TBD
The surname CORLETT is derived from two Scandinavian forenames, Thor and Liot. The initial 'C' is retained from the Gaelic prefix 'Mac', which was dropped from most Manx surnames circa 1590. The name was commonest in the parishes of Ballaugh, Lezayre, Jurby and Andreas, the north-western area of the Isle of Man.
The family which forms the subject of this study cannot be traced earlier than the year 1629 at present, but the property on which they settled had previously been occupied by a Dolline Curlette, who could, perhaps, have been a relative. This property formed part of a parcel of lntack lands described in 1630 as 'itista locum vocatum Nelson's Bridge'. This bridge was evidently the one whose modern successor is known as the Lhen Bridge. The property concerned cannot now be exactly defined, as later acquisitions by the Corletts adjoined it.
Robert and Margery Christian of the parish of Maughold, by deed dated 26th January 1629/30, sold 'a parcel of lntacks lying and being within the parish of Kirk Andreas commonly called by the name of Knocke Brecke formerly and heretofore in the occupation of Alice Inyewye and Dolline Curlette of the yearly rent of two pence' ....... to John Curlett of the parish of Kirk Andreas. This sale was recorded in the so-called 'Manorial Records', for 1630: 'Robt Christian hath acknowledged in Court to have sould iiid of the rent to the parties aforesaid.' (i.e. Jo Corleod & Wm Camash.)
Of the life of John Curlett, grantee in the deed of 1629, nothing further has so far been learned. He died in or before the year 1658, for in the entries in liber Vastarum in that year it was avouched that 'Tho. (Curicod) should be entered in the right of John his father who is dead' for the 2d. intack. Thomas had married (possibly about 1655) Catherine Christian, and the couple had at least five children, of whom all but two seemingly died young. Thomas Curleod was a fisherman as well as a farmer, and we know that he owned some fishing nets - although we do not find that he had his own boat. In addition to his croft, Thomas occupied several parcels which he held in mortgage. In 1686, the marriage articles of Thomas' elder surviving son, William, and Jony Keneen of Andreas, were concluded. Thomas settled on his son his croft, houses, lands in mortgage, crops, farm implements, fishing nets, and certain household utensils. Jony's dowry, (besides the goods due to her from her deceased father's estate), was a cow.
Thomas Corlett was buried at Jurby on the 10th May, 1695, and his wife 'Katherin Christian' on the 3rd September 1600. Both left Wills.
On 24th April, 1696, shortly after his father's death, William Corlett purchased some property in Andreas which had previously been in his father's occupation, (as mortgagor).
The land bore an annual lord's Rent of two shillings. Between this date and 1703, further land was acquired from the same vendor, John Cammaish, to form a compact block, about ten acres in area, lying south of the Kiondroghad road, just east of its junction with the coast road. This land had formerly been part of the Quarterland of Ballagonnel.
William Corlett did not move from his ancestral croft, perhaps because the newly-acquired land was too valuable to cover with a dwelling and its associated structures.
Living beyond the Lhen Trench, these Corletts are often described as having lived in Jurby, in documents principally concerned with Andreas. (The Vicars of Jurby, however, were better acquainted with the parish boundary). In the Manorial Records of the early 18th century, William is described at 'Wm. Curlet More Jurby', which suggests that he was a man of considerable physical stature. Occasional intrusions; such as this remind the student of the fact that Mann was Gaelic-speaking in the 18th century and before.
William and Jony Corlett had at least seven children, of whom one, at least, seems to have left the Island. Jony died on 22nd March 1724/5, and in her will devised her half of the purchased land to her son Thomas. Shortly afterwards, Thomas married Ann Lawson, at Andreas. (13th April 1725).
William Corlett died on 10th November 1740, and was buried two days later at Jurby. Undoubtedly he would be buried in the same place as his father and grand-father, as was the custom. Under William's will, his son Thomas inherited the second half of the purchased lands, and as the Heir-at-Law, he also became entitled to the croft. (which was presumably still the family home). land adjacent to the croft at the Lhen was acquired by Thomas in 1754. This comprised a parcel of intack lying in the parishes of Andreas and Jurby, of 6/2d Lord's Rent. A 'house' was included in the purchase - but the vendor, Bahee Curlett, specifically excluded 'the leaf of the door' from the sales The houses of the crofters at this time, and much later, were 'mud-walled cabins' with thatched roofs, containing two rooms on the ground sometimes with, sometimes without, a solitary window.
The 1760's was a period of agricultural depression in the Isle of Man, and it was not surprising that Thomas, eldest son of Thomas Corlett and Ann Lawson, should seek to make a living away from the farm. Perhaps because, as his parents' eldest son, he would be Heir-at-Law to their real estate, he did not emigrate, but went to Castletown. What the occupation which he followed during the thirty years or so he lived there, alas, has not yet been discovered.
We first learn of Thomas' residence in Castletown through a deed of gift, executed in his favour by his parents, Thomas Corlett Snr. and Ann Lawson, dated 28th December 1761. In this they settle all their lands and 'husbandry gears' upon their son, and also a mare. Half the estate and goods were to be possessed immediately by Thomas Junior, the other part was to be enjoyed by his parents for life.
Record has been found of the baptism of three of Thomas Junior's children, at Malew Parish Church, (the mother church of Castletown,) between 1779 and 1784. His wife, Ann Quine, died in August 1791, probably in Castletown.
Some three years before, Thomas and his wife, described as "of Castletown" had been obliged to mortgage their lntack lands at 'Knock Breck' in Andreas,for £40. (Thomas had become fully entitled to the lands following the death of his father, in 1773 and his mother in 1782).
A further incumbrance was placed by Thomas Corlett on his real estate in 1793, when by a second mortgage, dated 18th April, he raised the sum of £21 on the security of 'my tenement of Balladonald'. This was the parcel of Quarterland of five shillings lord's Rent, purchased by his grandfather, William Corlett.
When this second mortgage was executed, Thomas was described as 'of the Parish of Andreas', which would suggest that he had retired from his Castletown occupation. (He would be about 60 years old.) Thomas Corlett had evidently made some effort at self-improvement during his period in the south of the Island, for although he was only able to add "his mark" to a document dated 1761, by 1788 he was able to sign his name. This state of education was seemingly never reached by Thomas' only surviving son, John, although evidence suggests that he could read.
John married a Jurby girl, Mary Cleator, in 1804, and in the same year the first of their twelve children was baptised in the Parish Church there. This first child named Thomas, after his grandfather. John would, no doubt, be engaged in the traditional crofting activities of fishing and farming, but in addition seems to have been willing to turn his hand to other activities to add to the family income.
There is a stray record of 'one John Corlett of the Lhen' receiving a letter, in May 1809, from a Cumberland merchant, offering a boatload of timber, at reasonable price, if he or 'any of his friends' would go for it.
Thomas Corlett, John's father, reached the age of 89 before he died in December 1822. In his will he left his two daughters 12/- each, and, except for small legacies for three grandchildren, left the residue of his estate to his son John.
At this distance in time, it is inevitable that the details of the lives of long-dead crofters such as my subjects in this article, should long ago have faded into obscurity. If he seeks the atmosphere of the crofting communities, or the farm-street of the Quarterland owner, the reader would be advised to read the romantic novels of Caine and Quine, or to consult the letters and journals of emigrants who left their native Isle early last century, little information will be gleaned from the brief entries made in their registers by the Parochial Clergy, or from the repetitive formulas of the Parson or Parish Schoolmaster, who penned the wills, and other legal documents required by their neighbours.
Nevertheless it is in these sources that we must seek information of a particular nature about a family or individual, even up to the middle of the nineteenth century.
John Corlett and his wife Mary had eleven children, between 1804 and 1832. This was a typical sized family for the place and time, and it was this period which saw the start of heavy migration from the Island. The typical cottage in the North of the Island was still the two-roomed type, although two-storied dwellings were gradually becoming commoner. Although John Corlett owned the house where lie lived, and the land he worked, and would also have a share in a fishing boat, there was no prospect of prosperity at home even for his eldest son.
Thomas, John and James all left the Island; John settled for a time in Liverpool, while James died in Manchester, and Thomas, the heir to the farm, predeceased his father, dying unmarried, in England. Younger members of John Corlett's family emigrated to Ohio, principally to Warrensville, where there was an intense settlement of Corletts from the North of the Island.
While his children were emigrating, John Corlett was adding to the family land-holdings, by various purchases. He bought a parcel of land adjoining his own intacks, called 'Croit-e-Cruin', which his widow settled on her son Phillip. He also bought a small triangular plot opposite the four fields which he owned at Ballagonnel, in 1838. Later, a larger field of 5 acres, together with a house (which is still standing), adjoining his previous purchase, was acquired. This was settled by John and Mary on their youngest child, Jane.
Following John Corlett's death, in 1859, the lands of inheritance became the property of his heir, his son John, who returned from Liverpool, with his wife, and son
Philip Teare Corlett and Joseph C. Corlett. John Junior did not long survive his father, and thus the small properties passed into the eighth generation of Corletts - and the last. The most recent lands had been purchased in optimism in a period of prosperity, and there was no hesitation in mortgaging the lands to raise cash. As a result, the properties became encumbered with debts, and when money became scarce, merchants pressed for payment of accounts, and for interest on the mortgages they held, and the ancestral lands were sold by the coroner - a very common occurrence at the time.
NIGEL CROWE
N.B. The principal interest of the writer was in James Corlett (1811-1845) and the fate of the later Corletts was not made the subject of intensive investigation.
1980 saw the 150th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Edward Brown. it was not marked by anything of the pomp displayed at the Centenary. Even so Richard Tobias an American, published a book on him in 1978, and whilst in the USA this last summer, I stumbled on a Ms of The Early life of Thomas Edward Brown. It was the M.A., thesis offered in 1921 to the University of Columbia, by Benjamin A. Botkin a man who went on to be himself a poet, but chiefly, one of the instigators of the collection and study of American Folklore and Folktales.
Not unnaturally, the longer the years since T.E.B. lived, the more students are interested in his personality, and both the above writers touch on the question of the Manxness of our National Poet. Botkin particularly is interested in the respect even aloofness, with which the Manx people regarded him in those last five years of his life when he lived at Ramsey in retirement. Botkin had been told by Ralph Hall Caine how Brown had remarked bitterly, as he set out on his last trip to Bristol, that if he could find a house at Clifton, he would never return, never see or set foot on the Island again'. And of course, in a way it was like that. He died at Clifton on October 29, 1897, and found a resting place in the grave in Braddan Churchyard, where his little son Braddan and his wife already lay, and a mode stone there commemorates them and other members of his family.
In more robust mood he had been able to crack a joke about what was said about his Manxness, 'not really Manx, only born on the Island' - 'Tom Brown the Manxman Aw, well, I duntno the Manx at all. laak enough, but we never heered of it'. His friends, like Canon Quine or Brown of the Times (no relation), watched with sardonic interest his transformation into a Celtic folk hero in the first two decades of the century - a process in which the question of his genealogy played its part. Botkin quotes from the Report & Balance Sheet of the Manx Society, 1920, allusion to 'the responsibility we have assumed of repairing the graves of the mother and father of our beloved countryman, T.E. Brown, in Braddan Old Churchyard. We are at present obtaining the advice and assistance of members of the family and of others in this matter; and we hope not only to deal with the graves of Brown's parents, but also to attend to those of his grandfather and grandmother in another part of the same churchyard, and also the graves of his kinspeople, the Stowells and the Drumgolds who were buried there at the close of the last century' ......... Mr. Oates, in seconding said the reference to the examination of several graves at Kirk Braddan, and the finding of T.E. Brown's mother's and father's and grandparents' names there, proved conclusively there was a good deal of Manx blood in T.E. Brown's veins.
It seems then fitting that our Family History Society might pay its own tribute to T.E.B. by investigating the question of his Manxness. Since 1920 the Mormon Microfilms, so easily to hand in the Museum, give us a facility denied to the men of those days, though there had been a genealogical interest on the Island long before. One of the first nominations the newly formed Manx Society made in 18.. was to appoint Mr. Paul Bridson as its representative at the British Genealogical Society. But naturally researchers of those days would tend to rely upon oral tradition rather than penetrate remote and dusty church archives.
Interest in T.E.B.'s family may be said to begin with A.W. Moore in MANX WORTHIES. Writing within a year or two of the poet's death, he naturally would turn to the poet's own letters, and his surviving brothers and sisters. T.E.B. himself wrote of his family:- 'The name Brown is not Manx, but the family belonged to the old Manxstock, the Cosnahans. Lt. Cosnahan took part in the engagement between the Shannon and the Chesapeake.' another cousin, Major Bacon of Seafield was at the Battle of Waterloo'. On his mother's side he was Scots. Her father was 'a Thomson' from the Scots side, her mother a Birkett from the Cumbrian side, of the Cheviot'. An even more valuable document available to Moore would have been the auto-biography of the poet's elder brother Hugh Stowell Brown, included in a memorial volume, edited by his son-in-law W.S. Caine, MP, in 1887. This elder brother had a remarkable ministry of 30 years at Myrtle Street Baptist Chapel, Liverpool, where a statue to him still stands, near the entrance to Princes Park. He did not have anything of his brother's interest in the past. Rather he was one of the great group of religious social reformers of every denomination, that pioneered so much in Liverpool in the 19th century. He even started a Thrift Bank at his church. When asked about the family he said: 'My brother Tom is more interested in genealogies than me'. Nevertheless, it was he who wrote (I quote from Botkin's thesis):-
'My mother's maiden name was Thomson - Dorothy Thomson. Her father was a Scotsman born and bred, belonging to Jedburgh He learned the business of gardener, and when still very young went to the Isle of Man, where he laid our and planted the nursery grounds near Douglas. He subsequently became a farmer, seedsman, etc. and although he made some money, I believe he lost most of it.
Of my grandfather Thomson's relations I know nothing, save that one of them was, fifty years ago, a farmer near Amersham, and that nearly forty years ago, I found him keeping an inn at Farnham Royal, near Windsor.' My mother's mother was a Cumberland woman; the name of her family was Birkett, and they lived at or near Workington.
She went to the Isle of Man in some capacity, I do not know what, and was there married to John Thomson. She had three daughters, my aunt Barbara, and Bethia, who died young. My grandmother Thomson lived to the age of 83, and died I think in the year 1842. She spoke to the last with a strong Cumberland accent. Birketts are in Cumberland as plentiful as blackberries, but of our Birketts I have no trace. My brother Tom went some years ago to the supposed original village of the family, and found that there was a Birkett who kept a small shop down the street. Fearful of making too plebeian a discovery, he pursued his inquiries no further. Thus then, though I am a Manxman born, I do not know that I have any Manx blood in my veins; but I have English Blood from the Birketts, Scots from the Thomsons, and very probably, Irish from the Drumgolds or Drumgools; but from whatever sources derived, it is not of any great account'.
A.W. Moore does not however seem to have known of this account: at any rate he does not quote it. Instead he prints what T.E.B.'s sister, Margaret, Mrs. Williamson, who was still alive, told him:
'My father, the Rev. Robert Brown, was certainly Manx, and both his parents were born in the Island. His father (T.E.B.'s grandfather), Captain Robert Brown, married Jane Drumgold, who belonged to a family which originally came from the North of Ireland, but had been a long time settled in Douglas. It was from them that Drumgold Street took its name.
Captain R. Brown's mother is said to have been a Stowell of Ballastole, Maughold, and his sister Ann married Thomas Stowell of Ballastole, and was mother of the Rev. Hugh Stowell Thomas Stowell, C.R., John Stowell and Joseph Stowell it is at once evident that these accounts do not entirely tally, and that while T.E.B. stresses the Cosnahan connection, Hugh seems quite unaware of it, and Margaret does not refer to it, but stresses the Stowell side. How then do these accounts measure against our Parochial Records?
For my researches (which are imperfect, and I hope will be corrected by all who can), I have used the Mormon Indexes of Baptisms and Marriages, and so have had a much simplified task. But I stumbled at the very outset on the irritating fact that these list the maiden name of T.E.B.'s bride, Amelia, at Maughold on July 24, 1857, not as Stowell, but as Howell - one more effect of the inadequacy of leaving the decyphering of Manx microfilms to workers unfamiliar with Manx calligraphy and nomenclature, out in Utah.
I also found in the Museum Library a folio of pencil-written sheets by William Cubbon of jottings he had made from the Parochial Records relating to several prominent families, including the Browns.
The following marriages are recorded in Braddan:
Jan 3 1737, Robert Brown to Margaret
Cosnahan
Oct 28 1759, Ann Brown to Thomas Stowell
Oct 24 1784, Robert Brown to Jane Drumgold
Apl 21 1819, Robert Brown to Dorothy Thomson
Turning to Baptisms, St. Matthews, Douglas, records six children of
Robert I & Margaret:
Philip (1742), Robert (1744), Margaret (1750), Eunice (1753), Jane
(1756) and Robert (1761). Braddan records also Catherine (1740), who
died June 1741.
But there is still one more question of the Stowell connection. There is a curious entry in the Braddan burials for November 4 1796: 'Jane Drumgold, al. Stowell'. it is most probable that she would have been the mother of the second Captain Robert Brown's wife. A James Drumgold had been buried in Braddan in August 1763. Possibly he was her husband. If this be so, T.E.B. and Mrs. Williamson did have a Stowell great grandmother after all - but on the distaff side.
So we have the answer to our question. The Cosnahan line is the sure and the illustrious one. W. Cubbon was not quite sure whose daughter Margaret Cosnahan was. One Margaret was baptised on June 30 1716, another on May 22 1718, the first the daughter of John, the Vicar-General and later Vicar of Braddan (1693-1749), the other to a Jon Cosnahan and his wife Ann. But according to Museum papers, the Cosnahans have identified her with the first, and through her T.E.B. can ascend through a further three, or even four, directly succeeding sons, all Vicars of Santon, back to 1540, when the name seems first to appear on the Island. Eleven of them were clergy on the Island, and nine lie under the Broad Stone at Santon. Illustrious enough surely. Manx enough? Yes, if Cosnahans were really Manx, and not just 'off-comes' from Reformation Edinburgh.
There must be a genealogical lesson in all this. In order to be illustrious in Mann, it is desirable to dilute the Manx blood. Brown blood gave a sea-dog Robert II a grandson the world was to admire, but perhaps his sister Ann can be even more proud of the distinction brought by the Stowells to the Manx Bar, the Manx Church, and Manx scholarship.
Richard Tobias allows T.E.B. to have been 'one-eighth Manx'; the Stowell connection raises it to three sixteenths Maybe that is a good mixture.
The English poet asked: What do they know of England, who only England know?.
And could a Manx poet descry, comprehend and articulate what is the essence of Manxness, unless most of him were somehow tantalisingly outside it?
R,. KISSACK
One of the most human features of reading through Parish Records is to note what some Clark or Clergyman wrote in from time to time as worthy of remembering. Here is one such piece of Folk-Memorabilia.
'John Craine ye Clarke of this Parish was bury'd the 3rd October, 1704, he came to Church the day before he died to do his office being the Sabbath Day and went home and died on Monday - he was neare the age of 80 years when he died and read without Spects all Days of his life and was an honest man and beloved by his Parish'.
As we reel through the Museum Microfilms and look on documents handled and made by our forefathers, how very often we realise that they could not even sign their own names, but would make their X witnessed by a lawyer or clergyman.
No doubt a proportion of these could read, but the celebration of the Bicentenary of Sunday Schools in 1980, reminds us that for very many, there as well as on the mainland, unless they belonged to the privileged classes who could afford private education, it was to the Sunday School that they owed the ability to read. long before compulsory day school education some people felt it right that at least the Bible should be open to the poorest, instead of just a church service which meant little to them.
Not everybody in the upper classes agreed with educating the poor
even slightly. One of the best known of a line of Manx Bishops who
really cared for poor children, was Bishop Wilson who, in a sermon,
reprimanded the employing classes:
They fear they will lose their beasts of burden; they want the
labour of their bodies and care nothing for the minds and souls of
the poor.
Queen Elizabeth I had instructed all clergy to gather children
together for half an hour before Divine Service, to teach them their
catechism and where possible to read the Bible. The Manx Bishops
tried to follow this, and probably some clergy obeyed, but some were
lazy and some, as the good Bishop himself said had little learning
themselves and no power to teach.
The clergy set up certain day schools as early as 1703 at which attendance was supposed to be compulsory, but they were too few, too scattered and parents could always excuse children for work on farm or home duties. Seven men of Marown were fined for not sending their children, but this was a rare occurrence.
The proportion of day/school places at the tiny Sunday Schools began is given as one for every 432 children, whereas there was an alehouse for every 190.
At first Sunday Schools were private ventures, born of the need of the time and the goodwill of those who cared. Such a one met at the Strang, where James Kaye, supported by a benevolent gentlewoman taught children on Sundays, and a Thomas Cowin of Ballacowin, when only 22 years old began teaching in his own house.
The golden age of Sunday Schools came when the churches began to realise the idea of John Wesley. That Sunday Schools may become the nursery of the Church. By this time the earliest scholars bad become adult, and willing to pass on the knowledge they had received, both as Sunday School teachers and local preachers. The Sunday Schools helped them develop their potential gifts.
At the Centenary celebrations in 1880 there was some controversy about which was our oldest existing Sunday School. It was claimed that Thomas Street Methodist (Later Victoria Street, now the Promenade Church) had that honour, probably from 1803; and Well Road the other Douglas Methodist Chapel followed soon after that. The Independents (later Finch Hill Congregational) were running a Sunday School in Athol Street in about 1804, and St. George's must have been well established in 1810, when they sent a circular to parents about the attendance and cleanliness of their children at Sunday School, and added the gratuitous advice that homes could be kept sweet and clean by fourpenny- worth of lime wash.
Before long every village had its Sunday School, and as scholars became adult, they wanted to teach, so that at a tiny place like The Lhen we find 37 available teachers for 50 scholars; a pattern repeated elsewhere. Another school notes
a class of 'reserved young men' without exactly saying for what purpose they were reserved& No doubt with a view to becoming teachers later. They began to canvass for scholars and when families had eight or ten children the numbers soon grew.
Some of the appointments were obviously made to keep eager young teachers happy:- 'That JK become assistant Star Card Marker' (star cards were the attendance registers): and in another place 'That JQ play the piano with HL. to help him'. We can hardly imagine it meant duets, but the second name to be in reserve.
The teachers were untrained, and bad little equipment. The Bible was their only book in most cases. We all remember T.E. Brown's Schoolmaster at the little school at the Lhen, whose method was to slap a Testament in their fists, never mind learning letters.
Sand trays were often used as the cheapest way to trace the letters; later came 'Horn Books', frying-pan-shaped objects which the child grasped by the handle to avoid dirtying the letters, which were additionally encased in thin horn.
To learn the alphabet there was no play-way of 'A is for apple' with a helpful picture. They combined theology with letters, and recited 'A is for Angel who praises the Lord'. B for Bible, C for Church, D for Devil, E for Eternity, F for Faith, G for God, and most surprisingly, H didn't (in some books) stand for Hope or heaven, but Hell , where naughty children were clearly expected to go
After the alphabet class, came so-called easy readers, bearing horrific titles, such as 'Pious Edward', who died young but got his reward in heaven.
New Testament class next, then the whole Bible, and so their education was considered complete. But then there came a demand for writing also, and this caused great argument. The Church of England and the Wesleyans were against it, generally. Indeed the Wesleyan Conference, over several years, passed resolutions requiring Churches not to support Sunday Schools which taught writing on Sundays, as this was undesirable and an infringement of the Sabbath.
The Independents, and the later branches of Methodism continued to teach it, and even in some cases numbers. A Scriptural Number-Book for use on Sunday scholars was based on Old Testament lists of animals, their legs and horns.
A compromise was reached by which evening classes in secular subjects were offered as a reward for Sunday attendance, and the original Sunday School prizes were intended for use in these extension classes.
Debating societies, Guilds, Christian Endeavour, were all off-shoots of the need to extend the Sunday teaching to weeknights. Thousands of local and national leaders first learned to think and speak aloud in such groups.
Poverty was rife, but members cared for one another. In the Cholera epidemic of 1832 the teachers and mothers of Thomas Street Sunday School formed the Dorcas Society, which continued its benevolence through at least six generations.
The poverty of the day is emphasised, and also a spirit of real understanding, by a school minute book, which says that a florin was found in the collection. They assume this was 'a mistake, and the owner may reclaim'. The collection for the day was three shillings and five pence, but only one shilling and five pence if the florin was returned.
Socially the Sunday School was the centre for young folks' activities. it was frequently the place to choose one's life partner, and 'Bachelors and Maids Tea Parties' were arranged every year - one example is at Ronague, where 200 sat down to tea, (cakes baked by the maids and served by the bachelors). No doubt there were some romantic results.
In 1872 State Education by means of School Boards became compulsory, and many people thought the Sunday Schools would decline, but they continued to thrive, not only on Sundays but as extra educational and social outlets.
School treats to Laxey Glen, or by train to Glen Wyllin or Glen Helen by waggonette were rare occasions, gained by good attendance. The children were identified by ribbon bows, so that no unauthorised child might receive an orange and bun.
Peel probably had the first Sunday School Library, where books could be borrowed in a day when few possessed even a single copy, except perhaps the Bible. The Bible was often given as a prize for good attendance, and later the system of Sunday School prizes began.
Although teachers were no longer paid by 'benevolent people', as in the earliest ...
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