Welshpool and district
Victorian school days
  One month - three children dead  
  Sometimes the routine comments written in the official Log Books or diaries of Victorian schools really bring home the harshness of everyday life for many people in those years.
This part of a diary page covers just over one month at Belan School near Welshpool early in 1878...
 Doctor with sick child
17th January
1878
 School diary entry
 

January 17th - "School visited by Lady Harriet Herbert and Miss Corrie. 40 children present. One boy died on the 12th".
January 25th - "Received notice of H.M.Inspection on the 9th February".
January 30th -"School visited by Miss Corrie".
February 4th - "Attendance good. One boy died on 30th January".
February 11th - "Average very fair".
February 22nd - "One girl died on 15th".
A slightly earlier entry on 7th January read "School reopened after Christmas holidays. One girl died during holidays".
So four children from this very small country school had died within a few weeks, and they were not even named in the brief entries in the school Log Book !

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Although the cause of these deaths is not mentioned, serious illness was very common in early schools. They were often closed to avoid the spread of dangerous diseases, as shown on another of these pages.
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