Montgomery and district
Victorian school days
  The first hour is for getting dry...  
"Have a great difficulty in keeping school clean. Children grumble about doing it".
Llandyssil School, July 1875.

Children who Children round the firehad to walk miles to school often found that it could be as cold in the classroom as it was outside. They had to take turns to arrive early to sweep out the schoolroom and light the fires - or try to, if the sticks were wet ! Sometimes the ink in the inkwells on the desks froze solid overnight !
These Log Book entries are from Llandyssil School in 1888...

Llandyssil School
"Very poor fires. Children were shivering with cold. Mrs Williams sent horse and cart for school coal".
February 1870
"Caned David Brown for disobeying my orders in not sweeping".
 October 1875
9th November
1888
 School diary entry "We have had fires regularly this week: the east wind has been intensely cold, so cold that the children could scarcely hold their pens".
16th November
1888
 School diary entry "Very wet week. During the first hour of each morning we have done very little else besides drying wet boots and pinafores: otherwise the attendance has been fair and the routine unbroken".
The weather always made a big difference to the numbers turning up for lessons at country schools, as in this example from Llandyssil School in 1889...
16th August
1889
School diary entry
 "The weather still keeps very wet, and girls who have to pass through cornfields staw away rather than get a wetting"...
 

This was in August, which is supposed to be summertime ! As even the youngest children had to walk to school, many were kept at home for the winter months.

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