RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: cathybryant on Monday 16 February 09 13:16 GMT (UK)
-
hi
I've jsut seen on the 1911 census that two of my ancestors were in the Cowley Schools. I don't know what this is, or where exactly it is or was, can anyone help?
In 1901 the two girls were age 2 and 3 and living with their parents and then 10 years later they are in the Cowley Schools - family memory knows nothing of this.
Thanks
-
Is this information from the transcript or the census original page?
Stan
-
it was on both the transcript and the original page. There are about 20 people of all ages on the page.
Could it have been an institution of some sort? It does not say if they were inmates, patients or anything helpful like that!
Cathy
-
There are numerous possibilities. Can you give us some idea of where abouts in the world you are talking about.
David
-
It is in Headington in Oxford and although we know the area fairly well, we have never heard of this. The people at the address seem to be mostly female though.
-
There was a Poor Law Industrial Training School (mixed) at Cowley.
Stan
-
Thank you - I have no idea what one of those is though!!!
What would they have done? Would they have been like orphanges? These two girls were only 12 and 13 at the time.
Cathy
-
Around 1920 there appear to have been quite a number of orphans at the school.
There are also some records which seem to indicate that around 1870 it was a boarding school. It is however very easy when searching to confuse this school with Cowley School St Helens which sent many students to Oxford.
David
-
Day Industrial Schools were for the children of parents who either could not or would not keep them at school. The children, by order of a magistrate, were compelled to attend from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., during which time they were taught elementary school work. Three meals a day were provided for them, and time not taken up with lessons was occupied with light employment. Girls were sent to them from the age of nine to twelve years, and were detained until they were sixteen, and were presumably taught dressmaking, cookery, etc.
Stan
-
The Changing Faces of Cowley (Book One), 1994.
Robert Boyd Publications. ISBN 1 899536 00 0.
includes some pictures of the Cowley Industrial School and has the
following to say about the institution:
"Cowley Industrial School..........
See
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/oxfordshire/1999-09/0938716722
Stan
-
Thank you once again, I have had a look at this and it is interesting. Now I just need to find out what happened for the girls to be sent there. They came from a large family of aunts, uncles and cousins who could have cared for them if the parents died, I'll probably never know why they ended up in an Industrial School, or what descendants they have.
Thanks for you help everyone.
-
There are a couple of pictures at:
http://www.cowleyhistory.org.uk/html/research.html
and more pictures with a plan and a map at
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?Oxford/Oxford.shtml
David
-
Thank you David, bit I can't access the second one at all.
-
Thank you David, bit I can't access the second one at all.
Try http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/ then Workhouse Locations, then English Poor Law Unions, Oxfordshire, Oxford.
Stan
-
The link works OK for me.
However if you search on google for:
"Oxford Workhouse" " Cowley Industrial School"
it is about the fourth result returned. The School is part way down the page
David
-
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?Oxford/Oxford.shtml works for me with Firefox but not with AOL where I get the message "The webpage cannot be found".
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/ will not work on AOL but http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/ does. :)
Stan
-
Thank you.