BEFORE the Great Western Railway arrived in Swindon small private schools, known as dame schools because most of them were run by women, provided basic education for countless Swindon children whose parents could pay their fees.

Victorian novelist and poet Richard Jefferies was taught by a Miss Cowell at her little school in Devizes Road.

The Evening Advertiser's founder William Morris went to one run by a Dr Breeze at Sandhill House. It is now Swindon Museum.

Gideon Mantell, who achieved national fame as a palaeontologist, an expert on the study of magnetism in rocks, was a pupil at a chapel school taught by his uncle who was a Baptist minister.

The women of the Cowell family ran more than one school in Swindon.

Edward Fentiman, who married Selina, one of the sisters, eventually took over one of them.

His school, which became a great success, was later run by his daughters. Diana Dors, then Diana Fluck, went there as a little girl.