Growth of non-compulsory education
In the early 1670s, clergyman Thomas Gouge began to preach in Wales, by 1675 he had established 87 schools which were attended by a total of 2225 children.[1] The schools were intended 'to teach the poor Welsh children to read and write English, cast Accompts [numeracy] and repeat the Catechism.' They closed after his death in 1681.[2] The Society for the promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) was founded in 1699 with similar aims.[3]
In 18th century England and Wales, schools were operated by private business, charity and the church, becoming reasonably common. According to historian W.B Stephens, charity schools in Wales tended to have a particularly heavy emphasis on religion reflecting the preferences of the Welsh peasantry. In the early 18th century, many charity schools were established with the support of the SPCK but later founding's were associated with the "circulating [travelling] school movement" which originated in Wales. The second group catered for both children and adults. By the late 18th century these circulatory schools largely faded away replaced by Sunday Schools. Sunday schools developed from the 1780s onwards. Early Sunday schools tended to admit adults as well as children. In Wales, they were generally Nonconformist and often associated with the Methodist revival. Welsh Sunday Schools tended to focus on bible studies and reading avoiding the wider secular education sometimes taught at Sunday Schools elsewhere.[4]
Early to mid 19th century
In the first half of the 19th century, education began to be seen as something of a civilising mission. A sense of anxiety was developing about the condition of the working classes in Wales, especially in the South Wales Valleys. The industrial revolution had brought significant social upheaval and children in particular were seen as newly vulnerable to immorality. While working-class parents were felt to be more interested in pursuing pleasure for themselves than educating the young. These worries were reinforced by various instances of significant social unrest in relation to movements such as Chartism, Scotch Cattle and the Rebecca Riots. Schooling was believed to be an effective response to these problems. In a 1843 report, HMI[note 1] H.W Belliars described a "band of efficient schoolmasters" as a cheaper alternative to "a body of police or of soldiery" to manage "an ill-educated, undisciplined population, such as exists among the mines of South Wales".[5]
In the early 19th century, the British and Foreign School Society (which was Nonconformist) and the National Society for Promoting Religious Education (which was Anglican) were founded. These organisations began to establish "voluntary schools".[4] In practice, a large majority of voluntary schools belonged to the latter group which had various practical advantages. In Wales, the Anglican schools were reported to be poorly attended as Nonconformists,[4] who formed a clear majority of the Welsh population,[6] preferred private schools. Though the proportion of day school[note 2] pupils at private schools fell in Wales from 58% in 1833 to 26% in 1851. While school participation rates in the early-to-mid 19th century are somewhat hard to assess, a lower proportion of the population were enrolled in day schools in Wales than in England or Scotland.[4] One estimate is that 85% of children in Wales between five- and fifteen-years-old were not in day school in 1821.[5] Sunday schools were often used as a substitute for fulltime schooling. In 1844, 56% of grooms and 35% of brides were able to sign the marriage register in South Wales counties, this was lower than any individual Scottish or English county. That year, 58% of grooms and 39% of brides in North Wales counties were able to do so, this was lower than any Scottish or English county other than Monmouthshire (then part of England) and Staffordshire. The number of people who were able to write was lower than those who could read during this period because reading was seen as a more basic skill which was taught first and tended to be more practically useful for most people. According to historian T.B Stephens:[4]
... in Wales and Monmouthshire educational progress suffered from the difficulties Welsh speakers experienced in schools using English as the medium of instruction, from the absence of resident gentry, the weakness of the Church of England and the opposition of dissenters to its influence. This was compounded by widespread poverty and the expansion of coal mining.
From 1833, the voluntary schools began to receive government funding.[7] In 1839, the Committee of the Privy Council on Education (CCE) was formed which conducted state inspections of schools receiving grants in England and Wales for the first time. For its first report in 1840, HMI Hugh Seymour Tremenheere visited 35 schools in mining areas of South Wales. He wrote that the schools were "‘for the most part, dirty and close" and one was "so filthy and disgusting that the inquiry had to be conducted from outside". Most of the schools were lacking in books and equipment while teachers maintained discipline using "loud exclamations and threats". Contrastingly, HMI Harry Longueville Jones, was impressed by the quality of teaching he found on his first tour of 190 schools across Wales in 1849. He complimented various teachers as "very able", "studious", "clever", "well informed", "alert" and "well respected". He also noted a few teachers with exceptional abilities such as one working near Pwllheli who taught Latin to his most able pupils and another in Llanidloes whose "forte lies in his music" .[5]
The Newcastle Commission led to the introduction Revised Code of 1862. The code introduced a system of payment by results with grants given based on pupils knowledge of the three R's and attendance. The code has been praised for its perceived objectivity as well as for encouraging teachers to focus on literacy and numeracy.[5][8] At times, this system placed significant power over schools in the hands of individual inspectors in a way that could be quite arbitrary and lead to controversy. For instance, in his autobiography, HMI Sneyd-Kynnersley recalled 7-year-old Angharad who had told him she did not know the answer to a sum but who he decided to pass anyway due to her "frankness, combined with good looks". In a different case, schoolmaster James Kelly left his job at St David’s Roman Catholic school in Cardiff after a poor inspection report in 1863. Unusually, Kelly decided to formally complain to the Education Department alleging HMI John Reynell Morell spent less than 20 minutes in the school during which the children were quiet before leaving after saying "I will make a report sufficient for the grant". Morell was dismissed (officially for missing appointments) following an investigation during which both men attacked each other's character. Morell privately published his own version of events. Historian Russell Grigg suggests that a possible explanation for his conduct was that he was responsible for inspecting schools across 17 counties in England and Wales. The system also created a temptation for corruption among teachers. For instance, upon a check of birth certificates, it was found that most of the pupils at Llwynypia Colliery Infant School were over the age of eight making it ineligible for certain grants for infant schools. The attendance records had also been falsified and the register destroyed in "a very suspicious circumstance". They had two thirds of their grant removed and were given a warning.[5]
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
According to historian T.B Stephens, Elementary Education Act 1870 began the transition to compulsory education and a school system run directly by the state. However, he describes it as a compromise which only started that process. It required school boards run by locally elected officials to be established in areas where there was "insufficient places in efficient voluntary schools" to run additional schools. The boards were allowed but not required to make education compulsory. A power that was extended to other districts in 1876.[4] Compulsory education was introduced for 5- to 10-year-olds across England and Wales by the Elementary Education Act 1880.[7] 10- to 13-year-olds could leave school once they had reached a certain academic standard.[8] Attendance was made free in 1891, the minimum school leaving age was increased to 11 in 1893 and 12 in 1899.[9] These older children in large part remained in Elementary school rather than going to secondary school, a practice that would remain the norm until the 1940s.[10] (needs better source) Compulsory education was also extended to deaf and blind children in 1893.[11]
In the later 19th century, a sense of concern developed about insufficient secondary education provision in Wales. In the 1850s, HMI Harry Longueville Jones argued for the creation of evening schools to teach maritime skills given that many boys became sailors after leaving school. The Taunton Commission in 1868 noted that twenty towns in Wales with an average population of 11,000 lacked grammar schools. The Aberdare Committee of 1881 emphasised the need for improved secondary education, especially for girls. This led to the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889 one of the first pieces of legislation to apply solely in Wales and predating similar legislation in England by thirteen years. The act created a system of secondary schools that gave more advanced and specialist instruction in various subjects. The House of Commons was told in 1904 that 91 of 95 intermediate schools were classified as good or excellent.[5] These were fee-paying, voluntary institutions intended primarily for the middle classes. According to writer Phil Carradice, they provided a secondary level education for many children who would have had none otherwise but were often overly academic for the needs of the local economy. [10] The Central Welsh Board was established in 1896 to inspect the Intermediate schools but they were also visited by inspectors from other government bodies. Meanwhile, the period saw a growth in evening classes teaching vocational subjects. While their progress had previously been slow and varied by the end of the 19th century these classes were becoming increasingly well regarded.[5]
The payment by results system ended in the middle of the 1890s. A feeling had developed in the education department that the inspectorate needed to return to its original role as a supportive advisor for schools rather than punitively judging their results. Historian Russell Grigg writes that it took "time, commitment and training" for teachers to adjust to the new system but that by the 1900s there was evidence of them moving away from rote learning to a wider curriculum and more varied teaching methods including "field visits, local study, school museums and the creation of school gardens". Other changes in the 1900s including the end of the pupil teacher system in which teenagers had been put to work from the age of 13 as trainee teachers and the creation of local education authorities.[5] In 1907, the Welsh department was established within the Board of Education. The department was headed by Owen Edwards a figure who was supportive of introducing a curriculum more specific to Wales and had some success in implementing it.[12] Maude Morgan Thomas, a Welsh immigrant to the United States, wrote a biography intended for American children about her early years in Pontypool during the Edwardian period. In the chapter on her schooling she describes lessons in art, Welsh mediaeval history, needlework (for girls), domestic science (for older girls), optional piano lessons and frequent corporal punishment. She comments on her experience that:
School days in Wales were rather more uncomfortable than happy for me. There were always so many rattan canes lashing about, so much writing and arithmetic. Copy books had to be neatly filled with carefully written words, evenly spaced and shaded properly on each down stroke. One blot or one imperfect letter would bring the rattan cane stinging down on laboring knuckles... As I look back now, kindergarten[note 3] days were very pleasant. Welsh children usually began school at a very early age, many of them as young as three years. So school days were play days for the beginners.[13]
- ^ L. Greaves, Richard (3 January 2008). "Gouge, Thomas (1605–1681)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-1003012;jsessionid=9d93c50db434282482df39ae721ec5bd. Retrieved 2023-07-22.
Gouge began evangelizing work in Wales in 1672... By 1675, 2225 children were learning to read, write, and cast accounts in eighty-seven new charity schools in Wales, with all of the counties represented except Merioneth. He visited the schools once or twice a year, assisting them with monetary contributions.
- ^ Clement, Mary. "GOUGE, THOMAS (1605? - 1681), Nonconformist divine and philanthropist". Dictionary of Welsh biography. Retrieved 2023-07-22.
- ^ Collins, Sian (16 March 2017). "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK)". Cambridge University Library. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f Stephens, T.B (1998). Education in Britain, 1750-1914. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 1–12, 21–35, 77, 79, 83. ISBN 978-0-333-60512-7.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Grigg, Russell (2022). "Origins and development of the inspectorate in Wales, 1839–1907". In Keane, Ann (ed.). Watchdogs or Visionaries?: Perspectives on the History of the Education Inspectorate in Wales. University of Wales Press. ASIN B0BLCS7YDK.
- ^ Mitchell, Sally (2011). "Nonconformity". Victorian Britain An Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 546–547. ISBN 9780415669726.
- ^ a b Lloyd, Amy. "Education, Literacy and the Reading Public" (PDF). Gale Primary Sources. University of Cambridge. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 November 2020.
- ^ a b May, Trevor (1994). The Victorian Schoolroom. Great Britain: Shire Publications. pp. 26–29.
- ^ "The 1870 Education Act". UK Parliament.
- ^ a b Carradice, Phil (2013-08-12). "The Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889". BBC. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
- ^ "The 1870 Education Act". UK Parliament.
- ^ Keane, Ann (2022). "Owen Edwards, The Welsh Department and the school curriculum.". In Keane, Ann (ed.). Watchdogs or Visionaries?: Perspectives on the History of the Education Inspectorate in Wales. University of Wales Press. ASIN B0BLCS7YDK.
- ^ Morgan Thomas, Maude (1936). "IV. School Days". When I Was A Girl In Wales (PDF). New York: LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD CO.
Possible images
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