The Way We Were

Richard Jennings and Mary Thompson were humble members of the Society of Friends (a religious body also known as the Quakers) in the north of England who believed that God wished them to instruct poor children in Africa.

They arrived in Cape Town separately and met in 1829. Their society was not active in South Africa at the time so they became affiliated to the Wesleyans under the Reverend Barnabas Shaw. Jennings (1800-47) was employed as a Wesleyan schoolmaster when they married in August 1831, but he lost his job a few years later when the school was unexpectedly closed.

He moved to Simon’s Town and became a tallow chandler, but he was able to return to teaching when the Quakers decided to open a school for poor children on the corner of Buiten and Long streets in 1840. The medium of instruction was English.

Jennings died suddenly in January 1848 and was buried five days before the start of the new term, but Mary (1800-62) and her eldest daughter, Mary Hannah, “an amiable, pious girl” of 13, opened the school on time.

They ran the Friends’ weekday and Sunday schools diligently for the next 10 years, to the satisfaction of their financial supporters in Yorkshire, despite calls from various quarters that a schoolmaster be appointed.

In those days, education for the poor was a hit-and-miss affair. Small children were needed to help with the chores at home and look after their younger siblings, and older ones had to do piece work or help in the family business.

Most parents who enrolled their sons and daughters wanted them to learn to read, write and do simple arithmetic, but they had no intention of allowing them to attend two sessions of school every day. They could go when they could be spared, which meant attendance was extremely erratic

Mary had 128 pupils on her books in 1848, but the daily turn-out was never more than 65, about two-thirds of whom were girls who received sewing instruction eight hours a week.

The children’s progress was naturally slow and variable, and only 17 had mastered their awkward hands sufficiently to be able to write in copy books. The rest wrote on slates.

Each child who could read was expected to repeat a portion of scripture once a week. They appeared to take this task very seriously and Mary was happy to report a marked improvement in the order, obedience and truthfulness of pupils once they had been a short time in the school.

Mary’s report for 1849 contained this telling passage: “The parents of the coloured children are generally very ignorant, but are desirous that their children should be taught and many of them have more regard to their moral training than some of the parents of the whites.”

Attendance rose slowly and Mary’s school drew increasing support from the coloured community.

Measles, then a serious disease, swept through Cape Town in early 1852 and only 50 children of the 253 on the books were able to attend at the start of the second term, all but three of whom had been ill.

The disease was succeeded by attacks of inflammation and dysentery, which proved fatal to seven scholars. Many of the sick children were anxious to see Mary and seemed comforted by her visits.

She found the parents more forthcoming under these circumstances and reported that they were thankful for any kindness shown to their children. By May the worst was over and the daily attendance was 85, sometimes increasing to 100.

As soon as the children were able to understand English (“which but few of them do when they first come to school”) they were taught to commit Bible passages to memory and answer questions on scripture. Twelve Bibles and 20 Testaments were given during the year.

Mary fell seriously ill in 1855 and, although she was able to superintend the school, the burden of teaching fell on her daughters, Mary, Jane and Rebecca, aged 20, 18 and 16.

The school was attracting younger pupils aged six to 10, three-quarters of whom were coloured, but it was a disappointment that as soon as the girls became expert with their needles, they were either kept at home to sew or hired by dressmakers or seamstresses.

The Jennings family resigned at the end of 1857 after long and serious consideration, but they stayed at their posts until their replacement, Mrs Matilda Simey, took over in the middle of 1858.

Mary Jennings died in Gore Street, Cape Town, in January 1862, 23 years after the visiting Quaker missionary George Walker described her as a true help-meet to her husband and an exemplary Christian.