EDUCATION.

Margaret Clayton established a charity in 1616 for schooling four poor children of Woolaston, (fn. 98) and a master was paid out of the charity funds in 1683. (fn. 99) In 1781 the vestry resolved to appoint a mistress to teach nine poor boys, (fn. 1) and the Clayton charity of 40s. a year was paid regularly to a master in the years before a National school was founded at Gumstalls c. 1818. (fn. 2) The National school was supported from subscriptions but also received the Clayton charity (fn. 3) and in 1846 a grant of £30 from the National Society. (fn. 4) In 1818 there were 120 children, (fn. 5) but in 1825 only 50 boys attended daily, with an additional 50 girls on Sundays; 40 children came from Alvington. The Sunday school had been temporarily discontinued for lack of funds in 1825, (fn. 6) but by 1833 it had been revived for 140 children, supported by a bequest of £50, voluntary contributions, and rent from charity land. (fn. 7) Apart from the National school, then reduced to 20 boys, there were two other day-schools containing 30-40 fee-paying children. (fn. 8) One may have been that held occasionally in 1825 by an itinerant dissenting teacher. (fn. 9) A Sunday and infant school attached to the Moravian chapel at Brockweir was opened in 1834. It continued in use until 1896 when a board school was built at Hewelsfield Common. (fn. 10) The small stone building with pointed Gothic windows was a private house in 1969.

The school building at Gumstalls was replaced by a new National school at Netherend in 1862. (fn. 11) Its income was low in 1864 and the rector had to make up the deficiency, (fn. 12) which may have been the cause of the formation of a school board, to which the school's management was transferred in 1874. Attendance rose from 85 in two departments in 1864 to 94 in 1885 and, after the addition of a new wing in 1895, to 140 in 1897. (fn. 13) The school buildings were again enlarged in 1903-4, (fn. 14) but numbers dropped to 116 in 1936. (fn. 15) Attendance in 1969 was 134, when the older children went to schools in Lydney. (fn. 16)

Footnotes