Wimpole (C.E.) School c1900 Girl Pupils with School Mistress Emily Horsfield
A local history and genealogy page for the Parish of Wimpole.
Girl Pupils c1900, Wimpole (C of E) School, Cambridge Road.
[See also the equivalentBoy Pupils c1900photograph with School Master Samuel Horsfield]
A group of 28 schoolgirls photographed at Wimpole Village School sometime around the turn of the century. I estimate 1900 or perhaps even a little earlier. It appears the girls have been told to wear their best clothes for the photographer as they normally wore white pinafore smocks to school. On the far right is Miss Emily Horsfield, Samuel's daughter, who was School Mistress at Wimpole looking after the girl pupils. The older girls at either end may have been 'pupil teachers' (as Samuel's son Walter was at the age of 14).
None of the girls in the image have been positively identified, but it is possible that at least some of the girls listed as 'scholar' in the 1901 Census (between the age of 4 and 14) might be included in this photograph. If I am right about the approximate image date then the following 'village' girls are possible candidates:
Dorothy Snell 7
Ada Snell 6
Beatrice Titchmarsh 9
Susy Titchmarsh 6
Selina Goats 12
Lillian Goats 10
Minnie Golding 10
Mary Kimber 6
Olive Mary Thomas 6
Mary Ann Reed 8
Nellie Carter 13
Daisy Carter 9
Beaty Carter
Dorothy Carter 4
Nellie Spaxman 8
Annie Pratt 10
Charlotte Pratt 7
Agnes Bullen 11
Olive Bullen 6
Margaret Skinner 11
Mary Hopkins 9
Mabel Annie Robins 11
Caroline Grace Weary 12
Olive Pearce 5
Hilda M Wilkins 10
Else G Rule 10
There may be other pupils in the picture from the Wimpole Estate.
Please let me know if you can put a name to any of the schoolgirls.
A single confirmed identification could help fix the date of this photograph to within a year or two.
The photograph was taken in 'The Chestnuts', the outdoor playing area of Wimpole School. Behind the girls - to the left - is a glimpse of the old 'Wooden School', in educational use until 1876. On the right is the corner of 'School House' [now 22 Cambridge Road] where Samuel Horsfield and daughter Emily lived.
1903 (2nd Edition) Ordnance Survey Map, showing the location of the School at Wimpole
Wimpole Village School c1905 Wimpole's Church of England School was completed in 1876, then
closed suddenly in 1946
(the brick structure being declared "absolutely unsafe for the children")
