Transported to Australia or even executed – school children have been learning about crime, punishment and Victorian life at Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum.

Dorchester’s newest museum offers school sessions for those aged five up to A Level, exploring the life and times of Victorian children not dissimilar to themselves. Since it opened in May 2018, hundreds of school children have visited. The youngest children learn about Dorset Victorian life and ideas of social justice through exploring stories, tours of the cells and courtroom and creative workshops.

Children from Key Stage 1 and upwards learn about case studies from Dorset like 7-year-old Harry Parker, the Tolpuddle Martyrs or 16-year-old Elijah Upjohn, who went before the court for stealing clothes and rabbits to help his family. He was sentenced to be transported to Australia and became the executioner of famous outlaw Ned Kelly. One school tied this into work they were doing on transportation and Captain Cook’s discovery of the New World.

Anne Brown, Learning Manager at Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum, has been working with schools to create bespoke class sessions, including one on highway men and another one on smugglers and how smuggling filtered through the whole of Dorset society.

Anne said: “This work is part of our core values and ethos as a museum. It’s about formal and informal learning on different levels. What’s great about the case studies is that they hold a mirror up to what’s happening in society today. It’s really important to learn what happened in the past and for children to study stories of children like themselves. It fits into all sorts of parts of the curriculum, not just History but Creative Literacy, English, Law and British Values including the justice system and democracy.”

She added: “These are Dorset children whose voices have never been heard. It’s about acknowledging them and them helping us to appreciate the past through the unimaginable things they have had to endure. I particularly enjoy the Tolpuddle Martyrs story. It’s a really good example of people being in difficult circumstances and coming together to make things better for everyone. I think that’s a really important message to teach children.”

Anne says that being able to teach a class in the courtroom where the trials were held was a huge benefit. She said: “It’s teaching children to look at the past in the place where it happened. We can judge the past, but times were different and it’s good to consider how will we be judged in 100 years’ time. From a teachers’ point of view, it’s about local history, they are real people that lived around here. There’s a lot of social context work we do.”

For more information about the school sessions available at Shire Hall and how teachers can work with the team to deliver learning outcomes, call Anne Brown on 01305 261849 or email [email protected]

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