A Russian tea kettle? By Ellie, Erin and Georgina

Russian tea kettle?

There’s a mystery item up here in the archives…

... and it appears to be some sort of kettle or tea-making device. A rudimentary translation of the Russian instructions booklet tells us that this item is in fact ‘A domestic electric samovar with a thermal switch’.

A bit of further online research has revealed that a samovar is ‘a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia’. Since the heated water is typically used to make tea, it has a ring-shaped attachment around the chimney, to hold a heated teapot. Whilst coal or charcoal was traditionally used to heat samovars, ours is electric.

Why do we have such an item? The samovar was made in 1992 but we think that it was brought to the school a few years later. There was one student studying Russian in 1996-1997, and one more a year later. We suspect that one of these students or their teachers brought this into school.

• Was the Samovar yours? 
• And if so, what is the story behind it?
• Or do you remember it being used in the classroom? 
• And if so, what were your experiences of learning Russian at the Maynard in the 1990s?

As always, please be in touch - we'd love to hear from you. 

Summer Term Timetable, 1941 by Erin Maughan

Summer term timetable from 1941 by Erin Maughan

I decided to research a timetable from the summer term of 1941. This timetable was from a competition in which a form tutor had set ‘to make a colourful notice board timetable’ over the holidays for some Lower 4 pupils. The timetable is an attempt made by one of the pupils in this class, who won house points for Haberdashers for her efforts. 

  

There are a few similarities and differences from this timetable to that of a modern Lower 4 timetable. For example, students in 1940-1941 Lower 4 studied subjects which we do not, such as Needlework. Also, pupils studied separate areas of Maths, for example this pupil studied Geometry, Algebra and Arithmetic (which now all come under maths). By looking at a modern Lower 4 timetable, we can see that pupils at The Maynard do still study some of the same subjects of 1940-1941 pupils; for example, Geography, English, Music, Latin and Science.

              

  

I also did some research into what subjects the girl who made this timetable took for her General School Examination (the equivalent to the modern day GCSE’s) in 1944. I found out that my pupil took English Literature, Geography, French, Elementary Mathematics, and Domestic Subjects. Domestic subjects was a variety of tasks, such as cookery, dress-making, laundry and needlework which girls could choose to take for their General School Examinations. By looking at the Maynard’s whole school results from this year we can see the wide range of subjects that girls could choose from. For example Ancient History, Geometrical Drawing, Handicraft, Botany and book-keeping! We can also see that popular subjects from the class of 1944 included Geography, Latin and History (still popular subjects in 2016!) Lastly, a notable difference to the modern day GCSE’s is that the final grades were written as a number and not as a grade as we know today.

• Did you take the General School Examination at the Maynard between 1918 and 1951? 
• What subjects did you take? 
• And what did you do next with it? 

As always the Archive Club would love to hear from you either by commenting below or via our email link. 

A mystery photo of the Main School Hall - by Ellie Strahan

A date in the past... mystery photograph of the Main School Hall by Ellie Strahan

For this project, I examined an old photograph of the Main School Hall that was once used as a postcard. I decided to try and find out the date of which it was taken. 

To give it some kind of place in the timeline, I had a look at a photograph of the school that had been taken in 1908. The first thing that led me to believe that the mystery photograph was taken after the 1908 photograph was the floor. The chequered floor we have today is shown clearly in the mystery photo but the floor is not there in the bottom photo. I thought that this might be due to the resolution perhaps but upon closer examination there is nothing to suggest that the chequered floor is there, not even a line. So the photo must have been taken after 1908.

The second thing that indicated me towards some kind of date were the boards at the back. They have not got the boards up at the back of the Main School hall that we have today. I therefore decided that if we found the earliest date on the boards in the Hall then I would have some kind of indication as to when the photograph was taken. We found the date the boards had been put up as shown in photograph (1911). This placed the photo between 1908 and 1911.

However, the pedestal can just be made out in the back left hand corner of the hall, and as shown in photograph D that was made in 1914. Therefore, I think that a new pedestal may have been made in 1914 for reasons unknown.

I also found out that the main school hall used to be used as a gym before the gym was built as shown by the gym apparatus on the walls of the hall, which isn’t there anymore.

All this evidence suggests that the photo dates some time between 1908 and 1911. 

• Do you know when this photo was taken? Was our young Sherlock Holmes on the right track? 

• Did you ever use the Main School Hall as a gym? What are your memories of this? 

As always, the Archive Soc would love to hear from you via email or in our comments section.