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Zeals Church of England School in Wiltshire

Source:
Zeals in Wiltshire
Date: 2014FJun13
CopiedBy: David@ColeCanada.com
PageCategory: Genealogy
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Church of England School, Zeals

UnedittedVsn: http://www.ephotocaption.com/a/1953/1953.h
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Zeals School
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Post-Em named `Zeals School` for Hanna Mary GOULTON
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Zeals School

Comments:

Jessica GODWIN nee GOATCHER

The Zeals school was mentioned by Jessica GODWIN nee GOATCHER in her book "Memoirs of an Ancient Lady" (ISBN:1 872795 64) which was published by Antony Rowe Ltd in 1992. See Source DC0065 below. Her maternal grandfather, W.J.GOULTON sent his 4 oldest daughters to the Zeals School. I have discovered this photo of a handwritten plan of Zeals School c1895. Five advantages of this choice are:
1) It was affiliated with the Church of England.
2) Children could be boarded (housed) there.
3) It did not charge much to teach children.
4) It was a new school, having been built in 1874.
5) It was far away (in Wiltshire near the west coast of England) from the family home in Yorkshire (east coast).

These reasons may explain why these young adult girls (aged 20 to 30) were sent to the Zeals school for children.
When describing Hanna Mary GOULTON Jessica says that 4 children were sent to Zeals around 1876. Hannah Mary was often called Mary. This is after their father lost a lot of his money. Jessica's mother, Sarah Jane GOATCHER nee GOULTON, was one of the four. Zeals is about 20 miles south of Bath, Somerset. Zeals is in Wiltshire, a little west of Mere, Wiltshire.

Her maternal grandfather, William James GOULTON, and his wife, Harriet nee MOORE, had 12 children. Three (Joseph, Albert and an unknown) died in infancy. One, Robert, died at age 10. The two other boys, William and James, married and had familes. The four girls that went to Zeals were: Hannah Mary, Grace, Sarah Jane and Annie. Grace (previously mentioned) and Alice, emmigrated to South Africa. Alma married George Addy BOND, a clergyman, travelled and emmigrated together to the USA. Annie became a governess and died unmarried at the age of 36. Hannah Mary married Charles DRAKE and emigrated to Canada. Another genealogist, Tony Fletcher, found no mention of Alice GOULTON during his research. But he discovered birthdates of the other 10.

Jessica GOATCHER wrote that her grandmother, Harriet GOULTON nee MOORE (1819-30 Dec 1862) had 12 children, but I only have the names of 11. She writes that 3 died in infancy , but I only have the names of 2, so I conclude that one other child, of unknown name, died in infancy. Robert died in his teens (actually at the age of 10). Harriet GOULTON nee MOORE died on 30 Dec 1862, which was 14 years before the family money was lost.

(Tony Fowler says that) William James GOULTON was married to a second wife, Mary Sibella STRANGE, in 1863. But he does not mention the names of any of their children. Jessica GOATCHER says that they had a daughter, named Madge, who would be a step-sister to her mother and her mother's siblings. It would have been impossible for Madge to have been raised by Harriet GOULTON nee MOORE. It is alwys distubing when an unnamed child, (even one who died as an infant) is mentioned or implied.

Zeals School - today

After many amalgamations, the Zeals School has evolved into the Zeals Church of England First School. It is called the Whitesheet CE Primary School and is located on Chapel Lane, just north of New Road (with a postal code of BA 12 6NL). This is in the Zeals area south of Stourton, Wiltshire.

Source

DC0065
p2
Jessica GODWIN nee GOATCHER also writes My Aunt Mary, mother's eldest sister, had married a well-to-do landowner, Charles Drake, from the Isle of Wight. .... When my father died in 1895, they said they would take my brother Philip and bring him up as their son.
p116
It was now decided that the four elder girls would have to earn their own living and they were sent to a training college for young ladies, at Zeals, but I cannot find this place on the map. I have an old letter of my mother's in which she says it was quite a little village, a few miles from Bath - a Church of England college and High Church at that! Just fancy, it is about 120 year ago since my mother was there! [Hanna] Mary, the eldest girl, became a governess and got a job in Paris [, France] in a Count's family which she kept for four years. She then married her sweetheart who had been waiting for her for several years. He, Charles Drake, was a wealthy farmer in Dorset and alas, he let my grandfather have his farm as a security on some of his specula- tions and lost everything, which caused my uncle to have to emigrate to [a farm near Cowansville in the Eastern Townships, Quebec,] Canada and take a plot of 125 acres, which was given to any farmer who would clear the land and work it.
/DC0065

David KC Cole read every word of the book written by Jessica GODWIN (nee GOATCHER). (The name of the book is "Memoirs of an Ancient Lady".) As he read it he noted every reference to every person mentioned in the book, even those who were mentioned as "the count" or "she". He composed this list in a document named "Ancient_Lady4.rtf". This rtf document format is not computer company specific and can be read by all known document processors. The list is comprised of 4 columns labelled:

|---------Name---------|--Rel--|---1st---|--Citation Page(s)---|

where

Name is the Person's name (or the phrase written by Aunt Jess). They are listed in two groups
(those not related followed by the relations). Each group is in alphabetical order.
Rel is Y or y if the person is a relative of Jessica Godwin's. (Rel is N or n if not related.)
1st is the page (of the book) where the person is first referenced
Citation Page(s) is the list of all the pages where the person is referenced (including the first page)

Examples:
|CAVE's brother, Miss | n | 86 | 86,90 |
|GOATCHER, Philip | y | 2 | 2, 3, 118 |

If a person seems to be listed twice, it may simply be a mistake or it may be on purpose because it is unclear whether the same person is being referenced in various places in the book. The full names of some people are not given if the full name was not mentioned by Jessica Godwin. Hopefully additional information will be added to this document in the future.