ADULT EDUCATION in NORTH LANCASHIRE in the SECOND QUARTER of the NINETEENTH CENTURY Michael Ian Watson M.A. (Lancaster). a Thesi
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ADULT EDUCATION IN NORTH LANCASHIRE IN THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Michael Ian Watson M.A. (Lancaster). A thesis presented for the degree of Ph.D in the University of London Institute of Education. 1988 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My interest in adult education and educational self- help was initially kindled by reading a brief account of the life and work of William Billington. I must therefore begin by acknowledging the debt I owe to 'the Blackburn Poet'. I should like to express deep gratitude to Dr. Dennis Dean, my supervisor, for his help, advice and support. Thanks are also offered to Dr. Richard Aldrich who read the manuscript and provided many useful comments. I am most grateful to the staffs of many institutions including the Lancashire Public Record Office, the Bodleian Library, the Nuffield College Library, the Libraries of the University of London, and the municipal libraries of Blackburn, Preston, Darwen, Accrington, Burnley, Nelson, Lancaster, and Haslingden. Especial thanks must be given to Jill, my wife; she has helped me most of all. Michael I. Watson 3 ABSTRACT This study describes and analyses educational self- help in North Lancashire in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It relates different kinds of adult education to local culture and to the socio-economic structure of local communities. It seeks to explain the popularity of educational self-help in this period and distinguishes between formal and informal kinds of adult education. The area consists of the hundreds of Blackburn, Amounderness and Lonsdale. Furness is excluded from this study because it was a remote rural area. It is argued that adult education was concentrated in towns : particular attention has therefore been given to Lancaster, Preston, Burnley, Blackburn, Darwen and Accrington. A wide range of printed primary sources has been used. The most important were newspapers, periodicals, parlia- mentary papers, directories, and Victorian biographies. Few relevant manuscripts have survived. Extensive use has been made of secondary sources. This study is divided into ten chapters. The first is a brief Introduction. The second examines the socio- economic structure of North Lancashire. Chapter Three is an analysis of educational self-help and includes a des- cription of mutual improvement societies. The next two chapters deal with mechanics' institutes. Chapter Six examines literary and philosophical societies, scientific 4 societies, and phrenological societies. Chapter Seven discusses the educational significance of public houses and newspaper reading rooms. The role of the churches in the provision of adult education is analysed in the next chapter. Chapter Nine describes the decline of adult education and educational self-help after 1850 and is followed by a short Conclusion. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements 2 Abstract 3 Table of Contents 5 List of Charts 7 List of Tables 8 List of Illustrations 10 Chapter One : Introduction 11 Chapter Two : The Economic and Social 20 Structure of North Lancashire Chapter Three : Individual and Collective 56 Self-Help in North Lancashire in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century Chapter Four : The Origins of the Mechanics' 109 Institutes of North Lancashire Chapter Five : The Changing Roles of the 163 Mechanics' Institutes of North Lancashire Within their Local Communities Chapter Six : The Literary and Philosophical, 216 Scientific, and Phrenological Societies of North Lancashire Chapter Seven : The Educational Functions of 264 Newsrooms and Public Houses in North Lancashire During the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century 6 Page Chapter Eight : The Church Institutes and 289 Sunday Schools of North Lancashire Chapter Nine : The Decline of Educational 323 Self-Help in North Lancashire Chapter Ten : Conclusion 339 Bibliography 348 Appendix : Maps and Graphs 369 7 LIST OF CHARTS Page Chart One : The Occupational Structure of 32 the Adult Male Population of One Preston District in 1851 Chart Two : The Occupational Structure of 32 Blackburn in 1841 Chart Three : The Scientific and Technological 126 Content of the Early Lecture Programmes of Three Mechanics' Institutes Chart Four : The Contents of the Library of 128 the Lancaster Mechanics' Institute in July 1824 Chart Five : The Contents of the Library of 179 the Burnley Mechanics' Institute in 1844 Chart Six : The Contents of the Library of 181 the Lancaster Mechanics' Institute in 1851 Chart Seven : The Contents of the Library of 252 the Preston Literary and Philosophical Society in 1843 8 LIST OF TABLES Page Table One : The Growth of Six Townships 22 Between 1821 and 1851 Table Two : Overcrowding in Six Townships 26 in 1851 Table Three : Lectures Given to the Members 87 of the Lower Chapel Mutual Improvement Society Between February 1850 and January 1851 Table Four : Subjects Debated by the Members of 88 the Darwen Mechanics' Institute's Discussion Class Between January 1840 and December 1840 Table Five : The Early Lecture Programmes of 125 Three Mechanics' Institutes Table Six : The Memberships of Six Mechanics' 168 Institutes in 1851 Table Seven : The Contents of the Library of 178 the Burnley Mechanics' Institute in 1844 Table Eight : The Contents of the Library of 180 the Lancaster Mechanics' Institute in 1851 Table Nine : Articles Donated to the Museum of 185 the Darwen Mechanics' Institute Between June 1841 and June 1842 9 Page Table Ten : Lectures Given at the Preston 191 Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge Between October 1850 and October 1851 Table Eleven : Public Lectures Provided by the 234 Preston Phrenological Society Between November 1838 and May 1839 Table Twelve : Newspapers and Journals 274 Received by Blackburn's Liberal Operative Reading Room in January 1839 10 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Illustration One : The Cannon Street 172 Building of the Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge Illustration Two : The Avenham Building of 173 the Preston Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge Illustration Three : The Premises of the 246 Preston Literary and Philosophical Institution 11 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Historians of education have often been primarily concerned to describe and analyse the development of formal, institutional educational provision and the roles of national and local government as providers of education. This approach is most clearly seen in general histories of education such as H.C. Barnard's A Short History of English Education (1947). It can also be traced in more recent and specialized works such as J. Hurt's Education in Evolution (1972). Although this book is comprehensively subtitled Church, State, Society and Popular Education 1800-1870, Hurt's main interest is the role of the state in the provision of elementary schools. 1 In 1984 P. Gardner could still claim that 'the history of elementary education remains one of the most desolate areas of modern scholar- ship.' This historian criticized the maintenance of an orientation which looks overwhelmingly to the study of institutions and of official policy. The central focus continues to be the progressive expansion and refinement of formal educational provision for the working class, through the combined - and generally laudible, efforts of Church and State. 2 A related problem is an excessive emphasis on the education of children. The major part of H.C. Barnard's book is devoted to this subject. 3 It is also significant that when this scholar discusses adult education he concen- trates on mechanics' institutes - the most formal sources. In 1962 T. Kelly criticized this approach to adult education. 12 The term 'adult education', though variously defined, in current usage nearly always implies a measure of formal instruction, a relationship of teacher and taught. Such instruction, however, is only one of the means by which adults are educated ... In earlier times the most important instru- ments of adult education were the pulpit and the press; and even today the public library, the cinema, the radio, and television are more potent influences than the classroom. 4 A similar view is taken by J.F.C. Harrison. His account of adult education in Early Victorian Britain, 1832-51 begins with the observation that, Formal schooling was not the only means to the creation of a literate society, in which a regard for knowledge and print was the hallmark of respectability. It was Gibbon who observed that every man who rises above the common level has received two educations : the first from other people, the second and more important, from him- self. The Victorians took this greatly to heart. 5 It is important to note that T. Kelly and J.F.C. Harrison were both deeply involved in adult education in the nineteen-fifties. Scholars have too often tended to interpret education in a restricted manner. Although there is considerable room for debate about the precise boundaries between formal and informal education, between education itself and the socialization process, it is difficult to deny that historians of education have tended to exaggerate the importance of institutions and the passivity of learners. As P. Gardner has remarked, 'the concept of "education" is narrowed to a known and agreed facility, to a neutral process that is simply 'done' to people both for their individual benefit and for the good of society as a whole.' 6 13 The approach so strongly criticized by P. Gardner seems to be essentially 'Whiggish'; it is primarily concerned with educational agencies which have survived or evolved rather than with those which were essentially peculiar to a past age. H. Silver has perceptively observed that only those phenomena which serve to explain what has survived in institutional form have been seen as worthy of attention. Only those structures, events, ideas, campaigns, successes, failures, in Victorian society that have meaning in twentieth century terms have been admitted to the definition of the history of education. 7 It is doubtful whether even the historical writings of Thomas Macaulay approach the extremes of Whiggishness described by H.