In 1911 the village school mistress was Ada Kersley, a fifty-year-old spinster. You could say that Ada was born into the profession, as her birth took place in 1860 in the National School in South Stoneham, Hampshire. She was the youngest of five children and her parents had been school master and school mistress at the school since at least 1851.
It comes as somewhat of a surprise, therefore, to discover that by 1871 Ada’s father David had become a baker. At the age of ten Ada was still living in South Stoneham, but no longer at the school, where a younger couple had taken over the reins. In the 1881 census, David Kersley was described as a grocer and he was clearly still working in South Stoneham as a grocer in 1891 at the age of seventy-six.
We lose track of Ada for some years, but catch up with her in 1891 as a thirty-year-old school mistress living in the School House at Thorley on the Isle of Wight. She was still school mistress there in 1901. Perhaps it was the death in of her father in 1898 or that of her mother in 1901 which prompted her to move away from the Isle of Wight. Whatever the reason for that was, she is next found as school mistress at Bremhill School in 1911. The schedule she filled in for that year’s census tells us that she lived alone in the schoolhouse which had four rooms, including the kitchen. She was assisted at the school by Daisy Smith, a young teacher also from Hampshire.
It seems that after her tenure in Bremhill Ada returned to the Isle of Wight. She died in 1949 at the age of 89, predeceased by all her siblings. She was living in Sidney Cottage in the village of Niton and her death was recorded at Ventnor. Her estate was valued at a little under £1,000 and she left everything to Frederick David Peach, her nephew and now a retired carpenter, and to George William Rashley, a carpenter, also living in Niton.
There were clearly links of friendship between Ada and the Rashley family. When George Rashley’s mother Elizabeth died in 1932 at the age of a hundred and one, her address was Sidney Cottage, Niton. It seems that Sidney Cottage had originally been the home of Elizabeth’s sister Mary, her husband and Elizabeth’s daughter Rose, while the widowed Elizabeth and her son George lived next door in Enfield Cottage. After her sister’s death in 1896, Elizabeth moved into Sidney Cottage to live with her brother-in-law and daughter Rose.
It is not clear when Ada came to Niton. She may well have known Elizabeth or perhaps she moved into Sidney Cottage after Elizabeth’s death. Next door to Sidney Cottage on the other side was the School House - the school in Niton had closed in 1905 - and it was here that George Rashley lived with his wife and two sons. It is fitting that Ada is now reunited with her good neighbours the Rashley family in the churchyard of St. John’s Church in Niton on the Isle of Wight.
Sources: Census records for South Stoneham, Thorley, Bremhill and Niton England and Wales, National Probate Calendar 1858-1995