These unremarkable scraps of paper from the 1890s were found under benches in the old Newcroft Lecture Room; 120 years after the boys who had written on them had been at Berkhamsted. Perhaps they wanted to leave a little reminder of themselves for future generations. They chose Euclid Hour with Mr. Parsons to do so; I’m sure that is no reflection on his teaching!
The following is written on the smallest scrap of paper: “ T.S. Dick Oct. 16th ’96. Whoever finds this may keep it by kind permission of the above but must not use it for any unlawful purpose.” When you turn it over, another hand has added “By this time I expect we shall be no more.”
Objects are found in the most unlikely places around the school, a previous display area maybe or put in place for safekeeping. One such object, kept in the fireplace of one of the House rooms, was a broken triple frame, with what looked like a cut up leaflet and a sellotaped brown blob in the central aperture. The brown blob turned out to be this little 18th century Horn Book. The name horn book was widely used to denote a form of primer, a device for teaching and at about the end of the 17th century, this name was applied to ABC tablets. The horn books were made of various materials such as bone, ivory, wood, leather or metal. A piece of wood, which was shaped with a handle at the base, had a hole in the handle, allowing a cord to be threaded and tied to a belt or girdle. The backing was usually covered with leather, though some were silver backed with elaborate designs.
A printed sheet, which might show the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer or numerals, was fastened to the wood and protected with a very thin, transparent sheet of either cow or ox horn: hence the given name. The letters J and U are missing, they were considered interchangeable with I and V and not introduced until a later date. This example also has the numbers 1 to 0.
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