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School Photographs

Note! The photographs are at the bottom of the page

Shown below are nine photographs of the "scholars" (or "pupils", as we would know them today), together, in most cases, with their teachers. While some were taken just outside the school building, a few are obviously somewhere in the country but I don't know where.

While a few of the original pictures were dated in some manner, the majority weren't and I've not been able to find sufficient clues to help me with this problem. One picture has the date "?1895", which may be correct but I've no way of telling.

My grandfather also left in his scrapbook, several lists of names but no clue as to what they were intended for. In two cases, I have been able to, reasonably, match them up to a photograph so I have assumed that that's what they were for - planning which child would stand where for the photographer. The remaining lists look more as though they are some form of seating plan for the classroom. There were two rooms in the school; one identified as "Class Room" and the other as "School Room"; in the latter, there were four tiers of seats and desks, each tier slightly raised above the other as they went toward the back of the room (rather like cinema seats but not as comfortable!) and some of the lists are divided into four rows.

An interesting point is that three of the photographs, HS002, HS003, and HS004, appear to have been taken on the same day, whenever that was. In each case, the photograph has been taken with the subjects positioned in front of a pair of sash windows where, it would appear, the right hand window is cracked open exactly the same amount.

Also, these three are all mounted in the same type of grey, stiff cardboard frame, with the same photographer's details printed just under the picture; "Pearson, Photographer, Hastings". The only apparent difference is that, in the case of HS004, the printing is in italics but other than that they are the same.

Pearson was born in Kent, in 1859, moved to Hastings around 1884 where, by 1901 he had established his business as "Pearson, The World's Photographer" at West Hill, Hastings. For the full story of this man and his art, plus pictures, goto David Simlkin's website, "Sussex Photo History"

Photograph HS004 has the words "Grade I" scribbled on it while HS003, has "Grade II".

Finally, there are four teachers in the first photograph, HS002, and none in the other two, which would be because the teachers had already had their photographs taken.

My conclusion is that the first photo, HS002, is of the teachers and the infants, while the other two are of the older children, split into the two educational groups that were introduce in 1908.

Clicking on an image will take you to a larger version and what details I have.

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Left to right, above - HS001 - October 1917; HS002 - Taken after 1908; HS003 - Group II, after 1908

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Left to right, above - HS004 - Group I, after 1908; HS005 - Taken about 1895; HS006 - Unable to date

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Left to right, above - HS007 - 1913; HS008 - May 1912; HS009 - December 1916

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