Socio-Economic Factors and the Schooling of Working-Class Children Aged Seven and Under in Seven Areas of North London

!IV -i- SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS AND THE SCHOOLING OF WORKING-CLASS CHILDREN AGED SEVEN AND UNDER IN SEVEN AREAS OF NORM LONDON, 1800-1851 NAIMA BROWNE Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Education, University of London Institute of Education. 1990 ABSTRACT In the 1850s publicly-aided schools for infants co-existed with private working-class schools, some of which also catered for very young children. During the first half of the nineteenth century parents of infant-aged children could decide whether or not to send their child to school; if they opted for schooling they might then have had to make decisions about the type of school to use. This investigation set out to establish whether working-class parents' decisions regarding the schooling of their very young children were influenced by a range of socio-economic factors, and whether parents with certain life-styles were more favourably disposed towards the public infant schools than towards the much maligned private working-class schools. This investigation examined the school attendance of infants in relation to a range of socio-economic factors, which included parental occupation, whether or not the mother was at work, the employment and schooling patterns of older children in the family, the parents' religion and country of birth, the size of the family and the ages of the children concerned. The autonomy and independence of members of the working-class was acknowledged throughout the study by emphasising the parents' role in determining the pattern of their children's education. Seven small areas of North London were chosen for in-depth analysis. The areas differed in terms of their social make-up and the availability of schooling facilities. The 1851 census enumerators' returns were used in order to recreate a picture of school attendance in the survey area, and school attendance was analysed in relation to the socio-economic profiles of the families. The study concludes with a summary of the findings and a comparison between the school attendance patterns in the seven areas. ACKWWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank all those whose help made this study possible: the archivists at both the National School Society and the British and Foreign School Society, the librarians responsible for the Local History Collections in the Westminster, Marylebone, Tower Hamlets and Chelsea and Kensington Libraries. Thanks also to the staff at both the Institute Library and the University Library. I would like to thank my tutor Dr. Richard Aldrich for his help and encouragement. Thanks also to my family, in particular my parents, for their interest, help and understanding. Finally, I would especially like to thank Philip Browne for all his invaluable support. -iv- TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii INTRODUCiiCN 1 CHAPTERS ONE : RESEARCH ISSUES RELATED TO THE INVESTIGATION 10 TWO : THE PATTERN OF EDUCATIONAL PROVISION FOR WORKING-CLASS CHILDREN AGED SEVEN AND UNDER IN NORTH LONDON 1800-1859: The geographic and temporal location of schools 46 THREE : SCHOOL PROVISION AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN THE INNER WARD OF ST. GEORGE'S HANOVER SQUARE, WESTMINSTER 105 FOUR : SCHOOL PROVISION AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN PART OF SOUTH MARYLEBONE 169 FIVE : SCHOOL PROVISION AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN PART OF CHRIST CHURCH, SPITALFIELDS 219 SIX : SCHOOL PROVISION AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN THE CHURCH LANE AREA OF ST. GILES 283 SEVEN : SCHOOL PROVISION AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN PART OF CHELSEA 336 EIGHT : SCHOOL PROVISION AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN PART OF ST. LUKE'S, ST. PANCRAS 381 NINE : SCHOOL PROVISION AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN PART OF PART OF HOMERTON AND HACKNEY 416 TEN : CONCLUSION 434 Appendix : List of North London Schools Catering for Children Aged Seven and Under 491 BIBLIOGRAPHY 509 -1 - INTRODUCTION. The education of young members of society is not a mechanical process immune from social influences such as religious beliefs, politics, the value placed on different kinds of knowledge and the attitudes about an individual's role in society. Decisions that are made regarding the nature of educational provision reflect the values of society. Societal values are dynamic and whilst they may be one of the agents of change in society, they are themselves formed or modified as a result of changes in society. 'Educational history, therefore, is only true to life when it is treated as a chapter of social history." Fifty years after Tawney made this comment, educational historians have increasingly begun to recognise education as an integral part of society. Current research has tended to focus more on the effect on education of religion, politics and community values rather than offering accounts of the administration of education and quantitative studies on the numbers of schools and pupils.2 This investigation into the education of children aged seven and under in London during the 1.Tawney, R.H., 'Review of The Charity School Movement by M.G. Jones', Economic History Review, Vol. IX, 1938-39, p. 202. 2.For example the collections of McCann, P. (ed.), Popular Education and Socialization in the Nineteenth Century, 1977; Reeder, D. (ed.), Urban Education in the Nineteenth Century, 1977; Hurt, J. (ed.), Childhood, Youth and Education in the Late Nineteenth Century, 1981. -2 - first half of the nineteenth century was based upon the view that the study of education is inseparable from the study of society. The first section of this chapter examines the scope and significance of the study and the remaining two sections outline some of the research problems caused by the orientation of the investigation. The Scope and Orientation of the Investigation. This investigation focused on the education of working-class 'under eights' in North London between 1800 and 1851. There has been much debate about the validity of the criteria used when assigning individuals or groups to particular social classes.' For the purposes of this investigation the category 'working class' included all those adults who were skilled manual workers, semi-skilled manual workers and unskilled workers. Small scale employers, even those employing only one other adult, were categorised as lower middle class alongside workers such as 1. See for example, Thompson, E.P., The Making of the English Working Class, 1968; Neale, R.S., 'Class and Class Conciousness in Early Nineteenth Century England - Three Classes or Five?' in Victorian Studies, Vol. 12, 1968, pp. 5-32; Baker, R.P., 'Labour History, Social Science and the Concept of the Working Class' in Labor History, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1973, pp. 98-104. -3 police officers, clerks and shopkeepers.1 Children were categorised on the basis of their father's and/or mother's occupation. Within the working class there was a great deal of heterogeneity in terms of economic situation, political views and attitudes towards education. This is discussed in later chapters. Earlier research into the education of working-class children during the first half of the nineteenth century has been invaluable in a number of ways. It has provided present-day historians with a wealth of information relating to the development of educational facilities through time, the beginnings of state intervention, the role of the Church in providing schools for the working class and the views of the middle and upper classes about the educational facilities for the working class.2 Many questions remained unanswered, however. How did the educational provision fit in with the everyday lives of those for whom it was provided? What did the parents and 1.A similar system of categorisation has been used by other historians: for example, Marsden, W.E., 'Social environment, school attendance and educational achievement in a Merseyside town 1870-1900' in McCann, P. (ed.), Popular Education and Socialization in the Nineteenth Century, 1977. 2.For example, Sturt, M., The Education of the People, 1967; Murphy, J., Church, State and Schools in Britain, 1971; Whitbread, N., Evolution of the Nursery and Infant School, 1972; Lawson, J. and Silver, H., A Social History of Education in England, 1973. -4 - children think about the schools and their educational aims? Was children's attendance at school dependent upon their parents' occupation, religion, political views or economic condition, or was it a combination of these and other factors? Recently educational historians have begun to try to answer many of these questions but mainly in relation to children above the ages of seven or with respect to schooling in the latter half of the nineteenth century.' The education of children below the age of eight is an aspect of educational history that needs further investigation. A fair amount is already known about the development of public infant schools2 in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century and of the contributions made to early education during this period by figures such as Robert Owen and 1.Gardner, P., The Lost Elementary Schools of Victorian England, 1984; Marsden, W.E., 'Social environment, school attendance and educational achievement in a Merseyside town 1870-1900' in McCann, P. (ed.), op cit. 1977, pp. 193-230; Marsden, W.E., Unequal Educational Provision in England and Wales: The Nineteenth Century Roots, 1987. 2.The term 'public infant school' is used here to denote schools for children below the age of eight which were subject to external control. -5 - Samuel Wilderspin.1 Little however is known about parents' responses to these infant schools. In addition little is also known about the alternative forms of early childhood educational facilities, an example of which was the the working-class private school.2 Writers, politicians and educationists of the time were aware of the existence of private working-class schools but frequently chose to ignore their existence when formulating figures that dealt with educational provision.3 Possibly, this was because of the widespread opinion held by the middle- and 1.For example: Rusk, R.R., A History of Infant Education, 1933; Raymont, T., A History of the Education of Young Children, 1937; McCann, W.P., 'Samuel Wilderspin and the Early Infant Schools' in British Journal of Educational Studies (hereafter B.J.E.S.), Vol.

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