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Matlock: Training College Life - The First Student Intake, 1946-8
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Matlock Training College Brochure 1946-47


Studying at Rockside, 1954-6


Staff & Students 1955


Commemoration Weekends, 1955 & 1956


Staff & Students 1958

1. Group of seven students, 1948.
They were all part of the 1946 intake, the first year students were admitted to Matlock's new teacher training college.
Card cover was signed by all in this photo:
Back row - Nancy Nevard, Brenda Collishaw, Pat Smith, Margaret Wheeler, Sheila Hammond.
Front row - Dorothy Thomas, Angela (Maureen) Hursthouse, Cherry White.
It was almost certainly taken at the Dale Road studio of W. N. Statham and could have been at an awards ceremony after these young women had passed the final exams for their teaching certificates, making it 1948.


2. Nativity Play, Christmas 1946

play
Those in the picture were:
On the left - Peggy Shaul, Margaret Prosser, Phyllis Chappell, Betty Georgeson.
Beside the crib - Marion Wood, Trina Ashmole.
On the right - Marie Jones Davies, Megan Jones, Betty Black, Sheila Manning (kneeling), Betty Williams.
It was staged in the Ballroom/Dining Room of Chatsworth Hall (see Matlock Training College Brochure 1946-47, p.8).
It is probable that the students wrote their own script.


3. Mummers Play, Christmas 1946

play
In the photo are:
Val Thompson, Eileen Brown, Betty Black, Peggy Shaul.

Traditionally the actors did not speak and sometimes wore masks whilst performing mummery.
Here, two characters were involved in a sword fight; one looks like a mediaeval "baddie" whilst the other was possibly a Crusader king (Richard the Lionheart?). The doctor, who was present to "revive" the loser, was wearing a wizard's hat and had a large box of "pills" to restore the combatant who lost.
Quite what the fourth character was doing is unclear.


4. Matlock Training College Going Down Ball Chatsworth Hall Dining Room, June 1948

ball 1
Miss Allen, the college Principal, is seated in the front row, slightly to the right of centre.
It is not known who the members of staff on either side of her were.

Dances and balls, both at Christmas and the Going Down Ball, were a regular fixture of college life. Angela Maureen Hursthouse recorded attending similar events in Nottingham and Derby, just as the Rockside students did a few years later in 1954-6. Events held at the college were a reciprocal arrangement; mostly the young men were 'bussed in' for the evening, although some arrived by car from as far afield as Loughborough and Sheffield. They weren't necessarily trainee teachers.


5. Matlock Training College Going Down Ball, Chatsworth Hall Dining Room, June 1948

ball 2
The group photographed from a slightly different angle.


At the end of their course 27 of the first intake and 3 members of the college staff (Misses Campbell, Chelton and Williamson) embarked on a tour of Denmark; it was organised by the National Union of Students Travel Department and took place between 15 July and 1 Aug 1948. One of the recommended items to take with them was a sheet sleeping bag for the days they would spend in Jutland and Copenhagen. As they had to leave Liverpool Street Station for Harwich at 9.20 a.m. most of the group opted to stay at an hotel in London the night before, although at least one member of the party stayed elsewhere. Angela Hursthouse visited her college friend in Godalming.
Travelling through Europe by train was not a common occurrence so soon after the war; Angela noted the poverty and destruction the group saw as they progressed through Germany. The Matlock college students partook in one of the standard vacation courses offered by the International People's College; their itinerary included visits to Elsinore, Frederiksborg, Kronborg, Lyngby and Lund. Other attendees were from India, Sweden and the USA. As far as the British contingent were concerned it meant they would embark on their teaching career with a knowledge of Europe at the time that they could not have learned from books. The experience must have stood them in good stead for success in their chosen profession.
1. Photographer not on the image, but this was taken in Statham's studio.
2. Photo by H. Gill, Bradley House Studios, Matlock, Phone 144.
3. Photo by H. Gill, Bradley House Studios, Matlock, Phone 144.
Images and information supplied by and Copyright © Maureen Smith collection. The information about the trip to Denmark comes from the final schedule of information, their itinerary and Angela Maureen Hursthouse's journal.
Researched, written by and © Ann Andrews.
Intended for personal use only.