School Life in 1927
It's not uncommon to find a students workbook around school, often a book from a previous year that was simply misplaced and forgotten about, but something you don't find everyday is a book from almost one hundred years ago. An amazing find, a work book from one of our past students that is first dated September 5th 1927 with a log of what work was carried out on that day, "Sept 5th; Made notes on quantities of materials for different garments".
The book belonged to a student named Lillian Bradshaw and is her craftwork school book, we don't have any detailed information about Lillian but what we do have is an incredible insight into school life back in 1927 thanks to the content of the workbook. Some other logs describe how Lillian knitted 'moss' and 'dice' stitch on what are described as 'coal gloves'. Some of the later logs from April to October 1929 show Lillian had progressed in her craft work to working on a dress with long sleeves and also a leather purse.
The workbook also contains samples of materials and lots of diagrams and drawings explaining the processes of how to create multiple different garments, also present is marking from the teaching staff. The final entry is March 6th 1930 in which Lillian details the measurements and cost of a leather pochette, with the total leather needed coming in at a cost of 3 shillings and 4 pence. A fascinating find and certainly the oldest surviving example of learning in Broughton Hall history.
