This series of posts focuses on an A-Z theme for April in 2025. I have chosen events that occurred On This Day in April of years in the past. These events are recorded in my genealogy database.
Extracting the details from meticulously preserved documents may provide evidence of birth dates, places where people lived, or numerous other details about people's lives.
On this day - 28th April
1914 - Residence: Honora Mary HORGAN, Alma, South Australia
1914 - Residence: Edward John HORGAN, Alma, South Australia
Enrolment
This extract from the Alma South school register held at State Records SA details the birth dates, father’s occupation and distance from the school.
While the details may be very faint on this document, the information in it is invaluable.
It shows that my father Edward John Horgan and his sister Honora Mary were first enrolled at Alma South School on April 28th, 1914.
He was 5 yrs 11 months old and she was 7 yrs 4 months. The school register shows that neither had attended school before and that they lived three miles away. The distance from the school probably explains why Honora Mary had not started at a younger age. Now there were two children of school age, arrangements were made for them to attend.
Attendance
Across the double spread page the details of their attendance and the grades by year are shown.
At the top of the page are the years attended. Interesting to note that this register was produced for the 1800s so the teacher wrote the years for the 1900s above that line.
My father's details
For the first three years at school he is listed as being in Class J. In 1917 he was in Class I followed by Class IV in 1918, V in 1919, VI in 1920 and VI again in 1921. The jump from class 1 to 4 reflected the number of years he had been at the school.
His daily attendance at school is shown in the excerpt above which I transcribed into a table. He started at the school in the second quarter of 1914 and finished there in the last quarter of 1921.
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| Days attended from 1914 to 1921 |
If you have an interest in numbers this reveals that the number of school days attended in each year often came to less than six months, sometime slightly over. Excluding 1914 where he only started in the second quarter, the most days attended were in his third year where he attended for 204.5 days whereas in 1918 his attendance was down to 181.5 days less than 6 months. Perhaps there was illness in the family that year.
It is interesting to note that the year was divided into quarters. When I attended primary school in South Australia in the late 1950s and early 1960s, three terms were used, now all States in Australia have moved back to four terms in each calendar year.
The Register
The school register I examined was used from 1883 until December 1921. The instructions for filling it in included a note at the bottom of the page that read:
Should a new register be required before the old one is finished, it may be obtained with the permission of the Inspector on payment of 2s.6d.
Should a new register be required before the old one is finished, it may be obtained with the permission of the Inspector on payment of 2s.6d.
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| Instructions for filling out the Register |
This was written before 1883 when this register of pupils was commenced. One hopes the teacher did not have to pay for a new register 39 years later!
Since I examined this document at the South Australian State Archives in 2017, the document has been digitised and indexed by FamilySearch. Compared to the photos I took of the document back then, FamilySearch has digitised the records at a much higher resolution than my images and so it is easier to enlarge and extract the details.
If you were a teacher do you remember the details you needed to fill out the daily attendance records for your classes?
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FamilySearch "Alma, South Australia, Australia records,"
This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin
Image Group Number: 104066761 South Australia. State Records.
I love school records as they can be very revealing about father’s occupation and where they lived. I wonder if the family wanted Honora to have the safety of someone with her when she went to school. Perhaps the days attended were affected by responsibilities at home, especially on a farm, as well as illness. We had three terms in Qld when I was at primary school.
ReplyDeleteSchool records are so interesting including such details as how far away the pupil lived from the school is a great insight.
ReplyDeleteIn recent years we marked the rolls electronically by reading student barcodes. I doubt these electronic records will be available to researchers in coming years.
ReplyDeleteThat’s interesting Jill, must ask DD2 what they do in NT.
DeleteI love school records. You have reminded me of the many that I haven't yet accessed.
ReplyDelete