In November 1868 the Schools Inquiry Commission published the Special Reports of Assistant Commissioners to both Houses of Parliament. The Assistant Commissioner for the South West Division was Mr. C.H. Stanton and it is his report on the Litton School at Litton Cheney, Dorset which follows. MR. STANTON’S REPORT Half-way between Dorchester and Bridport, approached from the main road by deep lanes, often not more than six or seven feet wide, at the base of the southern slope of the great chalk range which stretches from the Isle of Purbeck to Bridport, lies the village of Litton Cheney, containing 500 inhabitants and 3,817 acres. A brook of the purest water bursts from the hill and runs through the village. Robert Thorner, by his will in 1690, appointed £20 per annum to be paid towards the maintenance of a free school to teach the male children of Litton Cheney to read, write, cast accounts, and grammar, from the age of 6 to 15; and the foundation was augmented by the gift of a schoolhouse in 1776 by Thomas Hollis. There is also an apprenticing fund, forming part of Thorner’s charity, and established by his will, whereby boys from this parish as well as from Salisbury, Dorchester, and Southampton, are entitled to £5 as an apprentice fee, and £5 more when they are set up in trade. The founder nominated his own trustees, and directed that they should each nominate his own successor. The present trustees are three in number and all Nonconformists and non-resident; one, a dissenting minister, resides at Southampton, and the two other gentlemen arc laymen and reside in London. A gentleman, a dissenter, lately a wine merchant at Dorchester, who takes an interest in school matters, at the request of the trustees, manages for them whatever business may require personal attention at Litton. The trustees are allowed by the founder £10 a year for their trouble; a sum which might with advantage be given up to increase the small endowment. The present master is a worthy old man, old fashioned in his notions of teaching, and has occupied his post for 30 years; he had been a schoolmaster before he was elected here. He was assisted by his wife and by his grandson, a lad of 13, in the school. There was no other teacher. No attendance book nor any record of the boys’ work was kept. The schoolroom is 27 feet by 18 feet, and. 10 feet high; the windows and the fire-place are the only means of ventilation. Three girls, private pupils of the mistress, were being taught there; five very little boys were also among the scholars. Altogether there were 28 present when I visited the school. More than half of them were labourers’ children, but there were a few of a higher class, such as a policeman, tailor, or blacksmith. Farmers’ sons also came occasionally, but at present there are said to be none in the parish of the proper age. They were all very young—with one exception under 12. Many of them, to use their own formula, were “going in their 8 or 9.” I cannot speak favourably of their attainments. There was hardly one in the upper part of the school who could read with sufficient plainness for me to understand him without following the words myself in a book, and their dictation was very bad. Very few attempted any sum beyond the addition of money, and still fewer could divide £73 by 365. An attempt of the boys in the middle of the school to write out from memory the Lord’s Prayer was lamentable, the letters in many cases representing a conglomeration of sounds only faintly recalling the original. Some of them could do simple multiplication. The master receives £25 a year in money. He occupies a tolerably large house or cottage, half of which he lets off to another family. He once took eight boarders at £16 each, but found it unprofitable, and has discontinued it. He occupies about two acres adjoining the house rent free, which belongs to the charity, on condition that he keeps the premises in repair. The slates and the plastering of the roof were in a bad condition when I visited the house. The trustees live at too great a distance to see much of. the school. There are no examinations. For four years together the master only saw one trustee and on one occasion. I understand that the predecessor of the present master was a Unitarian; a Kentish gardener, who, by violent preaching and still more violent temper, disgusted the parish and emptied the school. In 1838, the stipend of £25 being considered, as in fact it is, wholly insufficient for the payment of a competent master, the trustees promulgated a notice that they intended to raise his salary by the imposition of a capitation fee upon those boys whose parents could afford to pay it. The parish rose in arms against this, considering that by the terms of the will the richest as well as the poorest were entitled to a free education, and that this attempt by the trustees was entirely ultra vires. The parishioners seem to have had no objection to the principle of the proposed charge, but only to the manner of making it; for at a vestry meeting held April 23, 1838, it was agreed “that all persons above the class of common labourers should, by a voluntary payment, contribute 3s. per quarter for the instruction of each child and that this should not grow into a customary right, this document was to be entered into the ” vestry book repeatedly every year.” This agreement was signed by 19 of the principal inhabitants. Under this authority, the head master now receives 3s. every quarter from each of about 13 children. The existence of this school in the parish renders it impossible to establish a National school. The present head master attends the parish church and works well with the rector, who speaks of him highly, and who pays him £5 a year for holding a night school on two days in the week. It is unnecessary, perhaps, to say that the rector has no authority whatever in the school; he is never consulted as to what boys in the parish are deserving objects for the apprentice fee, and any interference on his part would be regarded with jealousy. An application made by him to the trustees for the use of their schoolroom on Sunday, when it was disengaged, for his Sunday school, was refused. The rector now holds his Sunday school in a room he has fitted up for the purpose at his own house. There is no day school for girls in the parish, who are obliged to attend the schools of the neighbouring villages, several of which, though smaller than Litton, have good parochial schools. Were it not for its “endowed grammar” school, a good parish school would also probably be found at Litton Cheney.

A detailed history of Thorners School and its relationship to Robert Thorner was included in “Litton Cheney in the Bride Valley” publisherd in1989.by C J (Jack) Bailey, a former headmaster. The following are a set of milestones based on that book.

1690 Thorner’s School founded by Robert Thorner who also died in that year. He bequeathed £20 per annum “to be employed towards the maintenance of a free school in the parish of Litton “to teach the male children to read and write, cast accounts and grammar from the age of six years to fifteen”. The location of this original school remains a mystery but it was certainly not on the present site 1695 From the Thorner Charity Account Book: “One year’s salary to Mr Thomas Dawes, schoolmaster, £25. 1746 Thomas Dawes died and the trustees appointed John Hurd as his successor. 1770 A field known as Hill Close purchased by the Trustees on which was built a house for the schoolmaster, leaving two acres to be let, the rent to be used for the maintenance of the house. Subsequently, a replacement schoolroom was built adjacent to the master’s house. 1778 Robert Cox appointed schoolmaster “allowing £5 per annum to John Hurd, the late schoolmaster, he being incapacitated through age and infirmity”. 1823 1823 Charles Herbert was appointed. He, according to a Charity Commissioner-s Report 'had a good school for about twelve months, after which he began to exert himself in the dissemination of Unitarian principles in a manner so offensive the parents refused to send their children so that for many years before his death he had no scholars at all and totally neglected the buildings, breaking up the Close and using it for garden ground'. He died in 1833. It is now known that in the eighteenth century the school was conducted. the master appointed, along the lines used by a group of dissenting schools run by the Hollis family in the Sheffield area. By the time Herbert was appointed the Trustees, no longer from the Hollis family, seem from their failure to remove him for so long, to have lost interest in the Litton school. It was the report of the Charity Commission, referred to above, which eventually reinstated the school. 1834 The school reopened with Henry Morgan as master. A new schoolroom 27ft long, 18ft wide and 10ft high was built at a cost of E64, to replace the thatched building which Herbert had allowed to fall into disrepair. 1838 Hitherto the Charity Trustees and the parish church seem to have ignored each other. This year, however, the Trustees asked the Rector whether the village could help pay the salary of the schoolmaster. An outright indignant refusal was of no avail as the Trustees appealed to the Charity Commissioners who directed that the master should receive 3 shillings a quarter from each child "not being the child of a common labourer". 1876 The 1870 Education Act required that school provision should be brought up to certain standards which meant that a village the size of Litton should be able to accommodate 80 pupils. The Charity could not afford yet another rebuilding but was at one with the parish in not wanting the Board of Education school which would be put in the place of Thorner's. The Rector, the Rev. J. S. Cox, seems to have taken the initiative and church and charity together promoted a scheme for the governing and conduct of a new school to meet the requirements of the Act. The foundation was to be called the Hollis and Thorner School, the extra name being added in recognition of the Hollis family's furtherance of the Thorner bequest. Two governors were to be appointed by the charity, two by the church and two by the subscribers to the fund which was set up to build the new schoolroom. This was built within a year and is still used today. 1878 Mr Garland was appointed master at €70 per annum, with EIO to his wife for the sewing". The inclusion of girls was, of course, a requirement of the Act. 1887 The governors, while deciding to allow the Diocesan Inspector to examine the religious knowledge taught in the school, insisted out of respect for the nonconformist part in the foundation that the Church of England catechism be omitted from the syllabus. 1902 Under the Education Act of that year the school came under the control of the Local Education Authority, a committee of the Dorset County Council, and from 1903 it is clear that though that body was aware of the Thorner Charity (but not its nonconformist background) it regarded Litton as a 'church' school. The governors now became 'managers', the Local Authority paid the teachers and most of the maintenance but not any new building. The master's house was entirely the responsibility of the managers. The Rector now regularly taught scripture and catechism in the school. 1903 At the beginning of the century the attendance at the school was 70. From then on, as with most villages, there was a remarkable decline in the child population in Litton, 5-14s numbering no more than 25. With the end of the war in 1945 there was a slight increase. 1928 A year of change. Thorner’s became a school serving all the older children of the eastern end of the Bride Valley. To make classroom space Litton's 7-11 year olds were taken to Puncknowle school by a bus which brought the seniors back to Thorner's. Litton's infants (5-7) stayed with their own teacher in the small classroom at Thorner's. The reason for the upheaval was the introduction of housewifery for the girls and gardening and woodwork for the boys taught by specialist teachers. Use of the field as a garden presented no problems but part of the master's house had to given over to cookery, laundry and woodwork. The central school continued through the difficult years of the second world war until the upheaval in education which followed it. 1947 Under the 1944 Education Act Thorner's became a primary school catering for the children of Litton, Puncknowle and Swyre, the seniors of the Bride Valley being taken to a Bridport secondary school. This brought about the closure of Puncknowle school. 1949 The school, basically the same since the 1877 rebuilding, was now much below the standard required. The Charity had lost all interest and the managers, struggling to make ends meet, sought to have the school's status changed to Voluntary Aided Church of England. This came about in 1951, the Diocesan Authority taking over the maintenance of the building. The name of Thorner was then dropped from the title which became 'Litton Cheney VA(CE)'. 1956 The first major improvement was the provision of a toilet block and cloakroom which was added to the old building. The ex- army huts adjacent to the school had been used as kitchen and dining room and this continued. 1962 The school at Long Bredy being scheduled for closure, the expansion of Litton was considered by the Diocesan Authority. It was at this point that Jack Bailey (who had been appointed head teacher in 1953) drew attention to the fact that the school, in spite of its name, had never legally been transferred to Salisbury. As a result the Department of the Environment drew up a scheme which was quickly advertised and passed, ordering that "the foundation of the Thorner and Hollis School at Litton Cheney, Dorset, shall be administered by Salisbury Diocesan Authority as the governing body". At the request of the head teacher the founder's name was restored to the official title and it is still 'Thorner's Litton Cheney, Church of England (voluntary aided) School'. 1968 The advantages of the new situation were soon apparent. Salisbury, with the power to obtain an 80% building grant from the Department, set about modernisation and expansion. Additions to the 1877 building included two new classrooms, a dining room/hall and kitchen. The official opening took place on Oct. 11th. It was fittingly performed by a representative of Harvard University in America which had, like the school at Litton, benefited under the will of Robert Thorner. The modernisation of the school was very much a local affair, the work being undertaken by the Litton builders C.G.Fry and Son who also helped the Parent-Teacher Association build a heated swimming pool the following year. At the same time the Local Authority levelled the top end of the field to provide an excellent play area using waste material excavated when Litton was provided with a sewerage system. 1992 The only material change in the school since enlargement has been the conversion of the kitchen to educational use. The number on roll is around 80 drawn from the five villages at the east end of the Bride Valley and from Bexington. Litton may well be proud of its 300 year old school even if the manner of its conversion was somewhat unorthodox. However it should not be forgotten that its new status under the Diocesan Authority certainly saved the situation in the 1960s. As with all small village schools its future is by no means certain but without it the locality would be poor indeed. The following is a (incomplete) list of headmasters known to be incumbent at the time: 1690 Thomas Dawes 1746 John Hurd 1778 Robert Cox 1793 Rev. Kircup 1816 Rev, Seward 1823 Charles Herbert 1834 Henry Morgan 1878 Mr Garland 1943 Mr Pritchard 1953 Jack Bailey 1968 John Foxwell ? Stephen Mason 1999-2011 Alison Johnstone 2011 Jyotsna Chaffey 2020 Mike Sitch