3-Year Old Scholar

I noticed that one of my "relatives", a 3 year old girl, is described in 1881 as a "scholar".

Was this usual, if it is not a mistake?

Father was a tin-plate worker.

The family lived next door to a school - might that have something to do with it?

[Olde Crone]

A mistake I suspect.

I have a number of instances of very young children being described as scholars when I know the family didn't have two ha'pennies to rub together and if anything, the child was working somewhere.

Once the compulsory education act came into force, people were anxious to declare that their children were at school even when they weren't and I think the lines got a bit blurred - better say they were scholars to be on the safe side!

OC

Thanks OC - that makes sense

[garstonite]

Thanks...I`ve seen that a couple of times and often wondered....with the education explanation , it makes sense now.....cheers...allan

[Kit]

lol. I always thought they'd just written scholar one time too many.

[HarrysMum]

I have a 3 year old scholar as well, but she 'sort of' was.

Her mother had died and the older sister used to take her to school with her.

[kiterunner]

There were lots of three-year olds who went to school. I've been working on the London School Admissions records that we're indexing for ancestry's World Archives Project and there are lots of three-year-olds starting school on there.

[Nell]

I have found the majority of 3 year olds + in censuses from about 1891 onwards are listed as scholars. In some cases they've been ditto'ed as elder siblings, but younger ones have had scholar crossed off, so making it clear the 3 year olds were scholars, if you see what I mean.

My Mum went to a local village school and said that 3-year olds would often be taken in to be minded to help out mothers. This was in the 1930s, but I guess such things would have happened earlier. Victorians and Edwardians didn't have Montessori nurseries or playgroups as we know them today, so a school would have catered for children old enough to leave their mothers and ready to mix with more children and begin a more formal education.

[anne fraser]

I have a picture of my grandmother as a pupil teacher at the village school in Stanton Drew about 1896 and many of the children look about three. I am not sure when five became the accepted age to start school but I suspect that many children started earlier so they could leave at about twelve.

My husband's aunt who was born in 1897 and was the eldest of thirteen children could remember having to take the youngest children to school and look after them. I suspect that many of the scholars actually were at school.