I thought I would start Ancestral Anecdotes with one of my least known ancestors. I chose her because of her beautiful name – Sophia Dance – her name conjures up a vision of dark flowing silky hair, smiling eyes, and the poise of a ballerina. This is purely my imagination as there are no photographs of Sophia because she was born in 1792 and died before photography became popular.

Born in 1792 in Great Shefford in Berkshire to Edward and Temperance Dance, she married my 4^th great uncle John Whale in 1824 and moved to Ham in Wiltshire where he was the local shoemaker.

Ham was (and still is) a tiny village on the borders of Wiltshire, Berkshire and Hampshire. It consisted mainly of farmland around a small village centre.  With around 250 inhabitants and the obligatory public house, the village of Ham is situated in the north west of the parish centred around a small village green. The nearest large town was Hungerford, being around 4 miles away.

Sophia was 32 when she married John, who himself was no spring chicken, being 30 years old.  From what I can determine, she and John had two children; a daughter Maria born in 1828, and a son Henry born in 1837.

Village School Mistress

It was very exciting to read on the 1851 census that Sophia was the Village School Mistress; surprising because women so often had no identification other than spinster, wife or widow. Both Sophia and John were recorded in the 1855 Post Office Directory of Wiltshire; a tiny entry for Ham noted that John was the local boot and shoemaker and Sophia was the mistress of the Parochial school.

Very little is known about the school, but what I was able to glean from the Wiltshire History Centre was that Sophia was the first schoolmistress of the little parochial school. From 1833 she taught up to 35 children each day in one small schoolroom that was supported by the Rector, Reverend David Morgan. [1]

It was highly unlikely that Sophia was teaching her pupils more than the three R’s, with Reverend Morgan providing religious and moral education.  Schooling did not become compulsory until 1870 and, as children began their apprenticeships in their early teens, it is unlikely any of the children taught by Sophia exceeded that age.  And with Ham being a farming community, many children would have dipped in and out of education depending on whether they were needed to work on the land.

Sophia died in 1855 aged 65. She was buried on 10th March of that year in the little church at Ham.  Hers is the only entry that includes a note after her name – Sophia Whale – The Village School Mistress.

After Sophia died the little school at Ham continued under the tutelage of Mary Pithouse. It closed when the National School opened around 1871 after the Elementary Education Act 1870 meant that all children between 5 and 13 years old were entitled to an education.

School Records

I love looking through old school records as they contain not just names and dates but a record of what was going on at the time. Many records can be found at County Records Offices.  Look for Registers of Admissions as these can give you joining and leaving dates, a home address, age, and often the father’s name and occupation.  School Log Books are like little diaries of everyday school life for both the pupils and teachers. They record details of accidents and incidents; the reason children did not attend school – the weather, the harvest.  I recall one poor child had not been able to attend school after falling off a cart and breaking his leg. If your ancestor was a teacher, the Minute Books of the school boards could provide information on their working life.

[1] https://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getschool.php?id=1486