Description:During the late nineteenth century, Duchess Millicent, the fourth Duchess of Sutherland provided a Church and village school in Tittensor. M. M. B. Higham tells us that social life in Tittensor at this time revolved around the Church and the School.
The document above is a cash book from the school in Tittensor produced by ‘the Committee of Council on Education in Connection with the Keeping and Rendering of School Accounts’.The book includes receipts and payments from the Tittensor National School detailing amounts of received and spent by the school.
The school received money from the ‘Education Department’ and the Duke of Sutherland who subsidised the school’s funding. Details of money spent include payments to Florence Colliery for coal. The Duke of Sutherland established Florence Colliery in Longton so it is interesting to consider that the school which the Sutherland family supported purchased coal produced at their benefactor’s colliery.
Other payments made include money spent on salaries for the school’s teachers and payments for lighting, cleaning and repairs to desks.
The page pictured above shows payments made by the school ‘From June 1st 1888 to May 31st 1889’. Amongst the payments listed are expenditure on stationery for the school, payments of salaries to the teaching staff and payments to a man called Mason for ‘lighting fires’. Money was also spent on cleaning the school, and the purchase of ‘wool mops’ for the purpose.
Between 1888 and 1889 payments made by the Tittensor school amounted to one hundred and seven pounds, twelve shillings and five pence.
Contextual Information from: ‘Tittensor: A Changing Village’ by M. M. B. Higham in Staffordshire Life and County Puictorial, February 1959.