Llandrindod and district
Victorian school days
  Put to work - aged 10 and 12 !  
 

Victorian schools often found it hard to keep children at their lessons. Many parents wanted them to help with farmwork, to look after younger sisters and brothers, or to take paid jobs to help the family income.
When so many families had to live on very little it is not surprising that education often took second place to earning.
This is shown in the Log Book of Franksbridge School in 1887...

  
8th July
1887
 School diary entry "Price and Reece Jackson aged 12 and 10 years respectively, had been taken from School and put to work".
  The head teacher writes on 15th July and again on 29th August that "the Jacksons are still absent". But on 2nd September he has more success, as this Log Book entry shows...  
2nd September
1887
 School diary entry "After threatening to write to HM Inspector of Schools, I obtained the dismissal of the boys Jackson from their employment on August 30th. They are still kept out of School".
 

Only half of the problem solved, though. They were no longer working, but they still weren't at school ! The Log Book notes that the boys were still absent for most of September, but eventually turned up on the 30th !
After this they no longer get mentioned regularly in the school diary, except for 21st October 1887 when "The Jackson family are off with measles" !

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