BURSTON SCHOOL STRIKE - A LEGACY TO MANY.
Walking with the rally marchers triggered memories of my father, Tom Potter. He was one of Violet’ s brothers and was educated by the Higdons too. He was profoundly influenced by the strike and by his education. An intelligent boy, he was able to read from “The Times” by the age of six and later won a scholarship to Diss Grammar School, but he could not attend.
His parents could not afford the fees. Mrs. Higdon, however, paid them a small amount in lieu of the wages he would have received, so that he was able to continue his education at the Strike School. She also used her own money to finance equipment, such as a typewriter, to educate the children over and above the “ three Rs” . Lack of money then meant lack of higher education. Opportunities were not equal, so it is easy to see how, following Tom Higdon’ s example; Tom Potter became active in working with the agricultural workers’ union for farm labourers’ rights.
As the strike went on, the green became a rallying place for supporters. Tom was one of those who was instrumental in re-instating the annual rally which is, again, so well attended. In those early days the majority of Burston residents would have been present. I wonder how the modern residents feel: those whose homes are built on land which I remember as fields where rare orchids and saxifrages grew abundantly.
In the 1950s, just after Mrs Higdon died, the village was a thriving community, with a football and cricket team, a shop and a post office. In some ways it was a backward place. Electricity came late to the village, but because of the strike, people were generally less insular in outlook and less inclined to racial prejudice.
Tom Potter, a Trades Union member, a parish and rural district councillor was particularly interested in rectifying housing problems. In later years he owned the village shop which he declared a nuclear-free zone! In a small way he was a local celebrity. I remember visits by Sir Christopher Mayhew M.P. and G. T. C. Giles, (a former N.U.T. president and family friend)
Tom died in 1985 and a plaque was erected to his memory (now in the Strike School). A seat, too, was donated, and stood beside the school overlooking the green for some years. Then, on visiting his grave, I discovered the seat had vanished. I made enquiries locally and of the Trustees, to no avail. This seat was special. Not only was it in memory of someone who had worked tirelessly in and for the village throughout his life, but it was made from wood from the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ tree.
Our family’s link with the Higdons was huge. Violet led the children out on strike to begin the event, and just before it ended Stanley, her brother, drove the wagon carrying Tom Higdon’ s coffin, prior to his burial. Their influence is still felt in the next generation.
Anne May (nee Potter.)
The family would be very grateful if anyone could tell us what happened to Tom Potter's memorial seat.
It was a very special to the family.
Please contact slyonssnut@gmail.com if you have info
Recent events
Burston Strike School Rally
by Chrissie Smith
Members of Norfolk NUT joined fellow Trade Unionist from across the country to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of longest strike in history. The numbers marching along the 'candlestick' route at this year's Burston Strike School Rally proved that trade unionism is still as strong and relevant today as it was seventy years ago.
The Rally is organised annually by ‘Unite’, with assistance from the Workers’ Beer Company and supported by SERTUC (the TUC in the Eastern Region), and the Burston Strike School Trustees. It commemorates the protest that began on April the first 1914, when pupils of the Burston village school, supported by their parents, began a strike in support of their Teachers, Tom and Kitty Higdon. The strike was to last for over 25 years…
Annie Katherine Schollick (Kitty) was born in 1864 in Cheshire. Tom Higdon was born in 1869, the son of a Somerset farm labourer. The pair were married in 1896 and eventually moved to Norfolk in 1902, the same year that the Education Act, offering education to working class children was passed. Under the Education Bill 'working-class children' were entitled to go to school for the first time. However, the education provided did little more than prepare them for work in the factories, fields or domestic service.
The Higdons were proud of their beliefs as both Christians and Socialists; beliefs that made them idealists who hoped to use education as a means to making a better life for the next generation. Unfortunately this was rather in conflict with the thinking behind the Education Act and the expectations of the local dignitaries.
The Norfolk Education Committee was dominated by farm owners who merely provided the minimum squalid conditions and who took children out of school whenever seasonal cheap labour was needed. Following a dispute at their first placement in Aylsham, the Higdons had been moved to the Burston village school in 1911. At the time, the school was run by a committee of farm owners, chaired by the local Rector, the Reverend Charles Tucker Eland.
The luxury afforded to Eland, with his £580-a-year salary and the run of a large rectory contrasted greatly with the living conditions of his congregation, many of whom survived on an annual wage of just £35. The agricultural working classes were also in constant danger of being thrown out of their homes by greedy land owners. The Higdons soon came into conflict with Eland and the committee over the cold and damp conditions at the school, but they gained great respect in the local community for their efforts to give their children a better start in life. Attendance at the school rose dramatically.
Tom Higdon stood for the parish council along with other villagers, and they succeeded in pushing out Charles Reverend Eland and several other land owners. The disgruntled ex-committee members, led by Charles Eland, accused Kitty Higdon of discourtesy over an incident in which the schoolroom fire was lit without permission, and they persuaded a local foster mother to say that the teacher had beaten and mistreated her foster daughters. They demanded the immediate dismissal of Tom and Kitty Higdon.
An inquiry cleared the Higdons of mistreating the children, but the committee decided to dismiss them anyway, on the grounds of discourtesy. However, on the day that managers welcomed a new teacher to the school, they discovered writing on the classroom blackboard saying 'WE ARE GOING ON STRIKE TOMORROW'. There was a commotion outside as a group of children - led by one of the pupils Violet Potter - marched through the village with placards declaring: 'WE WANT OUR TEACHERS BACK', and a banner carrying the single word 'JUSTICE!'.
At Crown Green the Higdons gave an emotional speech, and accompanying the parents, led by the village fishmonger George Durbidge, decided they wanted the Higdons to continue teaching their children. Consequently, a makeshift schoolroom was set up on the Green under a marquee, where the Higdons began teaching all but 6 of their original pupils. The school was later housed in an unused workshop on the Green.
The Management Committee resorted to intimidating the parents; many were charged with not sending their children to a state-recognised school, but the fines were paid from collections held outside the courtroom. Local people who supported the ‘strike school,’ as it became known, were sacked by local landowners, threatened with eviction, and some even had their houses ransacked and crops ruined. However, such actions only strengthened their determination and the growing support of the labour movement.
The strike soon became a rallying cause for trade unionists all over Britain, with supporters and speakers regularly visiting Burston. After just one year, over £1,250 had been raised in donations from trade unions and Labour Party branches. Unfortunately, the National Officers of the NUT did not support the strike and recommended that the Higdons return to work. The strike was discussed at National Conference and the dispute led to a left- right divide between the National Executive and some delegates (no change there then!). The disappointing outcome was that the motion supporting the strike school was narrowly defeated.
As a contrast, the local associations did offer support, particularly to Kitty. George Francis Johnson was Secretary of the Norwich/Norfolk NUT around the beginning of the First World War and he was very much involved with the Burston Strike School. He invited Kitty Higdon to a Norfolk NUT meeting, hoping that she would give a forceful but balanced account of the struggle in Burston. At the end of her speech (and at the end of her tether) she fell to her knees and called on God to bring forth a thunderbolt from heaven to strike the Rev Eland stone dead! The meeting collapsed in embarrassed confusion.
In May 1917 a brand new purpose-built school was opened by the leader of the strike, Violet Potter, who said at the opening: "with joy and thankfulness I declare this school open … to be forever a School of Freedom!"
After the Reverend Eland left Burston in 1920, he was replaced by Francis Smith, a man who proved to be much more agreeable to the sensitivities of his parishioners. By all accounts he and the Higdons maintained a friendly rivalry - with the two schools competing against each other in sports, and with Smith frequently providing the children of the Strike School with additional religious education.
The Burston Strike only came to an end a few months after Tom Higdon died, in August 1939, when Kitty was unable to carry on alone. Its pupils - the children and grandchildren of the original strikers - were taken to the Council School, where the facilities were now greatly improved. The boycott of the Council School had lasted for over 25 years and earned its place in history as the longest-lasting strike ever.
Kitty Higdon died in April 1946. Both she and Tom are buried in Burston's churchyard.
There are many gaps in the history of the relationship between the Higdons and the NUT. If anyone has any further insights we would be delighted to hear.
Chrissie Smith,
(South Norfolk and Breckland Association Secretary)
