Chapter 8: Miss Hayhurst and Exmouth House School

As for out of the ordinary events, there were examinations for the Royal Drawing Society which were sat once a year in the large upstairs classroom. Mrs Fearnside promised to send me certificates awarded by the Royal Drawing Society and the Daily Graphic newspaper following her visit to the house in 1995, but she was unable to find them. There was a yearly outing in the summer to Camber Sands, near Rye, or to one of the country villages in the district, and a yearly concert and prize-giving, which took place in venues such as the Market Hall in George Street (1 April 1922, 25 March 1925), the Queens Hotel (19 March 1927), Holy Trinity Hall (9 December 1935), or even the Lower Hall at the White Rock Pavilion (14 December 1929). These locations are divulged in the notices of such events that appeared in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer, and I have the printed programme for that in 1925, given me by Mrs Fearnside, which is reproduced here. As will be seen, the event took place at 7 p.m. and was evidently quite exclusive, since admission cost one shilling and sixpence (proceeds in aid of the District Nursing Association - doubtless orchestrated by Ellen Hayhurst). The programme comprised a series of songs, dances, recitations and piano pieces, either solo or duets, most of them by named individuals, but with the ‘Kindergarten and Transition’ performing ‘action songs’ and ‘class poetry’ under the titles respectively of ‘Bunny Rabbit’ and ‘Master Wagtail’, and ‘My Shadow’. Forms I and II performed a scene, ‘Father Time and his Seasons’, while Forms III, IV and V performed a series of folk songs and a ‘Folk Scene’, ‘Morning, Noon and Night’. There was also a ‘School Song’, ‘Land of our Birth’, by Kipling. One of the recitations, ‘The Temptation of St Anthony’, was performed by none other than Margaret Stephens. Early on in the proceedings, following a piano solo performed by M. Clarke, occurred the prize-giving, announced as ‘Presentation of Prizes and Certificates, 1924, by Rev. and Mrs Fawthrop, F.R.G.S.’ (Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society: the school seems to have been keen on using people’s titles!) The proceedings concluded with the national anthem.

Exmouth House School concert and prize-giving programme, 1925

The total number of pupils at the school was approximately 90 (‘just under a hundred’). They were mostly girls but there were some boys. However, none of the latter was more than eight or nine years old. The girls evidently entered at the age of seven or eight (Mrs Fearnside was born in 1912, so her recollections of the school in 1920-1 would be from when she was eight). The school-leaving age was 14, and Exmouth House School girls left at any time after that age, mostly at 15 or 16, though some stayed on until they were 17 (Mrs Stephens recalled that she stayed on because her mother wanted to keep her out of the house: her parents ran the large hotel near the front at Hastings, on the site of what is now Sports Direct). On the other hand, some left for the Girls High School at the age of about 11 or 12. In fact, Mrs Fearnside thought that the number of pupils when she left the school was fewer than it had been when she began, because of a growing tendency of parents to send their girls to ‘finish’ at the High School: ‘this happened to several younger sisters of girls who were in my age group’. Each class comprised about 30 pupils; they sat at desks in pairs.