Mexborough and Swinton Times June 29, 1928

Before The Bench
Stories From The Police Courts.

Slapped His Face.
Denaby Mother Resents School-Master’s Rebuke.

Because a headmaster told a mother of fifteen children that she did not know how to bring them up, she slapped his face, and on Tuesday, the woman, Cecilia Rush, married, of Denaby, appeared before the Doncaster magistrates charged with using obscene language on school premises, and with having assaulted the headmaster, Mr. James Bradley.

Defendant said: “I did not use bad language. I assaulted him.”

James Bradley, headmaster of St. Alban’s (R.C.) School, Denaby, said that on May 16 when he arrived at school at about 1-20 p.m., he  found defendant waiting with two of her daughters.

She complained about the treatment of the younger child who had been punished by being made to sit with a section of the backward scholars. The woman also accused him of having knocked the elder girl down. She started to raise her voice and made all sorts of accusations against him and the staff. He told her to go home and make any complaint she had to the committee. He also warned her that by making a disturbance in the school she was liable to a penalty. He went into school and hung up his coat and hat, and when he returned she struck him across the face. There would be at least 40 children in the school.

Mrs. Rush said the ill-treatment of children at that school was “past abiding.” She had often had to make complaints, and up to this incident the headmaster had always given her satisfaction. On this occasion, however, he did not do so, and she hit him across the face because he told her she did not know how to bring her children up properly. She had fifteen children, seven of whom were under 12.

The Chairman (Mr. G. Cooke-Yarborough) told the woman that she behaved very badly. Schoolmasters could not possibly carry on their work properly if they were going to have women going to school and carrying on in such a manner.

The defendant was fined 20s. and bound over.