Education
The £1 10s. a year left by Peter
Hopkins, by will proved in 1643, for the education of poor children, was presumably paid to
the keepers of dame schools, like the schoolmistress who died in 1701. (fn. 48) During most of the
18th century the money seems to have been used
for apprenticing. (fn. 49) In 1774 the rector reported
that he and the parish sent 10 or 12 children to
school, (fn. 50) but there is no further evidence for a
school until 1808 when 6 children attended an
endowed school, presumably supported by
Hopkins's charity, and 48 others paid a small
sum weekly. (fn. 51) In 1815 there were only 15 boys
and 15 girls at school, but in 1818 there were 60
very young children in the day schools, 6 of
them supported by Hopkins's charity, which
had increased from £1 10s. to £1 15s. (fn. 52)
Sunday schools provided the only education
for many Bladon children. In 1802 60 children
attended, and in 1815 the parish supported the
boys while the rector paid for the girls. (fn. 53) By the
early 1830s day school education had virtually
ceased to exist and from 1831 to 1833 Hopkins's
charity money was paid to the boys' Sunday
school. (fn. 54) Most unusually Anglicans and Methodists co-operated in running the Sunday
schools, the children separating after school to
attend their own places of worship. Methodists
inaugurated their own Sunday school in 1843
when they built a chapel. There was said to be
no day school in the village at that date, (fn. 55) but a
dame school for six children was reported in
1834. (fn. 56) and again in the early 1850s, when it was
described as 'most inefficient'; it may have been
in the schoolroom destroyed by fire in 1853. (fn. 57)
In 1858 the duke of Marlborough built a
village school and teacher's house north-west of
the church. The school was placed under the
management of the duke's chaplain, probably
because the then rector, G. W. St. John, took
little interest in the parish. Six children were
educated by Hopkins's charity, the remaining 78
paid 1d. or 2d. a week. (fn. 58) The school, later
known as the Duchess of Marlborough's from
the support of Frances Anne Emily Spencer
Churchill, duchess of Marlborough, received a
government grant from 1860. (fn. 59) The building
was originally designed for 64 children, but
there were 72 on the roll in 1868 and an attendance of 96 on inspection day in 1871. (fn. 60) Attendance was probably usually lower; in 1868 average attendance was only about three quarters of
the younger and half the older children on the
roll, (fn. 61) an unusually large number of absentees
for the area. By 1888 the school could take 110
children, although average attendance was only
84. (fn. 62) The buildings were enlarged in 1889 or
1890 to accommodate 130 children, and by 1895
had room for 172 children (124 boys and girls
and 48 infants) and an average attendance of
133. (fn. 63)
From the first opening of the new school the
curate was allowed to use the premises for
Sunday and evening schools. The evening
school was recorded again in 1866 and in 1878,
and the Sunday school in 1866 when a few
young people who had left the day school attended it. (fn. 64)
The school belonged to the dukes of Marlborough until 1937 when it and the teacher's house
were conveyed to the parochial church council. (fn. 65)
Numbers had fallen to 65 by 1938, and in 1940
the school was reorganized as a junior school
with 49 pupils, the seniors going by bus to
Woodstock. By 1954 the parochial church council was unable to maintain the school's aided
status, and it became a controlled Church of
England school. (fn. 66) Attendance, which had risen
to 66 in 1954, was only 42 in 1983. (fn. 67)
In 1904 a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners converted Peter Hopkins's educational
charity into the Peter Hopkins Educational
Foundation; under a new Scheme of 1971 the
foundation was allotted 37 shares in the Charities Official Investment Fund, producing c. £1 a
year. (fn. 68)
John Enders (d. 1843), by will dated 1839, gave
£3 a year for the education of poor children of
Bladon and New Woodstock. Payment was
withheld until after a court order of 1878, but in
the 1880s and 1890s the charity yielded c. £3 3s.
7d. a year for the school. The charity was
registered in 1962 as providing £3 a year for
education in New Woodstock and Bladon, although New Woodstock seems never to have
benefited. (fn. 69)