Harrington Board School

A Memory of Oldham.

This is a memory from my own childhood when my grandmother used to tell me about her life as a child mill worker. Born in 1885, she died when I was 8 years old, and I so much wish I had more details of who the real Fanny Daulby (Frances Lilian) was. But my detail is very sketchy, and I am the only surviving member of our family old enough to even know her name! She talked about going to school in the afternoon after working mornings in the cotton mill where she lost the tip of her left index finger working under a machine, clearing debris of some kind. She had a brown, curved claw at the end of that finger. The school she talked of was Harrington Board School. I think she said she had to pay a penny to attend and could only attend if she could persuade her mother to fund her. She must have been a very interested student, since her grammar and handwriting were very good indeed, and she could do mental arithmetic so well that she used to test my older brother and cousins.....and always do much better than they did. She attended school only until she was eleven years old, when she went into domestic service. She had a sister, Emily who emigrated to America. My grandmother married and lived in Liverpool. I have no idea how she got there!
I have, so far not found any certain trace of her birth, but even something about her school would give me somewhere to begin. She was a very special person to me, so if anyone has the tiniest detail, or hint of whom she may have been, it would make me so happy.

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