ADVERTISER reader Joyce Kiff presented me with another picture puzzle for this week’s dip into the past, writes Steve Harris.

The subject of the photograph is a group of students with teachers taken by Newton Abbot photographer Herbert Norris.

Enclosed with the photograph was a copy of a faded list of the names of some of the people in the picture but most of these were quite indistinct.

Anyway, using the few clues available to me in the form of the legible names found in the middle row I did a check on the 1911 census for a Mr Egginton (seated far left) and found that a Mr Wycliffe Egginton, born 1876, was living at 15 Kingsteignton Road, Newton Abbot and his occupation was given as art master and artist.

The only part of the name of the headmaster, shown wearing the mortar board, I could make out was ‘brough’. Nevertheless a search through old newspapers revealed that in 1932 a Mr James Hembrough resigned his position as headmaster of Newton Abbot Secondary School having taken up the role in 1908. While at the school he had set up a company of cadets.

READ THE FULL STORY IN FRIDAY’S MID-DEVON ADVERTISER.