By Janet Archer
Bertie Alfred Woods was born in 1894 to Samuel Woods and Lydia Elizabeth Seaman. The family lived in Barn Cottage and there were at least 14 children, most of whom went to Salle School.
Bertie first attended school in 1899: “Admitted Bertie Woods this week. He is over five years old and can do nothing.”
In January 1900, Bertie and two of his sisters, Kate and Ethel, are reported as absent with whooping cough but they apparently had not been to school since the previous August. March 23rd brings the comment that Bertie and Ethel are away again.
At the end of 1891 Mary Jane Lomax had taken over the position of mistress at Salle School. Her first tasks recorded in the logbook were ruling two dozen slates and drawing up a new timetable.
She lived in the school house and stayed at Salle School until the end of 1903, so it is probably Mary Lomax who appears in this school photograph (below) from 1900, and she will have written the above comment about Bertie.
Most entries in the Salle and Reepham logbooks are mundane: daily records of attendance, closures due to sickness or seaside treats, and visits from school managers and inspectors. So, the following incident is unusual.
From 1903 the schoolmistress was Minnie Elizabeth Druitt, and she recorded the following in the logbook in 1906. (By this time Bertie is now about 12 years old and probably keen to leave school and some of his absences may have been to earn extra money for his family.)
“Am sorry to say that Bertie Woods who is the most indolent boy in the school is also very spiteful (going home) to young children and girls. Wrote a note to his parents but only received a rude answer.”
When he next came to school the mistress asked him to write an apology on his slate.
His mother came the following day and said he should sooner leave than write it. Accordingly, she took him out of school and the mistress marked him left.
Both Bertie and his brother Jesse left Salle School and instead went to Reepham School (St Mary’s on Norwich Road) where Richard Cornall was the master.
When the First World War began Bertie enlisted in the 5th Norfolks at Dereham. Later he served with the Worcestershire Regiment.
He is recorded as having died of wounds, age 23, in August 1917 and was buried in Mendinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium.
His name is remembered on the memorial inside Salle Church, and he has a memorial with his mother and father in Salle churchyard.
Information from National School Admission Registers & Log-Books, 1870-1914, @findmypast.co.uk; military Information from ancestry.co.uk
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