Our chair, Dawn Beaumont reported that our volunteer committee remains at 4, having said farewell to Gill Barton and Brenda Taylor. Behind the scenes there are many volunteers who willingly give their time to helping in so many ways. Without doubt this year’s ‘stars’ have been Archaeology – what a summer of discovery they have had. The Friends continue to offer, in what I hope you agree, is a varied programme of events, with the chance this year to meet Michael Guy, CEO Heritage Trust NW, and Eric Knowles, one of our Patrons – we can’t promise celebrities every year!
Committee meetings continue to be held in our homes, with talks at Higherford Methodist Church. A special thank you to Sheila Dixon, who is so accommodating when booking dates and giving access to the church. We aim to book the Cruck Barn at PHC for an annual summer event, and to continue to offer financial support to the centre and local heritage groups.
At last year’s AGM, we announced our website would be updated, and in November 2023 we were offered the website (pendleheritage.co.uk) of a former Chair (2013-16), David Morris by his daughter, Anna. As the Friends already has a website (foph.co.uk), it was agreed the ‘heritage’ content of David’s site would be uploaded onto the Friends’ website. Unfortunately, shortly after this was done at the end of last year, the Friends were contacted by Alamy in January 2024 for ‘copyright infringement’ for the image ‘Pendle Hill seen from the Wycoller Atom’, requesting a settlement fee of £440. After many hours spent in discussion with Anna, and eventually gaining ‘pro bono’ legal advice from London based solicitors ‘Howard Kennedy’, plus numerous written exchanges and a Zoom meeting with two solicitors, a settlement has recently been reached, where FoPH have agreed to pay £200 to seek closure. All the content of David’s website was immediately removed from the FoPH website when this came to light in January and we are now very careful with the images we use both online and in print.
Dawn concluded by thanking members for their support. If you feel you can help the Friends in any way, come and give it a try – any member of the committee would be happy to talk to you.
Jean Hardman secretary and membership secretary, reported that she had minuted 6 Exec Meetings during the year; there was no paper correspondence, all matters having been dealt with via email. In April Jean posted renewal letters and documentation regarding membership, plus a Newsletter and a calendar. The September posting included a new membership card for the 94 (65 Paying and 29 Life) members or a further reminder to the 8 who had not renewed again with a Newsletter and Calendar. Since April we had welcomed 7 new members and lost M R Foster, a Life Member.
I am pleased to report that we have gone global – we have a new member who lives in Belgium.
Sadly, as we said last year, membership has declined. The work involved for us all is pretty much the same whatever the numbers so it would be nice to feel that there is a demand for what we do.
Dawn then introduced the Friends’ newly appointed (1st June 2024) Treasurer, Susan Booth, who presented the Treasurer’s Report, prepared by Gill Barton prior to her resignation from the post. Total income was £5,809, with membership fees and donations amounting to £1,856; the sales of cards and second-hand books raising £1,028. The main expenditure, a sum of £2,770, had been on donations to the Heritage Centre, the Heritage Trust NW and to archaeology. Printing costs – for the Friends’ Calendar and Newsletter – amounted to £1,019. Total expenditure was £6,601 – a loss of £792. Total Reserves now stand at £7,240.
Members confirmed the present Trustees would continue for 2024: Chair, Dawn Beaumont; Secretary, Jean Hardman; Treasurer, Susan Booth; Website, Peter Booth.
Following the conclusion of the AGM, Vera Brearey from the Earby and District Historical Society took to the floor with her illustrated talk: ‘A Look Back at Schools in Thornton-in-Craven and Elslack from the mid-19th Century to the 1970s’. In both cases the original schools consisted of a single room where as many as 50 children, aged from 3-10, were taught by a single teacher.
Using extracts from the school log books, Vera explained the challenges facing the early headteachers: teaching a basic curriculum to such a wide age range, erratic pupil attendance, a chaotic system of admissions and frequent visits by inspectors, being only a few. The early teachers were untrained but, as time went on, teachers who had undergone training became the norm, attendance became compulsory and the curriculum gradually broadened, especially at the beginning of the 20th century when Local Education Authorities were established.
At this time, both villages benefited from the building of new schools that provided more space and separate classrooms for infant and junior pupils, although Elslack School didn’t enjoy the benefit of electricity or piped water until well after the Second World War!
Vera’s slides, taken from her book, beautifully complemented her tales of some of the more notable teachers and pupils who attended the schools. Her talk finished with the arrival of evacuees from Bradford at the beginning of the Second World War, when all children had to practise gas mask drills and, initially, were trained to run, in groups, into the open fields when the air raid siren sounded.
After a vote of thanks from our Chair, Vera was happy to exchange memories of schools and school life in the area with members, while refreshments were served.