s place and become good servants to the upper classes; this was "servants" in the widest sense meaning, basically, workers.
I found many tantalizing references to a "school" of some sort, going back to the 1600s, they were just references; there was no statement, nothing in writing that came even close to answering any of the questions.
The earliest of these references appeared in my grandfatherprime;s book, "The Records of Hooe". Where he got them from, I believe, must have been the "Vestry Minutes" and these I still have to look but I know the further these minutes go back in time, the less information they record.
The first references are, in date order;
1 "Principal Estates, 1663-1665" states: Thomas Bunce′s (School Farm) £20
2 "Some Old Residences" he records as,"Residences of which we know the dates of their erection include –.. School Farm House (1712)".
3 1758 "For keeping and schooling Huniset" £5 1s 0d
This appears among the list of money paid out by the Overseers to individuals but who "Huniset" was and why the parish should pay for any schooling he (or she) had, I have not been able to find out.
4 "In 1763 the clerk′s wages were advanced ten shillings per annum in consideration of his teaching singing and his extraordinary attendance in the season of Lent"
Almost certainly, the "teaching singing" would have been religious and nothing to do with education as we know it to-day.
There are, however, strangely enough, references to a "School Farm", before 1665, and a "School Farm House", in 1712, but there's no mention of the school itself.
