Sometimes, when doing archival research, a snippet of information which is a bit fun and seemingly not terribly relevant pops up its head. Suddenly you spot a word or phrase – in this case “Scotch [sic] shepherd’s wife” – and it becomes worthy of pursuing. Here is just such a case – enjoy!
An article in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette for Thursday April 20th, 1876 appears primarily to do with North Tawton* School. It starts as follows:
“The Earl of Portsmouth was the means of conferring a great boon upon Devonshire when he initiated the foundation of the Middle-class School at Northtawton [sic] and he has obliged the country at large by inducing the Liberal ex-Minister of Education to come and speak at its anniversary this year, his lordship thereby proving himself instrumental in giving to the country the very important utterances which Mr. Forster delivered yesterday.”
A chummy, if somewhat dry, start to the article but a paragraph further on begins to get to the issue to hand. It tells us:
“The speech made by Mr. Forster at Northtawton yesterday will send confusion and dismay, to be quickly followed by deep-seated resentment, into the camp of the Birmingham Leaguers. Nothing could be clearer or more unmistakable than the right hon. gentleman’s pronouncement in favour of religious education.”
Clearly, at the heart of this newspaper piece is the issue of non-denominational education and the concern that should ex-Education Minister Forster ever become re-elected Education Minister, a wave of worry will spread through the Secularists. However, hard on the heels of this journalist concern comes the next paragraph (and the one that interests us) which states:
“Mr. Forster imported a whole cargo of Scottish educational ideas into Northtawton yesterday. Doubtless it is to the lessons received by the right hon. gentleman during his visit to “the land o’cakes” last year, supplemented by the impression made upon him by his conversation with the Scottish shepherd’s wife whose cottage he entered during a recent ramble over Exmoor, that we owe the glorification of Scottish education to which Mr. Forster treated his hearers at Northtawton yesterday. In truth, his speech favoured a great deal too much of Caledonianism.”.
Oh dear, Mr Forster – they weren’t liking what you were telling them! And some more rhetoric along a similar line is followed by this critical warning:
“Devonshire people are not going to fall down and worship John Knox and adapt their modes of thought and actions to Scottish fashions, because Mr W. E. Forster happens to have been across the Border, and to have talked with a Scotch (sic) shepherd’s wife on Exmoor. The right hon. gentleman’s reference, by-the-way, to the latter, did not seem very relevant to the eulogium of the Scottish school system in which it was introduced, seeing it appears that the good woman does not send her children to school at all, but instructs them at home.”
So who was this ‘good woman’ quietly minding her business in her cottage on Exmoor when the Liberal ex-Minister for Education calls in and asks about how she educates her children! Whatever did she think about it all? Did she know he was coming or did he literally just stroll by and drop in? We know from first hand reports what one woman in a lonely cottage out on the moor did when a stranger came by. Perhaps Mr. Forster caught this one unawares? And which Scottish shepherd’s wife might it have been?
In 1876, it could have been Mrs Tait Little – she arrived on the moor around 1872 to join her husband Robert Tait Little. They already had 2 children born in Scotland and by the 1881 census had two more so very likely to be home-educating them. Jane Little (below) looks potential ‘home teacher’ material.
Or maybe it was Mrs Fanny Davidson, wife of Scottish Shepherd William Davidson, out at Hoar Oak. By 1876 when this article was written they already had three children (four more were to follow) and were living at Hoar Oak Cottage. Perhaps Mr Forster had strolled out to see the Hoar Oak Tree on the Devon/Somerset boundary and stumbled across the family at Hoar Oak Cottage? Unfortunately, we have no photo of Fanny – if any of our readers are connected to the Davidsons and can tell us more we will be delighted to hear from them.
* the ancient town of North Tawton lies some forty miles to the south-west of Hoar Oak Cottage
