Subcategories

• The Schools
  • The 'Public' Schools

    The 'Public' Schools

    From 1862 until the present day, Oatlands has hosted publicly-funded schooling for the children of the village and the local area. Originally from the personal generosity of individuals and lately the, seemingly often reluctant, funding by central government, the education provided has always been the best quality that could be offered under whatever circumstances prevailed at the time.

    Long may it continue...

  • The 'Private' Schools

    The 'Private' Schools

    Private (or privately funded) education has always existed in Oatlands, from the 'home schooling' of Henry VIII's time till the present day - whether it was the rudimentary copying and learning of manual skills for the lower classes or a more formal and wide ranging education for the upper classes.

    The early censuses reveal that virtually any 'wealthy' home in the newly born village that had children also had a governess when the children had reached a certain age or a nanny prior to that who would have had a responsibility for the child's welfare that included their early education.

    A number of formal, fee-paying, schools came later - some lasted, some didn't, either way they provided education away from the family home and widened the experiences of a child beyond what could be expected from within the household. Many of these schools attracted students, however reluctantly, from a great distance within the UK or from overseas and this served to widen the cultural diversity to which a child, and the village was exposed.

    The 'cataloguing' of these schools is not always a simple task and we are aware of the glaring holes in our current knowledge. If you can add to that knowledge in any way we would love to hear from you - please use the contact form for our research coordinator.

• The Church

  St Mary Oatlands

  Oatlands gained its church in 1862 and became a parush in its own right in 1869, Since then the population has expanded beyond the dreams of the original founders and the church has grown with it - in size and in its contrubution to the community.

  What began as a simple chapel as an 'off-shoot' to St Mary's at Walton on Thames is now a thriving church that is much more than the building...

  
  

  
  

  Image copyright - St Mary Oatlands
  

• The Pubs

  The Village Pubs

  Oatlands continues to be fairly well endowed with watering-holes - The Prince of Wales, The Flint Gate and the Working Men's Club each have their own character and are all 'original', if a bit knocked about' from their former layouts. The 'Oatlands Chaser' (and let's not forget its numerous other names over the last few years), is - despite its appearance – a remarkably recent addition to the list of hostelries.

  We are currently working on what we hope will be a fairly definitive history of the village pubs to be published in book form, but in the meantime you can read brief accounts of the older pubs - some now long gone - by selecting from the choices on the left.

  One of the major headaches when researching the pubs of Oatlands is that, with the exception of The Working Men's Club and the Oatlands Chaser, they all came into being during the time of the 1828 Licensing Act and the subsequent licensing Acts...

  Whilst the Licensing Act of 1828 had made the grant of a full licence by the local justices was required to sell any type of exciseable (taxable) liquor by retail, this was watered-down by the 1830 legislation. On July 23rd 1830, Parliament passed “An Act to permit the general Sale of Beer and Cyder by Retail in England.” 

  Commonly known as the Beer Act of 1830, this law called for a major overhaul of the way beer was taxed and distributed in England and Wales. In place of a sixteenth-century statute that had given local magistrates complete control over the licensing of brewers and publicans, the Beer Act stipulated that a new type of drinking establishment, the beer shop, or beer house, could now be opened by any rate-paying householder in England or Wales (Scotland and Ireland had their own drink laws). For the modest annual licensing fee of two guineas, rate-payers in England could now purchase a license to brew and sell from their own residence. This act was in response to the rising popularity of gin and consequent drunkardness and a statement in Parliament that "The sovereign people are in a beastly state". The Beer Act was replaced by the Wine and Beerhouse Act of 1869

  Whilst these acts gave the British people many of the pubs that they continue to enjoy, they had one major flaw from a historical research perspective - the name of the licensee and the address of the premises to which the licence applied were not recorded...