Victorian time capsule gives St Barnabas CE Primary School pupils a rare glimpse of the past (From York Press)

Victorian time capsule gives St Barnabas CE Primary School pupils a rare glimpse of the past

9:55am Monday 14th June 2010

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FOR more than 120 years it lay undisturbed, buried beneath the classrooms of a York primary school.

But now a previously-undiscovered Victorian time capsule has given York youngsters a rare glimpse of the past – and inspired them to give the same opportunity to the class of 2050.

When the former St Barnabas CE Primary School building in Bright Street, off Leeman Road, was demolished to make way for houses, a foundation stone and time capsule laid in 1886 were discovered. It contained newspaper articles from the Yorkshire Gazette and York Herald, announcing the building and opening of that school.

Now the builders from Daniel Garth Homes who found them have re-laid the foundation stone at the modern school building, in nearby Jubilee Terrace, which pupils and staff moved into in 2005.

The oldest and youngest pupils buried their own capsule beside it in a special ceremony, St Barnabas Day. On it, a plaque reads: “Buried 11.06.2010 by St Barnabas School pupils and community members. Open on 11.06.2050.”

Among the items they put in it were a copy of The Press, a phonics booklet, a school jumper, some Lego, a mobile phone, a £1 coin and copies of documents discovered in the 1886 time capsule.

A former pupil, Paul Parkin-Coates, of Minster Engineers, made the capsule.

Last week, the children studied Victorians, and experts from York’s Castle Museum delivered lessons as they would have been at that time.

Victoria Pendry, a teacher at the school, said: “We hope that pupils in 2050 will benefit from the time capsule of 2010 in the same way.”

THE WORLD IN 1886

• Burma was presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday gift.

• Coca Cola was first advertised.

• The Yorkshire Tea merchants were established.

• Arsenal FC founded as Dial Square FC by munitions workers at Woolwich, south east London.

• Births includes Frank Lloyd (film director) Siegfried Sassoon (British poet), Ty Cobb (American baseball player).

• Deaths included Emily Dickinson (American poet), John Deere (American inventor), Franz Liszt (Hungarian pianist).

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