Schoolmaster

[BeeE586]

My ancestor John Atkinson Tillotson was from the Bradfield/Ecclesfield area north of Sheffield. By 1820 he was living in Beighton, formerly in north east Derbyshire but taken into the city when Sheffield extended its boundaries in the early 1960's.

In 1841, John gives his occupation as 'schoolmaster', although he later becomes land surveyor and valuer for the Manvers and Pierrepoint families who were Lords of the Manor of Beighton. He was born c 1794 in YKS Keighley. Can anyone tell me how and/or where he would have trained as schoolmaster at that time, or if any formal training was required ? So far as I know he had no degree and was married at the age of 22 in 1816.

His father Robert was a papermaker and was probably living in Bradfield by 1797.

Thank you in anticipation Eileen......

[Peter Goodey]

In 1841 there would have been no state system and no standards for education set down by the state. In fact there was precious little in the way of education for most kids. What sort of area would Beighton have been in the 1820s? (trying to imagine what sort of school it might have been).

There's a page here with some useful stuff on schooling of that period

https://www.thepotteries.org/focus/001.htm

OK it's about the Potteries but it does describe the types of schools which existed at the time. For the most part the appointment of teaching staff was in the gift of church or chapel locally. One imagines that being Godly was probably the main qualification.

You might also be interested in some of the research leaflets on educational topics available on the National Archives site.

[BeeE586]

Peter Thank you for that, I have found a lot of good stuff about Beighton in general on the NA site, but nothing about education so far. The potteries site I knew nothing about but I will investigate.

Beighton was essentially a small rural community until the deep pits were sunk c1900, although there is mention of 'synkyng of ye cole pitts' in manorial documents of the 1590's. A state school was opened 1875ish and there was at least one Dame School before this. A row of four houses (now demolished) were known as School Houses, and one of them which I used to visit as a child before the war was considerably bigger than the other three. I believe some relative lived there but I don't know who. At 78 I am the matriarch of my family so I am the elderly relative and have no-one else to ask !!!!

JAT was also a farmer of about 50 acres. In 1851, his wife and children were in Beighton, although nowhere near the School Houses, but the enumerator very kindly entered a note 'Head absent in Notts.' and I found him on the Thoresby Estate of the Manvers family. Obviously he was no longer a schoolmaster. I have examples of his elegant handwriting on various surveys that he carried out in the village, notably on the supposed Roman Bath at Birley Spa.

Eileen