Education

There was some opportunity for Orwell children to learn to read and write as far back as 1579 and schoolmasters occasionally appear in the Ely Diocesan records through the 17th and early 18th centuries. Lessons were probably held in the parish church or in the teacher's home, but it was not until 1743 that a permanent school, the foreunner of Petersfield Church of England School,  was established by the Rector, Dr John Colbatch.