At a time when the men of local School Boards managed all aspects of School life, (rather than the County), decisions could be drawn out, taking a long time or require the need for protracted debates. The spending of public rates money was rightly considered worthy of ensuring the correct decisions were made. Even the simplest of proposals needed debate and voted for and conflict with differing opinions at these meetings often arose.
One such example is this next story, where Blantyre School Board in June 1894, recognised they needed to hire a cleaner for High Blantyre School on Hunthill Road. But what happened next rather amusingly turned out to not be so straight forward.
One evening, as the School Board met, the appointment of the new cleaner was next on the agenda. Sixteen applicants had applied and the Board needed to consider who would be the successful candidate.
All six Board members were asked to state their preference from the 16 applicants and from all the applicants received all 6 suggested a preference for a different person. Not a great start.
So, to settle it, they asked the Chairperson to state his preference, but with it being yet another different applicant, this made no difference. By then, already there was some mumblings from various Board members about how long it was taking for something as simple as hiring a new cleaner.
At least the list had been reduced from 16. Mr Small, one of the Board members then suggested putting his hat on the table and the 7 preferred candidates names they’d each picked could be put into the hat and pick out the winner, that person being the new cleaner? Mr McInulty another Board member was agreeable to this, but Mr McKendrick pointed out the School Board is not a betting society and should not to business in such a haphazard way! A discussion followed where others suggested if this got out to the general Blantyre Public, the School Board would be a laughing stock and likely on the receipt of complaints. The discussion abandoned the hat idea and attention turned to perhaps referring the decision for ‘others’ to make.
By now, the evening was getting late and there was obvious frustration at the lack of decision making. Mr Small suggested they could hire in and pay for a third party to make an unbiased decision and the group agreed this would be a good idea, if say a consultant could be found. The conversation then swung back around to sense, when they realised they could not spend public money on hiring such a person. The Board were now getting annoyed. They were no further forward in deciding who the cleaner would be and had used a significant proportion of the evening to get to this ongoing stalemate!
So next, the chairperson proposed they should all vote again, but only on the 7 candidates they had previously chosen, but choose somebody different from their initial decision. If 2 votes landed on a preference, that applicant would get the job. It seemed a fair solution. So the board voted.
The result? 3 votes for 1 particular candidate and 3 votes for another! The amusing result brought some laughter around the room as the sheer hopelessness of the situation sunk in. However, they all recognised the waste of time which had occurred that evening, the discussion being undignified and frivolous. Mr Craig, the School Board Chairman stood up. From the 2 candidates chosen by the Board members, he announced, “My casting vote is for Mrs McInnes of Larkfield” and at last ……the new cleaner was chosen!
I hope she accepted!
