The best days of your life?

School days are considered to be “the best of your life”. The records created in the process certainly make fascinating reading.  Here at Brent Archives, we hold log books (a day-to-day record of school life kept by the head teacher), punishment books and even class photographs dating back to 19^th century for some of the Borough’s schools. 

The most recent acquisitions are admission registers from Roe Green Infants (1933 to 1987) and Donnington Primary attendance registers (1995 to 2010). These records will remain closed to the public for the next 100 years as they include individual pupil records which are protected by the Data Protection Act (you can find more information about exceptions and other school records held at Brent Archives on our website). So it’s a great privilege to list, describe and preserve these records and share the stories they tell.  

Admission registers record the arrival of new pupils at a school and are arranged by date of admission. They include pupils’ names, parents’ or guardians’ names, addresses, pupils’ dates of birth, entry and reason for leaving. The Roe Green Infant admission registers also have columns entitled “exemption from Religious Instruction” and “Remarks”. It’s these handwritten notes that transform these records from a mere roll call to a window on a world before league tables, political correctness, and a ready supply of antibiotics.

Within the 15 bound volumes childhood illnesses or “delicate constitutions” feature prominently, from trouble with nerves to weak hearts. Written next to one child’s name is “petit mal”. Apparently this condition is a brief disturbance of brain function causing an absence seizure or staring spell that can be a symptom of epilepsy but could be mistaken for inattentiveness.

Another entry reads “Very delicate in home at seaside” illustrating the trend for sending children away to the coast to benefit from the health giving properties of the sea air, sun and sea bathing. Another pupil is withdrawn to attend an “Open Air School”. This was a movement created to prevent the development of tuberculosis in children. It required the establishment of schools combining medical surveillance with teaching children outdoors. 

With Rickets, Polio and Meningitis all mentioned in the registers it makes me realize how far medicine has advanced since the Thirties. There’s also a steady stream of children being operated on for “mastoids”, a condition of the ear easily treated with antibiotics nowadays but back then meant drilling into the ear!

On that note it’s back to work. Next time find out how the infants of Roe Green are coping as the country goes to War with Germany as revealed through the pages of this exciting new donation of  admission registers. 

Posted by Rachel