RESEARCHING SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

A range of sources can shed light on your forebear’s time at school Autobiographies

The site Writing Lives ( writinglives.org) features memoirs from the Burnett Archive of Working Class Autobiographies at Brunel University Library.

Family Memorabilia

Look out for bookplates in books given as prizes, school reports, certificates of attendance, medals, newspaper clippings, exam certificates and the like.

Local Archives’ Material

You can find records relating to individual schools via Discovery ( discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk). Relevant documents include school absence inquiry sheets, absence reports and medical certificates. Public schools may have old attendance records in their own archives. For Scottish records see tinyurl.com/nrs-educ.

Newspapers

Search the British Newspaper Archive ( britishnewspaper archive.co.uk) for accounts of cases where penalties for school absences were issued to named parents.

Oral Histories

At the British Library Sounds archive ( sounds.bl.uk) you can search by keyword and hear interviews with people speaking about their time at school over 100 years ago.

Parliamentary Papers

Search the debates on school attendance at tinyurl.com/ parl-hansard. Summaries of school inspection reports (1840–1899) can be seen at parlipapers.proquest.com/ parlipapers via institutions that subscribe to ProQuest.

Registers And Logbooks

Findmypast ( findmypast.co.uk) has a national collection of registers and logbooks from church, board, elementary and secondary schools. Ancestry ( ancestry. co.uk) has many London schools and TheGenealogist ( thegenealogist.co.uk) has some published registers.