Tower and Town, August 2021

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Emma Pullen: schoolmistress at St Peter’s

St Peter’s School for the boys, girls, and infants of St Peter’s parish, was opened in 1854. In 1918 it became the town’s boys’ school closing in 1963 to become Marlborough Library, its function today. In 1900 the school inspector reported, “The girls are in very good order and work with industry. The lessons are given with much earnestness and thoroughness and the results are successful. Needlework is very good.”

Emma Pullen, the schoolmistress, was assisted by Eglantyne Jebb, a certificated elementary school teacher; Emma Wilkes, articled; Daisy Cox, pupil teacher; and Elsie Smith, candidate. Eglantyne admired Miss Pullen’s teaching skills, despite her ‘rough edges’, the fact that ‘she had a tongue in her head’, and occasionally ‘fled into a temper’ and ‘stormed’ at the children. She observed her class was always better behaved after a lesson from Miss Pullen. She must have felt valued when Miss Pullen praised her for instilling in her pupils, “more than ordinary initiative and resourcefulness”.

Emma Mary Pullen was born on 1st May 1865 in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. Edward, her father, was a plasterer and Anne, her mother, a dressmaker. As the eldest child of a large family, she would have helped with her siblings, developing qualities that were to later serve her well as a school mistress. She taught in Hungerford before gaining the post of mistress at St Peter’s.

Two houses were attached to the school. Emma resided at 8 Sun Lane (now 17 Hyde Lane). Emma Greening, a young teacher, boarded with her. William Peal, the boys’ master, lived at 7 Sun Lane (now 16 Hyde Lane) with his wife and six children.

Emma had to resign after she married Henry James Brooke, a Marlborough plumber and house painter. This may have jarred with her as, had she been a man, she would have carried on teaching. Emma and Henry had a son, Henry Edward Brooke named after his father and grandfather.

Emma died, aged 61, on 31st May 1926. At probate, administration was granted to her widower and to her son, a grocer’s assistant. Astonishingly, her “effects” were valued at £2,053 0s 1d, a huge sum for the time.

Nick Baxter