Talgarth and district
Victorian school days
  They reach home crying with the cold...  
Drawing by
Rob Davies
 The typical school diary entry shown on this page is one of many that tell us of some of the the really difficult conditions that even the youngest children had to cope with if they went to school in Victorian times.
In July 1880, the head teacher wrote in the official Log Book of Llanfilo School -
"Following are causes adverse to the welfare of the Infant class in this district"...		 Going to school in the rain
12th July
1880
 School diary entry

1st - "The scattered homes so distant that some have to give up for a time coming to school because health fails"

2nd - "The severity of the winters which the youngest children feel most after the afternoon attendance, they reach home numbed and crying with the cold, illness follows, and when the child returns body and mind weakened and memory almost gone"...
 

"The same lessons have to be repeated over and over again, and often they leave the Parish"...
All the Log Books or diaries of Victorian schools have many entries about children being absent due to illness. Having to walk long distances to school, often in terrible weather, was just one of the causes of their constant health problems.
Most group photographs of these early schools show that even the tiniest children (like these shown right) wore high lace-up boots which they needed to walk over fields and rough tracks to reach the school.

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Children wearing boots
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