PL. 10
Pupil’s slate from Tarrow Bridge School
2006.9.1
About 1905
Unknown; bought by the school in bulk
Slate in a pine frame, with counting beads
23 cm high, 31 cm wide
Gift of the family of Edith Marr, 2006
Hackling Loft
Children at Tarrow Bridge School wrote on slates until paper became cheap enough in the 1920s. Scratched into the frame of this one, very carefully, is “E. MARR STD 3”. The school register for 1905 lists Edith Marr, aged 9, in Standard 3, with a father “at the Ropewalk”.
Edith kept the slate for 83 years. Her family say she used it for shopping lists until she was well into her 80s. Visiting schools write on replica slates in the School Days programme. This one stays behind glass, and the frame still has a faint ring from a teacup.
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