‘Miss Elsie Gilley commenced duties this morning. For the time being I have asked her to assist part time with Babies and Top Classes.’
George Lamacraft, 1917.
Elsie May Gilley was a teaching assistant, and later a qualified teacher, at Bovey Tracey Council School. Her story is one of many recorded in the school log book by Headteacher Mr Lamacraft.
When the war began in August 1914, Elsie was still a ‘Pupil Teacher’, or teaching assistant, moving between classes to support the teaching staff or fill in when they were absent. Her sister Annie had already trained at the school, whilst her father John was a regular school inspector.
Bovey Tracey was a typical rural school, with students aged under five (Babies) to mid-teens (Upper Classes). Classes were regularly centred toward the war effort; pupils and teachers held variety sales, with the profit of the first reaching over £20. Pupils gathered chestnuts to make explosives, blackberries and eggs for recuperating soldiers, made splints in woodworking class and knitted gifts to send across for those men on active duty. Mr Lamacraft’s log book notes in December 1914 that ‘We have today dispatched 25 pairs socks, 14 pairs mittens, 28 scarves, 2 pairs cuffs, 2 helmets and 7 small scarves, together with chocolate, stationery, etc. etc. as a Xmas gift to the Soldiers and Sailors.’
The school building was in generally poor repair, requiring constant maintenance. The roof leaked, the radiators came loose and didn’t work, water pipes and cisterns froze and flooded in cold weather and the gas lighting was insufficient and repeatedly leaked into classrooms. The log book shows the community suffered with regular outbreaks of disease; over the years the school was forced to close when pupils and teachers were absent with whooping cough, measles, influenza and diphtheria. In some instances, the headteacher had to quarantine children from the same families and burn ‘all books and articles used by the child’. Sadly, the deaths of several pupils and one teacher are also recorded.
Elsie Gilley successfully passed her examination to become a fully-qualified teacher in 1916, earning an additional distinction in mathematics. In October 1918, she was absent from school for a week after her brother, John R Gilley, was killed in action. Mr Lamacraft was also called up, ‘joining the colours’ during the summer months of the same year. Temporary headteacher Mr Luxton remarked in September that ‘Mr G.H. Lamacraft paid us a visit this afternoon as he was home on a short leave. The children were extremely pleased to see him.’ Mr Lamacraft was demobbed and returned to his post in January 1919.
References
Lamacraft, G.H., 1914-1919. Bovey Tracey Council School Log Book 1904-1918 [bound] Bovey Tracey Primary School Collection, 879OC/EFL/2. Exeter, Devon Heritage Centre.
Lamacraft, G.H., 1914-1919. Bovey Tracey Council School Log Book 1918-1942 [bound] Bovey Tracey Primary School Collection, 879OC/EFL/3. Exeter, Devon Heritage Centre.
Images
Circa 1911. Headteacher Mr G. Lamacraft and teacher Miss Martin with class from Bovey Tracey Council School. [photograph] Mortimer Family Collection.
Circa 1914. Gilley sisters, Sarah, Elsie May and Annie Florence. [photograph] Mortimer Family Collection.
