n 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. (f