Helpfully the slate held by the boy in the middle of the front row informs us that this was the second class at Stanbury Board School, on August 31, 1908.
These moorland children have evidently dressed up for the occasion.
On the right stands headmaster Jonas Bradley, local chronicler, lantern-lecturer, early member of the Brontë Society, president of the Haworth Ramblers and pioneer of school nature study, who used to take his classes out into the countryside.
Pupils compiled a birds’ nest map of the locality, dug for Roman roads and sent exhibits to a nature study exhibition in London.
When the school yard was concreted in 1908, a margin was left for children to plant what the logbook calls a “wagon-load” of shrubs — some even returned after school to water them.
The reputation of Stanbury Board School attracted associations, educationalists and notabilities. On a single day in 1906 it was visited by the Keighley Naturalists’ Society, the Heckmondwike Naturalists and the York Antiquarian Society.
The photograph was supplied by Mr A Ratcliffe, of Bingley, and Mr D Ratcliffe, of Denholme.
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