Schools in both parishes
Schooling on Mersea developed separately in its two parishes. West Mersea used several classrooms and chapel schoolrooms before and alongside the Barfield Road school; East Mersea had its own National School and later a purpose-built schoolhouse. These were not all open at the same time, and a chapel schoolroom was not the same institution as a parish elementary school.
West Mersea
John Thorpe was headmaster in the 1880s and chaired the first West Mersea Parish Council election held at the new Barfield Road school on 4 December 1894. The council returned for its first meeting on 4 January 1895.
The 1883 photograph of headmaster John Thorpe with pupils belongs to an earlier stage in the school’s history than its use for parish council business in 1894. Records from the following century include a school production at the British Legion Hall in December 1937 and the school garden’s pig-club accounts from 1943.
School photographs document trips, gardening, sports and teaching through the twentieth century, including a London Zoo excursion in 1920 and the wartime pig club. The West Mersea school history covers these records.
East Mersea
East Mersea had a National School by 1848, supported in part by the Reverend John Tickle's 1812 endowment. A school building was erected in 1860. In 1902 Kelly’s Directory recorded accommodation for 95 children and average attendance of 50; directories from the 1920s gave a capacity of 51, with Mrs Martin as schoolmistress. East Mersea’s school history has the earlier sources and later teachers.
Other classrooms
A West Mersea Wesleyan day school met in a wooden barn on Barfield Road in the 1860s, then in the schoolroom adjoining the new Methodist chapel in Mill Road. The school was still listed in Kelly’s Directory in 1882; fees at the Mill Road school were one penny a week up to age seven and twopence for older children. Top Chapel also had a schoolroom, but belonged to a separate congregation. During the Second World War children were taught at The Nothe.
West Mersea's first parish meeting at the school, 1894
West Mersea school production and log-book record, December 1937