History

The Burston Strike School was at the centre of the longest running strike in British history, between 1914 and 1939. The strike began when teachers at the village’s Church of England school, Annie Higdon and her husband, Tom Higdon, were sacked after a dispute with the area’s school management committee and schoolchildren went on strike in their support. The Higdons set up an alternative school which was attended by 66 of their 72 former pupils. Beginning in a marquee on the village green, the school moved to local carpenter’s premises and later to a purpose-built school financed by donations from the labour movement. Burston Strike School carried on teaching local children until shortly after Tom’s death in 1939.