Carnarvon School - Local History Resources

Life for the Rich and Poor in Bingham in the Victorian era

To help complete their term-long local history project on what it meant to be rich or poor in Bingham in the mid 19th century, around 45 children from Year 6 at Bingham's Carnarvon School visited Bingham Library on Tuesday 22nd November 2011 to investigate resources held in the Local Studies Collection.

Using materials such as old maps, Trades Directories, and old photographs, the children worked in groups to complete a local history discovery trail amongst the documents. 

They completed two special quiz sheets compiled by library staff (Please see the 'Documents' link at the bottom of this page to view these quiz sheets).

A special feature concentrated on life in Bingham's former workhouse on 'The Banks' (See Picture 3 below), against which the children were able to compare knowledge gained on a previous visit to the preserved workhouse at Southwell in Nottinghamshire.

Following this volunteers from amongst the group tried on Victorian costume to illustrate the clothes likely to be worn by rich or poor girls and boys in Victorian times.  Clothing for the event was kindly loaned by the Newark Museums service.

One part of the quiz asked children to think of words which described the buildings and activities depicted in the old photographs.  These they then stuck around the photographs on display in the library.  A selection of the adjectives they came up with to describe each photograph are included in italics below each of the images.