Proportion of children in school 1816 - 1861
Figures from Williams 1961:136-137
The involvement of the churches
The Church of England regarded education for all children as desirable. This was not a unanimously held view, however - influential taxpayers and those who benefited from employing children were less enthusiastic. But despite the doubters, the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church (which, for obvious reasons, became generally known as the National Society) was founded in 1811. Its aim was to provide a school in every parish. Local clergy 'often took on this initiative wholeheartedly' (Gates 2005:16), with or without the benefit of special donations. 'The inclusion of the fourth "R" of religion, alongside the other three (reading, writing and 'arithmetic), was simply assumed as right. It took the form of the Bible, catechism and prayer book services' (Gates 2005:16).
Other Christians, along with liberal Anglicans and some Roman Catholics and Jews, preferred a less denominational approach and in 1814 founded the British and Foreign School Society for the Education of the Labouring and Manufacturing Classes of Society of Every Religious Persuasion (the British and Foreign School Society). Its schools drew on the pioneering work of the Quaker Joseph Lancaster. They taught Scripture and general Christian principles in a non-denominational form.
A third group, who wanted religion kept out of schools altogether, formed a third organisation, the Central Society of Education, in 1836. Unfortunately, they represented a tiny minority, and 'it was the tussling between the other two [the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society] that delayed the introduction of a fully comprehensive school system funded by public taxation' (Gates 2005:16).
The government was unwilling to intervene or take the lead for fear of appearing to promote one group over the other, so in 1833 it began giving annual grants towards school provision to both the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society. From 1846 similar grants were given to Baptists and Congregationalists (subject to an agreement about the reading of Scripture), from 1847 to Wesleyan Methodists and the Catholic Poor School Committee, and in 1853 to the Manchester Jewish community (subject to an agreement about the reading of at least part of the Bible).
The Church of England resisted the introduction of a 'conscience clause' which would have allowed children of Dissenters to attend its schools without fear of religious offence, and a ruling that only the Authorised Version of the Bible was acceptable delayed the granting of aid to RC schools. The 1861 Newcastle Report (of which more in the next chapter) noted the problems these rulings caused in areas where there was only one school.
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The education of the upper classes
Preparatory schools
The upper classes did not, of course, send their sons to elementary schools, but to private preparatory schools, where they were prepared for education at the great English public schools.
The term 'preparatory' was never legally established but has been invested by tradition with a very precise and important meaning which is still current and influential. In one sense indeed it is nearer to the developmental than to the elementary tradition, for it does at least take some account of sequence rather than of social status as a principle of differentiation. But at the same time it implies in name what 'junior elementary' often implied in fact, that the education of younger children is mainly to be conceived in terms of preparation for the later stages of education rather than as a stage in its own right. (Blyth 1965:30)
The preparatory tradition became embedded in the upper and middle classes of English society. Its aim was (and still is) the education of younger children for what follows. 'For prep-school boys indeed, the next phase in the life cycle was often regarded as its zenith, with regrettable results' (Blyth 1965:34).
Resistance to change
Just as there was resistance to the very idea of educating England's lower classes, there was resistance, too, to the notion that the curriculum in schools for the middle and upper classes should be modernised. Protests at the restricted curriculum offered in these schools were mostly ignored or defeated.
In 1805, for example, Lord Eldon accepted Dr Johnson's definition of a grammar school as a school in which the learned languages were grammatically taught, and ruled in the Court of Chancery that it was illegal for the governors of Leeds Grammar School to spend endowment funds on teaching modern and commercial subjects. His judgment was upheld by subsequent decisions, and this state of affairs continued until the passing of the 1840 Grammar School Act(7 August 1840).
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The 'great' public schools were the least willing to adapt and modernise. The following description of attitudes to the curriculum at these schools in the 1820s was given by James Pillans (1778-1864), Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University, who was for some time a private tutor at Eton. In Contributions to the Cause of Education (1856:271) he wrote:
In the great schools of England - Eton, Westminster, Winchester and Harrow, where the majority of English youth who receive a liberal and high professional education are brought up - the course of instruction has for ages been confined so exclusively to Greek and Latin that most of the pupils quit them not only ignorant of, but with a considerable disrelish and contempt for, every branch of literature and scientific equipment, except the dead languages. It may be said that there are in the immediate neighbourhood of the College, teachers of Mathematics, Writing, French and other accomplishments to whom parents have the option of sending their sons. But as these masters are extra-scholastic - mere appendages, not an integral part of the establishment - and as neither they nor the branches of knowledge they proffer to teach are recognised in the scheme of school business, it requires but little acquaintance with the nature of boys to be aware, that the disrespect in which teachers so situated are uniformly held extends, in young minds, to the subjects taught and is apt to create a rooted dislike to a kind of instruction which they look upon as a work of supererogation. And this, we venture to say, is all but the universal feeling at Eton. (quoted in Spens 1938:18)
Pressure of public opinion persuaded some of the old local foundations to find ways of enlarging the curriculum, sometimes by charging fees for the non-classical subjects. For example, a report by the head master of Newcastle-on-Tyne Free Grammar School in 1838 shows that the school was teaching, in addition to Classics, 'French, Writing, English Grammar and Composition, History and Chronology, Geography and the use of the globes, practical and mental Arithmetic, Euclid, Algebra, Trigonometry, Analytical Geometry and Mechanics, etc.' French was taught without extra charge; the fees for instruction in the other subjects were £1 a quarter.
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Concerns about the traditional curriculum were reflected in the publications of the Central Society of Education. In Education Reform, published in 1837, Thomas Wyse (1791-1862) gave a vivid picture of the state of secondary education at the time:
In no country is the strife between the new and the old educations more vehement - the education which deals with mind as spirit and that which deals with it as matter. In no country are there greater anomalies - greater differences not merely in the means, but in the ends of education ... it runs through the entire system. (quoted in Spens 1938:18-19)
He went on:
If we find in the country and town schools little preparation for occupations, still less for the future agriculturalist or mechanic, we find in the Grammar Schools much greater defects. The middle class in all its sections, except the more learned professions, finds no instruction which can suit its special middle class wants. They are fed with the dry husks of ancient learning when they should be taking sound and substantial food from the great treasury of modern discovery. The applications of chemical and mechanical science to everyday wants - such a study of history as will show the progress of civilisation - and such a knowledge of public economy in the large sense of the term as will guard them against the delusions of political fanatics and knaves, and lead to a due understanding of their position in society, are all subjects worth as much labour and enquiry to that great body, as a little Latin learnt in a very imperfect manner, with some scraps of Greek to boot - the usual stunted course of most of our Grammar Schools. (quoted in Spens 1938:19)
The beginnings of change
But changes began to be made, led by head masters like Samuel Butler at Shrewsbury from 1798 to 1836 and Thomas Arnold at Rugby from 1828 to 1841.
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At Shrewsbury, English, geography, algebra, Euclid and English history formed part of the ordinary work of the Fifth and Sixth Forms. Butler attached much importance to private reading, and he also introduced promotion by merit and periodical school examinations for the upper forms.
Arnold's main aim was 'the re-establishment of social purpose, the education of Christian gentlemen' (Williams 1961:137). In the Sixth Form, the Classics were still the foundation of the curriculum, but French and mathematics (including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry), English, German, ancient history and modern European history were also taught.
Arnold's work at Rugby (which was featured in Thomas Hughes' 1857 novel Tom Brown's Schooldays) restored the prestige of the large boarding schools among the middle class, who welcomed the social and moral training which they offered. The demand for more boarding schools of the public school type coincided with the rapid increase in the wealth of the middle classes and the construction of the railways.
As a result, a considerable number of new boarding schools were established, the most famous of which were Cheltenham College (1841), Marlborough College (1843), Rossall School (1844), Radley College (1847), Wellington College (1853), Epsom College (1855), Bradfield College, (1859), Haileybury (1862), Clifton College (1862), Malvern School (1863) and Bath College (1867). These institutions, described in the Report of the Public Schools Commission (1864) as proprietary schools, were designed to make boarding education accessible to those sections of the middle class who found difficulty in paying the fees of the older and more expensive public schools.
To the same end, in 1848 Canon Nathaniel Woodard (1811-1891) founded the Woodard Society to provide Anglican boarding schools for the various sections of the middle class: Lancing for the gentry, Hurstpierpoint for the upper middle class and Ardingly for the lower middle class.
This resurgence of interest in boarding schools slowed the development of proprietary day schools, which had begun to be established in the 1820s. Among the most important day schools of this type were the Liverpool Institute (1825), King's College School (1829), University College School (1830), Blackheath Proprietary School (1831), the City of London School (1837) and Liverpool College (1840).
Nonconformists had been admitted to the teaching profession since 1779 but were still excluded from the universities and the public schools. So in 1807 Congregationalists founded Mill Hill School, organised on public school lines but with a broader curriculum. In addition to classics, the school course comprised mathematics, including algebra, Euclid and trigonometry; French, taught by a Frenchman; lectures on natural and experimental philosophy; drawing, taught by 'an artist of respectability'; and history, English reading, elocution and ancient and modern geography.
The Society of Friends (Quakers) also established a number of schools in the first half of the 19th century. In these, special attention was paid to the study of English and particularly to oral reading and composition, and the pupils were frequently required to write descriptions of excursions, lectures and other incidents of school life. Considerable attention was also given to natural history, elementary natural science, geography and manual work of various kinds (seeSpens 1938:20).
These new schools were not restricted by the statutes of founders and in most cases had no endowments, so they were obliged - and were able - to respond to popular needs and offer an education which was partly liberal but also vocational (see Spens 1938:24).
A broader curriculum
By the 1840s England had around 700 private grammar schools and more than 2,000 endowed schools. The old grammar schools still largely served the upper classes and obtained their pupils from the preparatory schools. Both they and the endowed schools had, as we have seen, successfully resisted attempts to reform their curricula, despite the great advances that had been made in science and the development of rich vernacular literatures in the countries of Western Europe.
But change was now being forced upon them in a variety of ways, including the establishment of the Civil Service Commission and the Board of Military Education, which compelled the schools to give greater priority to mathematics and modern languages.
Cheltenham College, for example, had from its opening in 1841 a Modern (or Military and Civil) Department intended primarily to prepare boys for the entrance examinations for Woolwich and Sandhurst, for appointments in government offices, for engineering, or for commercial life. The main study was mathematics, there was some Latin but no Greek, natural science was introduced, and greater stress was laid on modern languages. The curriculum, even for the lower forms, was surprisingly broad, and included mathematics, Latin, English, history, geography, French, German, Hindustani, physical science, drawing, fortification and surveying.
A recognition of the importance of English and aesthetic subjects, especially music and art, was a feature of the curriculum at Uppingham School, where Edward Thring was head master from 1853 to 1887. Classics, English composition and grammar, Scripture, history and geography were taught in the morning; in the afternoon the boys studied music and one or two optional subjects such as French, German, chemistry, carpentry, turning and drawing. Thring was one of the first heads to give music a prominent place in the curriculum. He made attendance at singing classes and music lessons compulsory and subject to the same discipline as any regular school subject. He also attached great importance to systematic physical exercises and to hobbies; the Uppingham gymnasium, opened in 1859, was the first of its kind in any English public school, as were also the workshops, laboratories, school garden, and aviary.
By the 1850s, then, the curriculum - in both private and endowed schools - was changing, partly because of parental pressure and partly in response to the requirements of various external examinations, such as the London Matriculation Examination, the examinations for the Indian Civil Service (first held in 1855), the Oxford Local Examinations (from 1857), the Cambridge Local Examinations (from 1858), and the Examinations of the College of Preceptors, which was established in 1846 for the promotion of middle class education and for the training and certification of teachers.
A number of writers were also urging curriculum reform.
In a series of articles written between 1854 and 1859 (and issued in book form in 1859) Herbert Spencer attacked the existing curriculum. He argued that natural science should form the basis of formal education and strongly advocated systematic physical training.
A volume of Essays on a Liberal Education, published in 1867 under the editorship of Dean Farrar, then assistant master at Harrow, also reflected the widespread dissatisfaction with the conventional curriculum. Among the contributors, Professor Henry Sidgwick and Canon JM Wilson (science master at Rugby) stressed the importance of science.
And in his Essays, published in the 1860s and 70s, Professor TH Huxley advocated a curriculum consisting of natural science, the theory of morals and of political and social life, history and geography, English literature and translations of the greatest foreign writers, English composition, drawing, and either music or painting.
Girls' education
For many centuries, a girl's education - if she was lucky enough to have one at all - consisted of religious instruction, reading, writing and grammar, and the occasional homecraft such as spinning. In the 18th century French, Italian, music and drawing were sometimes added in the few boarding schools open to girls.
Early in the 19th century, Sydney Smith wrote:
The system of female education as it now stands aims only at embellishing a few years of life which are, in themselves, so full of grace and happiness that they hardly want it, and then leaves the rest a miserable prey to idle insignificance. (quoted in Hadow 1923:22)
At the beginning of the Victorian era, then, the education of women was scanty, superficial and incoherent. Many girls were instructed by ill-trained private governesses; and the numerous private schools for girls, which were mostly boarding schools, were probably even worse than those described in 1868 in the report of the Schools Inquiry Commission, where the ordinary course of instruction for girls was characterised as being very narrow and unscientific.
In her autobiography, Miss Cobbe described one of the fashionable girls' schools in Brighton in about 1850, where the fees were £500 a year. The girls worked all day: during the one hour's walk in the open air they recited French, German and Italian verbs, and for the remainder of the day they were reading or reciting one of these languages or practising accomplishments. Music, dancing and 'calisthenics' (strengthening and beautifying exercises) were highly valued subjects; writing and arithmetic were not. The main aim was social display.
In Macmillan's Magazine for October 1866, Anne Clough described the curriculum in ordinary girls' schools for the lower middle class: 'A few dry facts are taught, but the life and spirit are too often left out and there is a monotony in girls' education which is very dulling to the intellect' (quoted in Hadow 1923:23).
'In general it may safely be said that the traditional education for girls up to about 1845 accentuated the differences between the sexes' (Hadow 1923:23).
A movement for better education for girls and women began in 1843 with the foundation of the Governesses' Benevolent Institution, which aimed to provide a system of examinations and certificates for governesses.
This led to the foundation of Queen's College in Harley Street in 1848, where the leaders of the movement, such as the Revd FD Maurice, adopted the traditional boys' curriculum and endeavoured to hand it on to the women they taught. In a volume of introductory lectures delivered at Queen's College and published in 1849, the list of subjects is given as English, French, German, Latin, Italian, History, Geography, Natural Philosophy, Methods of Teaching, Theology, Vocal Music, Harmony, Fine Arts, and Mathematics. Each subject was taught by a specialist, who explained its purpose and principles.
Another significant development was the establishment in 1849 of the first higher education college for women in the UK. The Ladies' College in London's Bedford Square was founded by social reformer and anti-slavery campaigner Elizabeth Jesser Reid. After her death in 1866 it became known as Bedford College and in 1900 it became part of the University of London.
Two notable pioneers in the campaign for girls' education were Miss Beale and Miss Buss, both of whom studied at Queen's College. Miss Beale was appointed as mistress in the Clergy Daughters' School at Casterton in 1857, where she was expected to teach Scripture, mathematics, geography, English literature and composition, French, German, Latin, and Italian. A year later she moved to Cheltenham Ladies' College (which had opened in 1853), where she reorganised the school. Miss Buss founded North London Collegiate School in 1850. Both gave evidence to the Schools Inquiry Commission. Miss Buss told the Commissioners: 'I am sure girls can learn anything they are taught in an interesting manner and for which they have a motive to work' (quoted in Hadow 1923:24-5).
Special educational needs
Note: The information in this section is taken from chapter 2 (pages 8-9) of the 1978 Warnock Report Special Educational Needs, which itself was largely based on DG Pritchard's 1963 book Education and the Handicapped 1760-1960.
Provision for the blind
The first school for the blind in Great Britain was the 'School of Instruction for the Indigent Blind' established by Henry Dannett in Liverpool in 1791. It offered training in music and manual crafts for children and adults of both sexes. There was no education as such: child labour was the rule and pupils were taught to earn a living.
The Liverpool foundation was quickly followed by other private ventures: the Asylum for the Industrious Blind at Edinburgh (1793), the Asylum for the Blind at Bristol (1793), the School for the Indigent Blind in London (1800) and the Asylum and School for the Indigent Blind at Norwich (1805). As at Liverpool, these institutions were solely concerned to provide vocational training for future employment and relied on the profits from their workshops.
Schools whose courses included a genuinely educational element began to be established in the 1830s. The Yorkshire School for the Blind (1835) taught arithmetic, reading and writing as part of vocational training; while at the school established by the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read (1838) a general education was seen as the foundation for subsequent training in manual skills. The Society later opened branches in Exeter and Nottingham.
The General Institution for the Blind at Birmingham (1847) combined industrial training with a broad curriculum in general subjects; and after at first concentrating on training, Henshaw's Blind Asylum at Manchester (1838) eventually developed a thriving school with educational objectives.
The first senior school for the blind was the College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen founded at Worcester in 1866.
Despite these developments, by 1870 there were still only a dozen or so institutions for the blind: most of these were training centers and only a small proportion of the blind benefited from them.
Provision for the deaf
Thomas Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb, opened in Edinburgh in the early 1760s, was the first school for the deaf in Great Britain. It taught a handful of selected paying pupils to speak and read.
In 1783 the Academy moved to London, where in 1792 the first English school for the deaf opened with six children under the direction of Braidwood's nephew. This Asylum for the Support and Education of the Deaf and Dumb Children of the Poor flourished: in 1809 it moved to larger buildings and later opened a branch at Margate.
In 1814 an Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb opened in Edgbaston with Thomas Braidwood's grandson (also Thomas) as the teacher.
More schools for the deaf followed: at Liverpool, Manchester, Exeter and Doncaster in the 1820s; at Aberystwyth in 1847; and in Edinburgh (Donaldson's Hospital) in 1851.
These early institutions for the deaf - like those for the blind - were protective places: there was little or no contact with the outside world. The education they provided was limited, and despite the training they offered, many of their inmates subsequently failed to find employment and ended up begging.
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