ew rector, Edward Cadogan. In 1875 Cadogan claimed that he found the school 'struggling into life and health' but within three years had placed it on a sound footing. He coupled this optimism with an appeal for increased subscriptions, threatening a school board if these were not forthcoming, but at the same time offering to hand the management over to the subscribers or their elected representatives. There were then about 80 children on the books. (fn. 475) During the 1870s the grant was around £50 a year and voluntary contributions some £70. The Grand Junction Canal share continued to pay £4 a year, with the balance coming from school pence, which rose from £3 in 1871-2 to over £20 immediately before they were abolished in 1891-2. (fn. 476) Subscriptions fell off noticeably during the agricultural depression of the 1880s, settling at about £40 a year in the 1890s, although this was largely balanced by a steadily rising grant, which reached £100 by the end of the century. The old master was paid £75 a year in the early 1870s; his successors received £100, which remained unchanged until after 1900. The infants' teacher was paid £25 a year in the 1870s and 1880s, which rose to £45 in the 1890s and later. (fn. 477)
The most fundamental change came in 1878, when the 1st Lord Penrhyn, almost as soon as he bought the Wicken Park estate, met the entire cost (£1,000) of a completely new schoolroom, capable of accommodating 90 children, with a house for the headmaster. A classroom for 50 infants, with a gallery, was added in 1898. At the turn of the century the average attendance for the two departments was between 60 and 70, taught by the head and a part-qualified woman assistant. (fn. 478) In the years up to the First World War the school received reasonably satisfactory reports from H.M.I., although there were repeated complaints about the poor premises and the limited abilities of the staff. (fn. 479)
Edwin Green, who had been headmaster since 1891, retired in 1921 and was succeeded by the first of three women heads, each of whom initially brought new life to the school but were then in turn defeated by similar problems. The number of pupils fell from about 40 during the First World War (fn. 480) to fewer than 30 by the late 1930s, with attendance frequently reduced by illness, (fn. 481) although a suggestion by the L.E.A. in 1926 that children should transfer at 11 to the larger school at Deanshanger was not acted on. (fn. 482)
Numbers rose in 1939-40 with the admission of evacuees from Essex, Kent and Surrey as well as London, who arrived as individuals rather than (as at Roade or Hartwell) complete classes. (fn. 483) In 1941 the school had 19 evacuees but only 16 'natives'. (fn. 484) An annual open day for parents, established in 1939, (fn. 485) was kept up throughout the war. (fn. 486) During the winter of 1942-3 the head, as well as having no cleaner, lost one assistant when she went to work at the munitions factory in Wolverton and another through ill-health; (fn. 487) she herself resigned in the summer of 1943. (fn. 488) Her successor took over with 28 pupils (fn. 489) but left two years later, suffering from shock and worry. (fn. 490) The school received six evacuees (two from Harlesdon and four from Forest Hill) in 1944, three of whom were still at Wicken a month after V.E. Day. (fn. 491)
Another new head tried to make a fresh start at the end of the war but lasted only two years, (fn. 492) defeated in part by the winter of 1947. (fn. 493) Her successor arranged the usual Christmas parents' day in December that year, when the girls of the newly opened prep. school at Wicken Park sent a packet of sweets for each child. (fn. 494) In 1949 school dinners were started. (fn. 495) From September that year Wicken became an infant and junior school, with older children moving to Deanshanger, where a purpose-built secondary modern opened in 1958. (fn. 496) In 1950 H.M.I. recognised that the new head was trying to make up for the problems of the previous twenty years but was not over-generous with praise for the school, which 