Bourton School - Documents & Books held by SHS

There are numerous documents and books that make up this listing and they are necessarily stored in different locations within the Heritage Centre Archive.

The first is an original Minute Book, leather-bound and embossed and donated to SHS by Colin Howell. It contains the Minutes of the meetings of the Trustees from 1847 when the Trust was set up and a Charity formed. The Trustees are pre-dominantly the Tucker brothers, but there are others. The book entries stop at the same time as the death of Henry Tucker. The school remained under the authority of the Trustees but complied with government guidance until 1902 when an Education Act made it prudent for it to be under the control of the local Education Authority. Stored on Shelf S1C.

Log Book No 1. This is in poor condition and must be handled with care. It contains notes of the day-to-day events that occured at the school from February 1902. It mentions the opening of the new school in April 1907. This was when the school moved from the top of the hill in Upper Bourton to just down the hill in Steppingstones Lane. It finishes in March 1916. Stored in Chest2

Log Book No 2. This is in fair condition . It contains notes of the day-to-day events that occured at the school from March 1916 up to December 1970. Although the school opened for the first half of 1971, the 17 pupils were transferred to Shrivenham Primary school at the start of the new term in September. Stored in Chest2

Punishment Book. Appendix II., Section 32 of the Education Act required that, 'A seperate book must be kept in which every case of corporal punishment inflcited in the school should be entered.' This book is in fair to poor condition and covers the period April 1901 to March 1916. The entries are over 100 years old so are available for public research. To reduce possible wear on the book the pages have been scanned and can be seen in a PDF document by going HERE. Stored in Chest2. Also in the same PDF doc can be seen the Oxford Diocesan Inspection Reports from 1920 - 1950.

To read a history of the school in PDF format, that has been collated from all of the material held by SHS, please go HERE.