'Flu virus and Leamington schools in 1922

[My contribution to the Leamington FC programme for the match against Darlington]

Education was the topic of the week in Leamington at the end of March 1922 and there were complaints that the Education Committee chaired by Alderman Flavel were spending too much money.   Controversy arose over payments to women teachers who had been off work for periods of up to two-and-a-half months with influenza.  [My grandmother died from the ‘flu at this time leaving my father without a mother at the age of twelve]. The amounts involved were around £3,500 each in today’s prices.  

Alderman Davies ‘asked if the teachers were hard up.  Ordinary working men and, in fact, almost everyone had to make provision for illness, so why should teachers, who were receiving good wages, be paid for the time they were ill.  Was it a committee to dispense charities?  He would even go so far to say that the teachers ought to be ashamed of themselves if they took the money.   What would the unemployed think of this?’  

Alderman Flavel  pointed out that the teachers had caught the virus while in school.  ‘Councillor Heatley remarked that he had heard Alderman Davis deliver that speech quite 40 times.   It was not policy to have the reputation of being the meanest committee in the county.   If they had such a reputation they could not get the better class of teachers.’

A cause for civic celebration was the official opening of Leamington College. ‘The buildings are not by any means new, having been used for educational purposes for a number of years.  The old school had been closed many times, and it had seen many days of financial depression, but not, alas, many of prosperity.  During the war the school was used by the Dover boys and called Dover College, but since they left the college at the end of the war the old floors have not responded to the clatter of schoolboys’ feet. ‘

‘What was formerly the chapel is now converted into a dining room for the boys, and if the schemes of the Governors mature, for the girls as well.  Temporarily, until the girls’ school is transferred to Binswood Avenue, the Headmaster’s office will be at the eastern end of the main hall.   The chemical laboratory is situated at the west end of the main hall.  Over the chemical laboratory is the physics laboratory.’  

Leamington Boys’ School had been established for 20 years, at first as a small school.   It had encountered many difficulties, but now had 200 pupils.  The Mayor noted that the school had a football cup and a cricket cup and offered to add a swimming cup. 

Alderman Holloway said that ‘Complaint had been made about the local Education Committee spending too much.  The control was now in the hands of the County Council and he hoped that ratepayers would have no more cause for legitimate complaint than before.  In the future, when secondary education was assessed at its proper value, people would endorse the action which the Leamington authorities were celebrating that day.’

Our eldest, now in her fifties, was a pupil in the sixth form of what was by the early 1980s Binswood Hall of North Leamington school.   The buildings now form part of an up market retirement complex.

Leamington made short work of a Coventry City ‘A’ team which visited the town for a friendly at the end of March 1922.   The visitors ‘put up a very mediocre display and deservedly lost 5-1.    From practically the start to the finish, Leamington Town pressed the City defence, and with their forwards combining in delightful style they gave their visitors an object lesson in the art of shooting.’