At the beginning of the nineteenth century a child who committed a crime was tried in the same court as an adult. If the judge or magistrate sentenced them to prison, they would be sent to the same prison as adult criminals.

Some campaigners, such as Mary Carpenter, argued that children should be kept away from adult criminals so that they did not learn bad habits from them. She also said that children should be given training and be allowed to play.

Pressure from campaigners led to Parliament passing the Reformatory Schools Act in 1854. The Act allowed reformatory schools to be set up and for them to be officially inspected. Magistrates could send children under the age of 16 to these schools, instead of to prison.

A reformatory school was set up in Newcastle in 1853, just before the Act passed through Parliament. The school was moved to Netherton, near Morpeth, in 1857. In 1933 Netherton became an “Approved School”, which replaced reformatories and industrial schools. Netherton continued to be a residential school for boys well into the 1980s.

When he entered Netherton, Isaac was sentenced to stay at the school until he was 19 years old, like most of the boys that were sent to the school.

When a boy left the school, the staff of the school kept in touch with them for a period of 3–4 years afterwards. The staff recorded their contact with Isaac in the pages that you can see here. We often think of reformatories as harsh places, but it is interesting to note that Isaac wrote to the staff at Netherton and even visited the school once he left. This was not unusual.

In 1913 Isaac left the school to work at the farm of Mr Nicholson; a job that the school found for him. On 21 May 1915 he started work at Armstrong Whitworth Company in Byker, probably to make munitions.

He then joined the Northumberland Fusiliers in December 1915. He seems to have been in France in March 1916 when he sent the school a postcard (PC). He visited the school while on leave from the army. His entry for 1918 records that he was a prisoner of war for two weeks, but that he escaped.

NRO 00820/B/10 p. 1742 Admission register entry for Isaac Wilson.