Teacher Training at St. Hild's College Durham, 1858-1910
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Durham E-Theses Teacher training at St. Hild's college Durham, 1858-1910 Boyd, Michael. V. How to cite: Boyd, Michael. V. (1977) Teacher training at St. Hild's college Durham, 1858-1910, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9798/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk TEACHER TRAINING AT ST. HILD'S COLLEGE DURHAM, 1858-1910 A thesis submitted for the decree of Master of Education in the University of Durham by MICHAEL V. D0\'D 1977 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. TABLE OF CONTENTS i CONTENTS .Abstract * Preface ii Tables iv I 1853-1858: The Founders and the Foundation 1 1. The Founders 1 2. The Foundation 13 II 1858-1870: The Durham Diocesan Female Training School 32 1. The Early Years 32 2„ Professional Training 45 3. The Revised Code 55 4. The Residential Life 78 III 1870-1888: The Durham Diocesan Training College for Schoolmistresses 94 1. The Response to the Education Act of 1870 94 2. Expansion 118 3. College Life and Work 127 IV 1888-1910: St. Ilild's College 159 1. The Cross Commission 159 2. The University Link 176 3. The Denominational Crisis 196 Postscript 216 Bibliography 220 ABSTRACT Teacher Training at St. Hild's College, Durham, 1858-1910 The period covered by this thesis sees the assumption by the State of control over the training of teachers, through its control of finance and the curriculum, the examination system and the appointment of Staff. A uniformity of practice is thus, to some degree, inevitable in the colleges. The study of St. Hild's as an individual college in this period shows, however, that initiatives are not stiflud, but that in providing the basic means, i.e. finance, the State actually provides a positive framework for the exercise of initiative in the creation of the College. Within the wider context of teacher training in this country, the study draws out two significant features of St. Hild's: the all-pervading influence of the founders of the College througho'J this period, Rowland Burdon, d.1875, H.B.Tristran, d.1906, and G.H. Hamilton, d. 1905, and secondly, the importance of the link with the University of Durham. The study of St. Ilild's as a Church College illustrates the nature of the relationship between Church and State in Education in this period, and suggests that State concern'provides a stimulus to continued voluntary effort and the expression of its distinctive concerns. Nevertheless it is a relationship of tension in which the College is caught up at national level, even though at the end of the period the tension is not so keenly felt at the local level as the College prepares the ground for its evolution from an exclusively denominational institution to one expressing wider Christian concerns. (i) I PREFACE ) J The general histories of teacher training, drawing very largely on official publications, give a reliable picture of teacher training in the period of its early development, but the picture that emerges is in some senses a stereotype and does not reveal the vitality of the institutions or of the individuals who influenced them. The determination of the founders of St. Hild's, in persisting in their endeavour to found a women's college in Durham in 1858, continued to find expression in the v;ay in which the small Committee of Management concerned itself with every aspect of the life of the College, in a much more intimate sense than that of a modern Governing Body. The College survived the crisis of the Revised Code of 1862 and settled into a pattern of existence whose intellectual outlook was limited by the field of recruitment of both staff and students, and by the social assumptions of the elementary school system. The College was nevertheless successful within its limitations, though without a clearly worked out philosophy other than recognition of the importance, of the residential life, with strictly ordered religious observance and instruction. The response of the College to the 1870 Act was two-fold: to attempt to ensure by every means at its disposal that the religious framework of education lost nothing of its significance in the eyes of the students, and to seek at local and national level to bring about expansion of Church Training College provision. The emphasis was on the distinctiveness of a Church College training. (ii) The gradual opening; up of the College to external influence in the period after the Report of the Cross Commission had as its highlights the entry of Nonconformists, and the admission of women students into the University. The letters gratefully received by the author, from students of the College of the period 1901-1912, show, however, how little the interior life of the College changed in essence before the arrival of the first won-.an Principal in 1910. (iii) TABLES i I TABLES Geographical origins of first College intake, 1859 Parental occupations of first College intake, 1859 Scottish candidates admitted to St. Mild* 1859-1870 Income and expenditure, 1859-1868 Examination results of St. Ilild's students, 1865-1870 Comparative table of time alienated per week to Religious Instruction and other subjects in the Church Colleges for women, 1866 Number of candidates from Board Schools accepted, 1880-1888 Positions of St. Ilild's students in Entrance Scholarship List, 1866-1890 Positions of B.Litt. students in the College and Scholarship Lists, 1895-1901 (iv) CHAPTER I 1853-1858: THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 1. The Founders The Durham Diocesan Female Training School welcomed its first students in August, 1858. The public reception was a quiet one, as indicated by a press notice of the time: •On Saturday last this institution was opened for the reception of pupils, when six were entered; and are, we understand, undergoing the necessary preliminary examination .... Mr. Cook, the head Government Inspector of female schools was present, accompanied by Mr. Moncrieff, the Inspector of national schools both of whom expressed themselves highly satisfied with the 2 arrangements made by the Committee.' The opening of the College came at the end of the boom period of building which began in 1839 under the stimulus of the government grants in aid of building, the provision of which indeed represented intervention by the State but was also recognition that, if an adequate number of Training College places was to be provided, the only way open to the government at the time was to assist those religious interests already at work in the field. Thus, by the time of the opening of St. Hild's, twenty-eight Colleges had been The College began life as the Durham Diocesan Female Training School. In 1870, it became the Durham Diocesan Training School for Schoolmistresses, although that title does not appear on the cover of the Annual Report until 1881. Following the division of the Diocese in 1882, the Reports from 1887 are issued in the name of the Durham Diocesan Training College for Schoolmistresses, in connection with the Dioceses of Durham o.nd Newcastle. The College became St. Hild's College in 1896. The Durham Diocesan Training School for Masters was renamed Bede College in 1886, and the College of the Venerable Hede in 1936. The two Colleges were amalgamated in 1975, to become the College of St. Hild and St. Rede. Throughout this work they will be referred to respectively as St. Hild's and Bede. Durham County Advertiser, 13.8.1858. The report is not entirely- accurate, for the sixth candidate was not admitted until September established under the auspices of the Church of England. The Roman Catholics had established Colleges at Hammersmith, for men, and in Liverpool and St. Leonards-on-Sea, for women. Westminster Training College, for men and women, had been opened by the Methodists, and the Congregationalists had established Homerton, also taking men and women. The Congregationalists, however, did not agree to accept Inspection until 1867. In addition, the British and Foreign School Society had provided a non-denominational College at Borough Road for men and women, and assisted in the provision of a College for. men in Bangor.* The institution of the pupil teacher system by the Minutes of the Committee of Council of 1846 was intended to ensure an adequate supply of capable candidates and to provide for their financial maintenance during training. Under this system, suitable pupils in the elementary schools were apprenticed at the age of thirteen, for a period of five years, to teachers recommended by the Inspectors. Pupil teachers were to help in the running of the school and to receive at least one and a half hours' instruction every day, before or after school hours, in the subjects taught in the school, and prepared for the annual examination set by the Education Department.