A great Wartime Schooldays visit from Plover Primary School, Doncaster
We thoroughly enjoyed welcoming Y3 & Y4 pupils from Plover to learn about a child’s war on 3 & 4 September. The pictures on their https://ploverschool.co.uk/ website say it all!
We thoroughly enjoyed welcoming Y3 & Y4 pupils from Plover to learn about a child’s war on 3 & 4 September. The pictures on their https://ploverschool.co.uk/ website say it all!
Admission to the Museum is FREE during the Heritage Open Days festival 6 – 15 September, and our opening hours expanded to include both Sundays so we’ll be open 11am – 3pm on Thursday 5 – SUNDAY 8, and Thursday 12 – SUNDAY 15 September with FREE guided tours on Sunday 15 at 11am and 1.30.
Here’s what’s happening in September.
HOD Programme at Wilderspin 2024
The Queen Street School Preservation Trust is proud to welcome Nancy Birtwhistle as a Patron.
Nancy is a bestselling author, lifelong gardener and Hull-born baker who won the fifth series of The Great British Bake Off in 2014.
Nancy will be helping the Trust with its latest fundraising efforts at a festive evening in December. Tickets are now on sale.
Saturday 14 September
Ian Wolseley explores the travels, trials and tribulations of Samuel Wilderspin, the itinerant promoter of Infant education as he journeyed by road and sea just as the railway age dawned – making a four-year “stopover” here in Barton to set up his Model School.
2pm. Free. Booking advised – available from the Museum in person (Mon – Sat), by phone (01652) 635172, or by email wilderspinschoolmuseum@gmail.com.
Sunday 8 September
Procession and Exhibition Lesson demonstrating Mr. Wilderspin’s innovative Infant System, 180 years after the laying of the foundation stone for the National & Infant School. The Procession involving local children starts at St. Mary’s Church (2pm) followed by the Exhibition Lesson at the Museum (2.30pm). Children (and their parents!) are welcome to join in the fun – please give us a ring or call in the Museum for details and to book.
2pm at St. Mary’s Church, 2.30pm at Wilderspin, free
Follow the links to join in the fun
Saturday 7 September, 2pm
Dr. Andrew Walker delivers our inaugural Rex Russell Memorial Lecture. Andrew is Chair of the Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology, and has chosen this theme as Rex’s interests in Lincolnshire’s past included a deep interest in the experience of working people, their politics, religion and their culture. The talk will examine the phenomenon of rough music, which Rex referred to in a number of his works. This was a communal means of protesting, usually about actions taking place that contravened societal norms.
Using a range of set piece actions, often involving disguise and the use of discordant sounds, community members expressed dramatically their dissatisfaction with particular forms of behaviour that threatened the social order. Sometimes known by other names such as ‘riding the stang’ and ‘skimmington rides’, an examination of rough music provides an insight into the ways in which communities sought to regulate themselves in pre-industrial societies.
Drawing upon newspaper reports, folklorists’ accounts and illustrations, Andrew Walker will explore the ways in which these activities were reported in their final years during the ‘long’ nineteenth century from c. 1780 to 1914.
£5 advance, £7 otd. Civic Society members free. Booking is advised*
Why not make it a special afternoon and enjoy a pre lecture buffet lunch at Wilderspin in the School’s Playground Garden. £10 – booking essential*.
Cradle to the Grave
Saturday 7 September
A guided tour of Queen Street’s legacy of Victorian public buildings including a look inside the former National & Infant School and Primitive Methodist Chapel, now the Joseph Wright Hall and referencing the research of local history by students of the Barton upon Humber branch of the Workers’ Educational Association and the Department of Adult Education of the University of Hull in the early 1980s. Their research was published in Cradle to the Grave – Barton on Humber in the 1850s, edited by Rex Russell and published in 1984.
The tour is free and starts at the Wilderspin School Museum at 11am and lasts up to one hour.
Booking is essential so we can control numbers – you can ring (01652 635172) close to the day to check availability.
To mark the 175th anniversary of the railway reaching Barton, award winning railway writer and broadcaster Christian Wolmar tells the fascinating history of the rise and fall of the state-owned British Rail from its post war origins to its dismantlement fifty years later reflecting the political dogmas of the times.
Christian writes regularly for a wide variety of publications including the Independent, Evening Standard and Rail magazine, and appears frequently on TV and radio as a commentator.
His latest book is “British Rail” is an authoritative and fascinating history of the rise and fall of the state-owned British Railways, providing a new perspective on national loss in a time of privatisation.
From its creation after the Second World War, through its fifty-year lifetime, British Rail was an innovative powerhouse that transformed our transport system. Uniting disparate lines into a highly competent organisation – heralding ‘The Age of the Train’ – and, for a time, providing one of the fastest regular rail services in the world.
Born into post-war austerity, traumatised, impoverished and exploited by a hostile press, the state-owned railway was dismissed as a dinosaur unable to evolve, and swept away by a government hellbent on selling it off.
If your memories of BR are “stale sandwiches” or “the wrong kind of snow” this talk will put the other side of the story.
Friday 6 September, 7.30pm
Tickets are £10 in advance* (£12 otd) and £6 for Civic Society Members.
Discover “one of the most important schools in England” with one of our expert guides.
One-hour tours at 11am and 1.30pm. £5pp includes an Annual Ticket and refreshments.
Sundays 6 October, 3 November and 1 December.
Booking essential by phone (01652) 635172. Bookings close on the preceding Friday.
Wilderspin National School
Queen Street
Barton-upon-Humber
DN18 5QP
The Wilderspin National School has received help and support from the following organisations:
The Wilderspin National School is an independent museum, registered charity no. 1047187 and a Company Limited by Guarantee no. 2844791.