To go with the new buildings and new pupils, a new system of record-keeping came into being. Both school boards and schools generated a large number of records from minute books to admission registers and log books. These records form the bulk of the Highland Archive Service education collections and are a wealth of information for those interested in social and local history as well as family historians.
School Log Books were kept by teachers to detail the day to day running of the school. They include details of factors affecting pupil attendance (i.e., bad weather or illness), copies of His/Her Majesty’s Inspectors’ (HMI) reports, reference to subjects being taught and a wide variety of other information. Log Books can also provide insights beyond the school with references to events of local and national importance.
Some log books were kept in schools prior to 1872 but the practice became much more frequent post-1872 and remained standard practice until the 1980s. The Highland Archive Service holds some 700 log books for schools across the Highlands.
Admission Registers recorded the details of pupils attending each school. Every pupil’s name is given alongside a rough address, name of parent/guardian, date of birth, previous/next school, and date of leaving (sometimes with reason). These volumes are invaluable to family historians.
Occasionally these records contain wonderful snippets of information such as the 1916 register for Wick North School which contains these words down the side of one Anthony Sutherland’s entry:
“Locked in school by accident in store room June 30th 1916 Friday and found on following Tuesday little the worse. He was not at school afterwards till August 1917 when school board ordered his attendance at Academy so on September 10 he put in his last appearance at this school where he had been off and on for a week before although his name was not entered on roll.’”
Coverage depends on what has survived and these records are subject to closure periods for data protection reasons – log books are not accessible for the last 50 years and admission registers for the last 100 years.
