The Barfield Road school
West Mersea's school in Barfield Road was in use by December 1894. It hosted the parish's first council election on 4 December of that year, with headmaster John Thorpe chairing the public meeting.
Eight men were selected by a show of hands, but a requested public poll changed the result: John Brand took the place initially awarded to Samuel Dixon. The new Parish Council first met at the school on 4 January 1895.
Classrooms, excursions and teachers
Thorpe appears with his family in an 1883 school photograph, from before the first council election. On 19 July 1920 a party of schoolchildren went to London Zoo on a Primrose bus, with headmaster Mr Green photographed on the steps.
Ida South attended the school as a child and returned to teach there for 39 years, retiring in 1980. Freda Smith taught for 26 years. Eric Hucklesby returned to teaching after being held as a prisoner of war during the Second World War.
The school play, December 1937
The school presented Aladdin in the Underground at the British Legion Hall on 16 and 17 December 1937. A surviving photograph identifies 13-year-old Phyllis D’Wit among the pupils; the dates also appear in the school log book. This was a school production, separate from the Mersea Dramatic Society's adult performances at the same hall. The 1937 photograph and school-log caption record the programme and date.
The wartime school garden
The school ran a pig club during the Second World War. The surviving accounts record members and expenses in 1943; a 1955 list identifies pupils who held shares in two pigs, including J. Gant, P. Clarke, T. Cook, C. Whiting, C. Buck, C. Coan and L. Harvey.
The school’s garden accounts preserve the names of pig-club members in March and November 1943. A separate document headed “Shares in these 2 pigs” is catalogued as 1955. The two records should not be treated as evidence that the same pupils belonged to the club throughout those twelve years.
The swimming pool was being built in 1965. Photographs show its footings being dug, and Pauline Winch recalled parents working over several weekends to prepare the hole. The pool appears in photographs from 1966; a much later photograph records construction of the Broadhurst Block, completed and opened in October 1990.
A 1966 photograph records the school's swimming pool, with Pat French and headmaster Mr Young present. Other classrooms operated on the island, including the temporary wartime school at The Nothe.
Town Council: the first election at Barfield Road school
Swimming pool construction, 1965, with Pauline Winch’s recollection