Welshpool and district
Victorian school days
  Sewing and knitting lessons - for boys !  
Many sewing classes made samplers using different stitches. The one opposite is on display at Radnorshire Museum.

Most Victorian school Log Books mention regular sewing and knitting lessons for the girls, for many would go 'into service' as servants for the local gentry after leaving school as young as twelve. Sewing skills would be useful for housework duties and for their own families after they married.
It seems that there were needlework lessons for the boys as well at Gungrog Road School in 1884 ! ...

 Part of Victorian sampler
21st March
1884
 School diary entry "Miss Ella Hill visited on Thursday and took girls for needlework. Slight improvement in the boy's needlework".
23rd October
1885
 School diary entry "Needlework not taken on Thursday, because most of the boys had dirty hands".
  The boys even had to produce examples of their sewing and knitting for the examination...  
24th September
1888
 School diary entry "Standard I Boys all finished needlework for Examinations and commenced their cuffs (Knitting) this week".
 

In many Victorian schools the Master's wife was employed to teach sewing to the girls, and most women who gave needlework lessons worked in different local schools on different days. Often these ladies had the fine title of "Directress of Sewing" !

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