The Impact of the War on Scarcroft School
In 1910 over 1,000 children were enrolled at Scarcroft School: 323 in the Infants and 852 in the mixed Juniors and Seniors, up to the age of fourteen. This was over three times the number enrolled today.
During the First World War teachers and former pupils enlisted. A total of 66 were killed, and their names are inscribed on a war memorial in the upstairs hall.
The image shows the Scarcroft School football champions in 1908/9, many of whom would have gone on to fight in the war.
School log books have offered many details about the impact of the War on school life:
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the disruption due to the military requisitioning of the school for periods during the War. What arrangements were put in place for teaching as a result? What was the soldiers’ experience while based at Scarcroft? And in what condition did teachers find the school on their return to it?
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pupil contributions to the war effort, for example supporting Belgian refugees, fund-raising for comforts for the troops, growing food on Scarcroft Green, the School War Savings Association, and visits to The Tank (for war savings depositors)
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responses to Zeppelin attacks
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the impact of the ‘Spanish’ flu epidemic (1918)
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the formation of the Old Scholars Association (1919)
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commemoration: unveiling the war memorial (1924).
Follow this link to see details of the war dead commemorated on the Scarcroft memorial.
In our publication below we've explored these and other topics through a range of sources, including school log books, newspapers, photographs, an archive of a soldier’s letters home to his parents, and Medical Officer of Health reports.
If you prefer you can collect a free hard copy of the booklet from Reception at Clements Hall. This publication, one of three, is the result of two years exploration for our project, and uses the following sources:
Archival sources
Explore York Libraries and Archives
Map of Zeppelin Raids: ZEP/1
York Citizens’Committee: CCR/1 and CCR/2
York Corporation Minute Books 1915-16
York Corporation Education Committee Minutes 1914-18
Family Archives
Aked family
Avison family
Hawthorne family
Scarcoft School Archives
Uncatalogued
Newspapers
York Herald
Yorkshire Evening Press
Further reading
Cox, Ron, The Happiest Days…? Life as Seen Through Croydon School Log Books (Croydon Natural History & Scientific Society, vol. 19, part 7, 2014).
Gregory, Adrian, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (Cambridge, 2008).
Peacock, A.J., York in the Great War 1914-1918 (York Settlement Trust, 1993).
Pennell, Catriona, A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2012).
Rubinstein, David, York in War and Peace 1914-1945 (Quack Books, 2014).
Click here to look at our new publication on the subject.
