A collection of three interrelated short stories, all set in the mid-19th century in the vicinity of Shepton, a small Bedfordshire village located near the town of Biggleswade, Those Shepton Children concerns itself with the interrelated issues of childhood welfare and education. Ella of Berry Farm opens in December of 1865, and chronicles the trials and tribulations of the eponymous Ella Cole, a dreamy girl whose natural talents lead her to poetry, rather than to the domestic service for which she seems bound. Her brother Edwin teaches her to read, despite Farmer Cole's opposition to girls being educated, and her poems win the praise of Uncle Charlie, who works in a bookshop in London. Initially mistaken for Edwin's work, the true authorship of the poems is revealed after Ella is injured and becomes ill, and Uncle Charlie and Edwin determine that they will work together to send Ella to school. In Our Lil, Lilian Morley is unconsciously selfish, leaving much of the housework and chores to her long-suffering mother, while she wanders the countryside, full of "queer notions" about nature and God. Lilian dreams of winning a scholarship to Bedford College, but she gradually comes to understand and admire her mother's devoted care for their family, and her hard work in the domestic sphere. When Mrs. Morley becomes ill after she and Lilian must flee the house late one night to escape one of Fred Morley's drunken rages, Lilian, who also once took a blow her father meant for her mother, steps in and takes over the running of the house. In the face of his wife's illness and his daughter's self-sacrifice, a repentant Mr. Morley promises never to drink again, and insists that Lilian take the test for the County Scholarship, which she wins. That Barbara Moore chronicles the tumultuous adventures of the titular Barbara, a newcomer in the Shepton area, whose tempestuous but essentially goodhearted nature involve her in numerous scrapes. Although initially resentful of the Biggleswade children, and determined to prevent them from gathering any of the Shepton berries, Barbara ends up befriending Biggleswade girl Eva Brown, who is beaten by her grandmother if she doesn't pick enough fruit. Eventually Barbara and her mother are instrumental in having Eva removed from her abusive home, after Mrs. Moore writes to Eva's father in London. Barbara next comes into conflict with the village vicar, Mr. Lee, when she insists that the schoolchildren be given a treat, in honor of Lilian Moore (of the previous story) winning her scholarship. School-teacher Mrs. Hutchinson knows how to reach the stubborn Barbara, accusing her of unkindness to Mr. Lee, who pays for the children's treats out of his own pocket. Barbara continues to come into conflict with Mr. Lee, who is a sort of kind but exasperated mentor to the young girl. Eventually she becomes involved in Girl Guides, after Eva Brown moves back to the area with her parents, and convinces her to join.

Published in 1928, Those Shepton Children collects three of Agnes Adams' shorter works that were all released separately - Our Lil: A Village Story in 1923, That Barbara Moore in 1924, and Ella of Berry Farm in 1927 - as part of Oxford University Press's "Golden Rule Series." Although written and published in the 1920s, the stories are set almost sixty years earlier, in the mid-19th century, making them works of historical fiction. I was particularly struck, while reading, by the fact that the children depicted in Adams' stories are all members of the rural working class, as most of the vintage British children's book of this era that I have read concern themselves with the lives of middle and upper-class children. Adams depicts serious social issues and problems - the lack of educational opportunities available to the children of farmers and rural workers, particularly girls; the effects of parental alcoholism on the home; the abuse of children by their caregivers - with sympathy, and if the resolutions she offers to some of her plot-lines seem too easily accomplished, I was nevertheless impressed by the fact that she chose to explore them at all in works intended for younger readers. It is clear that education is meant to be the overarching theme here, and that Adams is attempting to depict the lives of rural children much in need of schooling, at just that moment in time when educational reform in England was coming to a head. In Ella of Berry Farm, the vicar even comes to call upon Farmer Cole, to share the news of a new Education Bill (perhaps the 1870 Education Act?) that makes education available to all, including girls. One wonders what lessons Adams hoped her readers in the 1920s would take away from these stories set in the 1860s and 70s. The benefit of education is a clear underlying theme, but there is also the issue of gender here, as each of the heroines in the three stories included in Those Shepton Children is a bit of a 'difficult' girl, one who doesn't quite fit the conventional mold. Ella is a poet, despite her father's distrust of education for girls; Lilian a philosopher in the making, with her musings about finding God in nature; while Barbara is a bit of a rebel, one not afraid to clash with the religious and educational authority figures in her small world, and one who must be persuaded with reason toward the right path, rather than forced onto it by a show of superior strength. Adams is making a point here, not just about the importance of education, but about its importance for girls, particularly girls of the lower classes, who are far more likely to need a means of earning their way in the world, than their peers in the middle and upper classes. She is also making a point about class, undermining the notion that there is less intelligence and/or curiosity in the children of the working people than in their more economically advantaged peers. All in all, quite an interesting collection of tales, one I would recommend (with the caveat that the final story, That Barbara Moore, contains two unfortunate casual uses of the word "n*gger") to those looking for vintage British girls' fare that explores issues of education and class. ( )