Pupil Teacher Synopsis

Victorian schoolgirl Ruby is just about to finish her education, and seems destined to follow her mother.s example and become a pit-bank wench or a painter in a japanning factory, or perhaps go into one of the other trades open to working class women in the Black Country then.

But the Headmistress, Miss Clements, has other ideas. The government has just set up a new system of pupil teachers: unwaged apprentice teachers. Miss Clements, and her colleague, Clara, believe Ruby would be ideal in this role.

Ruby’s forceful and domineering mother is looking forward to the wage her daughter will shortly be bringing home. Will she prevail, or will Ruby get the chance to leave home and to escape the prospect of the factory floor?

Pupil Teacher is a 60 minute, one-act comedy-drama. It was presented in a professional production at Bantock House Museum for two evenings in November 2006.