Adrian Percy Bishop became head of Barcombe School in 1918, and assumed responsibility of a school of 128 pupils, and a school magazine. Bishop threw himself into his new role, introducing new ideas such as a prefect system and poultry farming. The magazines chart the next twelve years of the school’s history, reporting on the challenges and triumphs of this small village school.
The magazines offer a rich trove of stories and pictures of sporting events, performances and parades, scholarships, class work and singular events.
Bishop oversaw the production of a wooden War Memorial in 1919, a whole-school visit to the Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, the building of a 200 ft train track in his own house, and a fundraising drive to buy a film projector for the school.
The magazines are also interesting for their portrayal of other countries, and the use of implicit and explicit racial and gender stereotypes.
1928 saw the children out of school for more than a month, and at least one dying due to the measles epidemic, the King fell worryingly ill, and Bishop’s own father died. After this terrible year, the volume ends on a high note as the Magazine celebrated its twenty-first year in production.