Swanmore School – now the primary school – was built in 1864 replacing an older building that stood where the village’s war memorial is now. The building comprised a single large schoolroom that could accommodate 130 children, a separate classroom for infants and a house for the head teacher. Initially the school’s management board struggled to find a suitable head teacher for the new school with seven less-satisfactory incumbents filling the post between 1864 and 1876, when Charles Martin arrived. He was only 23 years old, newly-qualified as a “certificated teacher” and would remain head teacher at the school until 1913. Over the years he would be active in many areas of village life.

 

Charles was born in Brighton in 1854. His father may have died when he was young as by the 1861 census he was living in Brighton with his mother Elizabeth, as head of the household, and his elder sister Agnes. By 1876 Charles was newly-married to Emily –  who originally came from Hereford and was also a “certificated teacher” – their joint salary at Swanmore School was £65 (about £9,800 today) a year plus accommodation and a proportion of a government grant. 

 

Initially the couple lived in the Schoolhouse (now demolished), which was adjacent to the school and the couple soon had a growing family. Their eldest daughter, Agnes, was born in 1877 and they would go on to have six more children; some of their daughters would also be employed as teachers at the school with one of them – Madeline (“Madge” born in 1881) – teaching at Swanmore School until Christmas 1940. Charles’ elder sister, Agnes, also worked at the school as a secretary.

 

In those days Swanmore School was an “all-age elementary” school; classes – in the single schoolroom – were divided by ability rather than age. Until 1880 schooling had been largely optional with parents paying for their children to attend – between 3d and 6d (2½p) a week depending on social status. “School pence” formed a significant part of the head-teacher’s salary so Mr Martin had a very real interest in maintaining pupil numbers. In 1880 school was made compulsory for five to ten year olds, rising to eleven in 1893, twelve in 1899, and to 14 in 1918 – five years after Charles Martin retired.

 

Emphasis was on the “three Rs” – writing, reading and arithmetic – together with Bible and prayer book study. School accounts for 1880 give total annual expenditure, including salaries, materials and maintenance as £241 7s 10d – around £36,386 in today's money.

 

In the 1881 census Charles gives his occupation as “certificated teacher and organist”: and the first three daughters are also listed – Agnes is four, Hilda is two and Madeline is a few months old. They would be followed by Hubert (b.1882), Bernard (b.1884), Alban (1886-87) and Grace (b.1889).

 

By 1884 school numbers had increased significantly and a new infants’ school was built on the school allotment next to the church with Emily Martin as its head mistress. The growing family also outgrew the School House and in 1890 they family moved to a house in what was then known as Waltham Road (Church Road today) later moving to West Dene in New Road as various of their children married and moved away; by 1901 only Hilda, Madeline and Grace were still living at home. After the Martins left the School House it reverted to church ownership and various members of staff lived there. The couple also found time to teach at the evening classes inaugurated by the County Council in the 1890s – no doubt as an attempt to remedy deficiencies in earlier education. Charles Martin offered reading, writing and arithmetic whilst Emily taught domestic economics and needlework. 

 

Jack Hoar, a Swanmore resident (b. 1903) who wrote a memoir of his childhood in the village recalled being taught by both Charles and Emily Martin: “The infants’ school admitted me at the age of three, to be with my sister. Mrs Martin was Headmistress and under her daughter Madge I read how ‘Ted ran to the well’ and ‘How the fly settled on granny’s nose’. In time I moved to the big school under Mr Charles Martin, who strode with a stately up-and-down motion and addressed me as ‘Jackie’ out of school. Mr Martin taught me my first poem – ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ – leaning over a baize table cloth and teaching us line by line. He had large fancy waistcoats, big expanses of red, black and green.”

 

As well as teaching its children, Charles Martin was active in many aspects of village life. He played the organ at St Barnabas, was elected to the Parish Council in 1907, becoming its vice-chairman for many years, he was a lay reader at the church and was a member of the war memorial committee that decided to “erect a cross at the corner of the churchyard with the names of all those who lost their lives in the war inscribed on it”.

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Charles Martin died in 1925 at the age of 72; Emily followed in 1934 aged 85.