School Information
By the beginning of the eighteenth century several charitable schools were being established within the vicinity of Sibsey: a boys school had been endowed by Anthony Pinchbeck at Butterwick as early as1665, William Lovell had in his will endowed a grammar school at Stickney in 1678 and Boston had a charity school funded by John Laughton in 1707 and the Bluecoat school established in 1713.
Sibsey was not to be left out. Our parish at the time does not appear to have any wealthy benefactors, there was no resident lord of the manor, the Drax family were the original landowners but were resident to Dorset and did not appear to have a particularly close interest in events in Sibsey. John Gape of St. Albans, Hertfordshire, was the Lay Rector with property in Sibsey.
The history of Sibsey Free School began when a Public Vestry Meeting was held in Sibsey on 17th October 1723 and the decision was taken that a school should be provided "for the teaching and instruction of the poor children of the said parish". The churchwardens and overseer of the Poor were ordered to contract with John Gape, of St Albans, Hertfordshire, who was the Lay Rector of Sibsey, for the lease of a cottage and about half an acre of land for the term of ninety nine years at an annual rent of twenty shillings, i.e. £1.00. On this plot, which was in Vicarage Lane and now occupied by the house called The Spinney they were directed to arrange for the building of a schoolhouse the cost of which was to be borne by the parishioners of Sibsey. The school was duly built and the first pupils were admitted in the following spring of 1724. Later records indicate that ten trustees including the previously mentioned parish officers were appointed to oversee the management of the school.
At about this time the trustees acquired an area of meadow land, enclosed from the waste, or common land, the rents from which they decreed should pay for the services of a teacher.
By 1742 slight problems were arising. The original ten trustees had dwindled to only four, six of them either having died or left the parish. A Vestry Meeting held on the 20th of April of that year decreed that the remaining four trustees should meet and appoint six other worthy men of the parish in the place of the six missing. They were also ordered that in the event of a similar situation in the future they must immediately appoint a replacement and that this system was to continue in perpetuity. Fifty-two men signed in minutes of this meeting, which tends to demonstrate the community support for the school.
The school in Vicarage Lane was supplemented by at least two other dame schools, or preparatory schools, situated in the outlying parts of the parish to cater for the younger children before they went on the village school and this policy probably assisted in easing the pressure of the overcrowding in the main school. These minor schools were situated at Northlands and Littlemoor and possibly one for a time in the village.
In May 1823 the 99-year lease of the school in Vicarage Lane ran out. The problem the arose of where to teach the children; the trustees seem to have been rather unprepared for this event, initially they decided to investigate the possibility of using a cottage or cottages in the Sibsey Workhouse Yard and this option seems to have been adopted for the short term at least as in May 1823 William Allitt, the school master, was required to move books, etc. from the schoolroom to “a tenement in the Workhouse Lane”. This proposal does not seem to have met with his approval as in March 1824 William Allitt petitioned the school trustees in the High Court of Chancery claiming that they were not fulfilling their obligations to provide a schoolroom, that from May 1823 he had been obliged to teach the children in his own home and was by that time required to teach them in “an unfit and improper situation for a school as it immediately adjoins the workhouse in which there is a great number of the lowest order of poor persons of the parish”. Mr Allitt was further annoyed that his annual salary had been reduced from fifty pounds to forty pounds, he refused his salary, his contract was terminated and Thomas Brummitt was appointed the new schoolmaster. William Allitt took the trustees to court again in 1833 but it appears to have failed in his litigation and costs were awarded against him.
Although the trustees were refused renewal of the lease Mr Thomas F. Gape, the owner of the property, gave them a cottage and a plot of land, part of the present school premises, on which they were able in 1827 to build a new schoolroom. This building which measured approximately 10 meters by 4 meters and, was situated to the south side of the present hall, demolished in 1996 when the hall was built. Additional accommodation was built in 1868 by Samuel Sherwin of Boston with a house for the schoolmaster in about 1883. Sherwin’s quotation for building the extra schoolroom in 1868 was £565 with a deduction of £47 for the materials used from the old school.
From this time of its foundation in 1724 the trustees used the income from the land of the trust to maintain the school premises, provide heating and pay the teachers until 1893 when salary of the head teacher was supplemented by part of the government grant ensuing from the education act. During the later part of the nineteenth century it was customary for the head teachers wife to be employed as a teacher also and at times there were additional teachers were employed. The teaching salaries ceased to be funded by the trust income in 1902 when it became the responsibility of the local authorities to provide the teachers. The maintenance of the school building became the principal requirement of the trust income.
This nineteenth century development of the school was to continue in use, with a few additions and alterations, until the later part of the twentieth century. During this time a heating system was installed, a new toilet block was built, a detached dining room and kitchen was built and in 1974 an extra classroom of pre-fabricated construction was added to cope with the rapidly increasing numbers of pupils. This was to be known as The Fletcher Room in memory of a previous dedicated and popular head teacher, Mr K. Fletcher.
In 1996 a major programme of rebuilding and extending the school was undertaken by the Education Department of Lincolnshire County Council, the detached dining room, Fletcher Room and the old original schoolroom that had been built in 1827 were demolished to facilitate the building which was then extended to include the old schoolmaster’s house as offices, staff room and I.T. suit with computers for use of the pupils.