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Schools for the Poor in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Devon: Towards an Explanation of Variations in Local Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2019

Frances Billinge,
Gail Ham,
Judith Moss and
Julia Neville
Frances Billinge
Affiliation:
Devon History Society
Gail Ham
Affiliation:
Devon History Society
Judith Moss
Affiliation:
Devon History Society
Julia Neville*
Affiliation:
Devon History Society
*
*Julia Neville, 18 Summer Close, Exeter, EX4 8BX. E-mail: j.neville@exeter.ac.uk.
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Abstract

This article analyses elementary school development in three contrasting Devon communities during the mid-nineteenth century. This was a time of intense interest in the expansion of education amongst the labouring poor, but scholars have found it difficult to explain why schools were established in some places but not in others. With information from local sources, the authors have been able to identify the social context in which developments did (or did not) take place and the actions of the relevant interested parties. They argue that a significant variable accounting for success or failure is the availability of a local champion with the skills not only to persuade others of the merits of a school, but also to seize opportunities to further the project and manage the relationships necessary to assure its success.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 55: CHURCHES AND EDUCATION , June 2019, pp. 307 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2019 

The development of elementary schools between 1833 and 1870 has, by comparison with research on progress later in the nineteenth century, received little recent attention. The consensus is that what developed was haphazard or unpatterned, although sectarian rivalry is seen as a significant explanatory factor for school foundations. This article argues that close attention to what took place in individual localities can reveal patterns not otherwise detectable. Three case studies from communities of different kinds, all within the county of Devon, are discussed. These are Throwleigh, a small Dartmoor parish; Bovey Tracey, a market town with some industry; and Dartmouth, a historic seaport. Specifically, the article demonstrates the significance for school development of the availability of a local individual, whatever their background or religious persuasion, able to champion the establishment of a school. Such champions needed to be able to set out the proposal, seize opportunities and manage relationships to deliver the change and to maintain the initiative. Where individuals lacked one or other of these attributes, the school might never be established, or might close prematurely.

A trio of studies of the development of education for the poor in England published between 1967 and 1971 set out a broad national narrative for the development of education.Footnote 1 This narrative posited that during the first half of the nineteenth century the traditional responsibilities of those fortunate enough to be well off for the welfare of the poor were challenged by mass industrialization and by new ideas which led to legal and constitutional reforms and to the wish to improve the ‘condition of the labouring poor’. One result was the widening of access to elementary education and the growth of schools. Continuing tensions, both between religious denominations and within them, meant that a state system was slow to emerge. Even though the government undertook national surveys of education in 1818 and 1833, and allocated funds to support school building in 1833, it was not until 1870 that legislation mandating universal elementary education and the creation of schools by local boards was introduced. The establishment of a state system was strongly contested throughout by the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established ChurchFootnote 2 and the British and Foreign School Society.Footnote 3

Part of the prompt for these studies was the publication in the 1960s of a cluster of county histories of school development, including R. R. Sellman's Devon Village Schools.Footnote 4 Gillian Sutherland acknowledged these in her Historical Association pamphlet on Elementary Education: ‘The interaction of educational provision and institutions with patterns of social mobility and political behaviour are [sic] fascinatingly complex.’Footnote 5 More recently, however, scholarship relating to the history of education has been dominated by studies of particular aspects of education such as the child's experience,Footnote 6 or the Victorian teacher,Footnote 7 or institutional histories such as that of the National Society.Footnote 8 The question of an explanation for what many scholars term the ‘haphazard system’Footnote 9 of parish and private schools that developed before the 1870 Elementary Education Act requires further study. New tools such as online data collections, not available in the 1960s, can now facilitate detailed local research. This article uses three Devon case studies to examine how schools were developed in order to identify features that might explain success and failure.

The Case Studies

Empirical studies, or microhistories, of individual settlements use closely detailed observation to explore impact at a local level.Footnote 10 As Briggs noted,

It was from the periphery not from the centre that English education developed. … It is … necessary to explore local economic, social (including religious) and political structures to understand why initiatives and activities in education varied as much as they did before the passing of the Education Act of 1870.Footnote 11

Although Devon experienced little industrialization, the foundation of schools still proceeded apace in the mid-nineteenth century. Divergent beliefs about instruction in religion caused problems for school foundation and maintenance in Devon communities as they did elsewhere. The studies presented here illustrate that, while the circumstances in which the schools were or were not established were very different, taken together they illustrate the significance of the availability of individuals to ‘champion’ the foundation of particular schools.

Devon in the early nineteenth century had lost the prosperity generated by its pre-industrial wool trades and gained little in the way of other manufacturing processes. The livelihood of its inhabitants depended chiefly on farming and fishing, although the development of tourism had begun to provide alternative employment. Emigration kept population growth slow. The overall picture in the 1851 religious census suggests a rough division between Nonconformist strength in the west and Anglican dominance in the east.Footnote 12 The three communities under consideration, identified on the map (Fig. 1), are very different. Throwleigh is a small parish on the north-east shoulder of Dartmoor, with a substantial proportion of the parish being common land on the moor. It is an area best described as dispersed settlement, with Throwleigh village and Murchington hamlet the only centres of population. The population in 1851 was 481. In the 1851 religious census the Anglican church recorded 100 people attending the principal service (with no Sunday school), while Providence Chapel, a Bible Christian establishment, recorded 112 (including a Sunday School). Bovey Tracey is a historic borough in rural south Devon, whose manor was held by the earls of Devon until they sold it in 1855. By the mid-nineteenth century its rural character was changing, with the development of a pottery industry from 1843. The population in 1851 was 2,086. That year's religious census found that attendance at the parish church (including Sunday school) was 515, at the Baptist chapel it was 368 and at the Methodist chapel 160. Dartmouth, on Devon's south coast, was a substantial port with a significant coastal carrying trade and shipbuilding industry. Tourism and leisure were increasing in importance, and the Royal Navy's new school for officer cadets moved to Dartmouth in 1863. The population in 1851 was 4,450. The religious census does not provide a full picture of church attendance here, as information for one Church of England congregation is missing, but the picture was more diverse, with Anglican, Independent, Wesleyan, Baptist, Particular Baptist and Brethren congregations all recorded. In 1833, 58 per cent of children attending Sunday school did so in the two Anglican parishes, while 42 per cent attended Nonconformist Sunday schools.Footnote 13

Fig. 1.

Devon Historic Parishes Map (2002), adapted to show case study parishes. Reproduced by kind permission of Devon County Council.

Other sources used for these studies include two national education enquiries: the Digest of Parochial Returns made to the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Education of the Poor in 1818,Footnote 14 the Education Enquiry: Abstracts of Answers and Returns in 1833Footnote 15 and the complementary local replies to the Bishop's Queries before Visitation in 1821.Footnote 16 The records of the National Society and the British Society provide some information for individual schools. The studies also draw on a wide range of local sources, such as parish histories, newspapers and family documents.

Throwleigh

The rural parish of Throwleigh lies about twenty miles west of Exeter. In the early nineteenth century, the rectors were mainly absent and the parish was in the hands of curates.Footnote 17 Although the parochial returns in 1818 reported a school attended by about twelve children, whose parents paid for their instruction,Footnote 18 in 1821 the responses to the Bishop's Queries before Visitation stated that no Anglican religious instruction was taking place, and that Methodist preachers were active in the parish.Footnote 19 In 1833 there was no school in Throwleigh.Footnote 20

Between 1841 and the establishment of the board school in 1877, two successive rectors made efforts to establish a village school with the support of the National Society. Upon his appointment in 1841, Revd W. H. Schwabe immediately set up a Sunday School in the kitchen of his rectory. Within a month he was corresponding with, and applying to, the National Society for funding to build a two-storey school with classroom on the ground floor and teacher's accommodation above.Footnote 21 National Society documents record Schwabe's problems: in this poor rural parish there were no gentlemen farmers to offer financial support, and there was stiff competition from the Dissenting population:

The parish has been much neglected, the late incumbent not having been resident, … and consequently dissent has spread … a sect presumptuous of arrogating to themselves the title of Bible Christians, have built a lay meeting house in the middle of my parish and lay schoolroom in connexion with it to which the children eagerly flock, both on Sundays and weekdays.Footnote 22

Disappointed with the National Society's offer of only £20 towards his school, Schwabe left the parish for missionary work overseas, again consigning it to the hands of a curate.Footnote 23

Revd S. H. Archer, appointed in 1852, initially incurred heavy expenses in restoring the church and building himself a new parsonage, while also personally maintaining a school in the old rectory. His efforts to establish a purpose-built school are revealed in correspondence with the National Society commencing in January 1868.Footnote 24 Apart from his own support of the school, he was receiving £5 per annum from the Betton Charity.Footnote 25 The application to the National Society dated March 1868 estimated £134 to build the school, plus £8 13s professional fees. Archer asked for nothing for fitting out the school building, as he proposed to fund this himself. On the credit side, he had £20 from the diocesan board, and offered £22 13s of his own money. Having been led to believe that the National Society could offer £100 towards his school, he must have been disappointed when they offered him only £25 in April 1868. He returned the money in August, unable to raise the balance required. There were still no local landowners willing to provide financial support.

Schwabe's National Society correspondence provides evidence that the Bible Christians were running a successful day and Sunday School in the early 1840s, with about forty scholars attending the former.Footnote 26 The Bible Christians’ records show that before Providence Chapel was built meetings took place in private houses: they were often hosted by Richard Dunning Gay and his mother at Coombe Farm, and an associated school for infants was run nearby.Footnote 27 Gay was a major landholder in Throwleigh parish and a significant person within the Bible Christian community. He built the chapel and domestic accommodation at Providence Place by 1839: the house there bears a date plaque, and a commemorative portrait inside the chapel also bears this date. From 1839 until a few years before his early death in 1859, he appears in the chapel's papers, fulfilling various roles. Gay is mentioned as a circuit steward and an elder for several years between 1839 and 1848;Footnote 28 he and his wife were attenders and class leaders throughout the 1840s; in 1849 he was the superintendent and his wife one of the teachers; and in 1851 he was on the School Teachers Committee, and his wife was continuing to teach.Footnote 29 This is evidence that a school was in operation at Providence before the school room itself was built. In 1858 Gay was one of the trustees for Gooseford, Chagford and Providence.Footnote 30 In the 1851 census he is described as schoolmaster. His wife and widowed sister Agnes continued to live at Providence Place after his death, and Agnes was recorded as schoolmistress in the 1861 census.Footnote 31

From 1845 to 1855, minutes of the Sunday school teachers’ meetings record purchases of quantities of reading books, Testaments, Bibles and reward books as teaching materials, providing evidence that children were being taught to read at Providence at that time.Footnote 32 Kelly's Directory for 1856 records a school for both sexes at Providence Place, supported by R. D. Gay Esq.Footnote 33 Expenditure on class books continued through to 1866.Footnote 34 The 1867 building accounts for the school room record the sources of funding, such as donations of the site and the cost of carriage of materials and funds raised by the opening tea in September 1868, as well as the amounts paid to particular builders. A deficit of £40 was covered by a single anonymous donation.Footnote 35

The financing of the early education at Providence by chapel members with Gay's personal support and the Bible Christians’ charitable funding of their school room offer a significant contrast to the experience of Archer and Schwabe, their difficulties in raising funding and the National Society's offers of only £20 and £25.

Bovey Tracey

In 1818 the Digest of Parochial Returns showed that there was one school in Bovey Tracey, an endowed school which offered just ten places to poor children. The claim of the Digest that ‘the poor possess sufficient means of educating their children’ was therefore inaccurate.Footnote 36 But the vicar also reported an endowed school in his 1821 responses to the Bishop's Visitation Queries, and referred to ‘Anabaptist’ and Methodist teachers in the town.Footnote 37 A National School was established by the Church of England in 1834, but the poorest families could not afford it and provision for them was only available in the three church Sunday Schools.Footnote 38

In 1849 Revd the Hon. Charles Courtenay, a Queen's chaplain and brother of the earl of Devon, was appointed to the living of Bovey Tracey. This was no ordinary appointment for a small market town. Courtenay was married to one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, and his brother was Lord of the Manor.Footnote 39 As a supporter of the Oxford Movement, Courtenay pressed for the introduction of a more high church ethos in the parish church. Many of his parishioners disapproved, but he had the funds to put his vision into effect and built a new church, which was consecrated in 1853.Footnote 40 When it was dedicated, press reports complained about its ‘Tractarian and popish nature’Footnote 41 and later the local surgeon, Dr Croker, wrote to the bishop criticizing the vicar.Footnote 42

The local disputes against Tractarianism led one woman, Annie Croker, Dr Croker's daughter, to establish a nondenominational, coeducational school. She set up a British School in Bovey Tracey in 1861 and taught the children herself. In her words, the ‘Romanizing character of the instructions [sic] imparted at some neighbouring schools makes the necessity to rescue the children from error an imperative duty’.Footnote 43 She also wanted the poorest, mainly the children of the local pottery workers, to have access to education.

Opposition to Tractarianism continued, as illustrated by this press report from 1862:

The tractarian priesthood, and the silly sheep who follow the tinkling of their bell, had a flowery holiday on Monday. The day was observed as the ‘dedication’ of St John's – what to [sic] may best be learned from the altars, super-altars, reredos, crosses, candles, flowers, and ecclesiastical millinery, offending protestant eyes at every turn.Footnote 44

Courtenay then had another vision, to help so-called ‘fallen’ women. At his invitation the Clewer sisters of the Community of St John the Baptist, one of the most fashionable sisterhoods, set up a Devon House of Mercy in the parish in 1863.Footnote 45 The Clewer community had Tractarian leanings and now they effectively had a convent in Bovey Tracey. The local press criticized its popish nature and Annie Croker was angry that Clewer sisters taught in the National School. Despite Croker's antagonism, the history of sisterhoods shows that they were often pioneering women who escaped from female domesticity and trivial social activity, even taking their work to India.Footnote 46

In 1865 Annie Croker complained that pauperized mothers were being offered an extra payment each year if they kept their children from Dissenting places of education.Footnote 47 Her school newsletter described her own success – ‘The Puseyites … look jealously’ on her work – and referred to the school ‘stemming the tide of Tractarianism’.Footnote 48 She did not have the landed gentry as visitors or board members, but she did have the goodwill of the local pottery owner, John Divett, who employed most of her pupils’ parents and provided the land for her to build a new school in 1866.Footnote 49

Dartmouth

In 1818, Dartmouth had neither a National nor a British School, and both the historic charitable endowments in Dartmouth intended to provide free education had lapsed. Nonetheless, in the town's three administrative parishes there were twenty-three schools, attended by 453 children, perhaps a third to a half of all children in the town.Footnote 50 The 1833 Education Enquiry listed twelve ‘daily schools’ and two ‘infant schools’ across the three parishes, attended by 429 children.Footnote 51 Though not identified as such, there was by then at least one National School.Footnote 52 In 1823 John Seale (1752–1824) gave to the parish of St Petrox a site for a Sunday School building, and the gift was confirmed by his son, John Henry Seale (1780–1844).Footnote 53 Public subscriptions funded the building, and by 1831 a National School had been established.Footnote 54

It is not unusual that a major landowner should provide a school in his parish, but philanthropy may not have been John Seale's only motivation. Dartmouth was controlled by the Holdsworth family; they managed the borough for the government, exercising extensive patronage.Footnote 55 Excluded from these advantages, John Seale became the leader of local political opposition to the Holdsworth regime, and enthusiastic for parliamentary reform.Footnote 56 The family's role in endowing the school site thus acquired political significance. The Holdsworths were strongly against reform, and had little interest in education. The endowment may have helped to reinforce the Seale family's position as their opponents.Footnote 57 John Henry Seale finally became Dartmouth's MP after the 1832 Reform Act, and held the seat until he died in 1844. Politics certainly influenced the involvement of his son, Sir Henry Paul Seale (1806–97), in the development of Dartmouth's British School, although he did not go into Parliament himself. Sir Henry Paul Seale worked with Dartmouth's new Liberal MP, George Moffatt (1807–78),Footnote 58 and the Nonconformist communities to provide new buildings for the school.Footnote 59

Both Moffatt and Sir Henry were keen supporters of education for the poor. Sir Henry was an Anglican, but disliked what he called ‘the intolerant spirit of religious exclusiveness’; British Schools, he thought, were ‘unsectarian’, unlike National Schools.Footnote 60 But the project was not just about education. Moffatt thought the town he represented should have the prestige of ‘large handsome schoolrooms’, prominently positioned.Footnote 61 Narrower politics also applied. The British School building included a large room for political meetings because the Conservatives excluded the Liberals from other public venues. What the Dartmouth Chronicle called ‘party spirit’ was strong: ‘the promoters [of the British School] being principally liberals, the conservatives, with but few exceptions, declined to assist, and in some instances, even opposed the scheme to the utmost’.Footnote 62 Moffatt's money and close involvement enabled the building to open in 1848.Footnote 63 However, in 1852 politics ended the partnership. Moffatt and Sir Henry disagreed over free trade; Moffatt resigned his seat and Sir Henry abandoned the Liberals.Footnote 64

Because the British School was closely linked to the Liberal cause, the new Conservative MP did not take on his predecessor's financial commitment.Footnote 65 Neither did Sir Henry or anyone else. The changing political climate led to a reduction in support; by 1855, twenty-five subscribers were supporting the British School, whereas fifty-one were supporting the National School.Footnote 66 The building closed temporarily, and although determined fundraising cleared the debt in 1856, the school never achieved its full potential.

However, the 1851 education census showed that many children in Dartmouth did not attend any school.Footnote 67 Richard Browne Cleland (1809–92), an ex-Cunard steamship captain, and mayor in 1860, set up an ‘Evening Free School’, offering free education to the poorest children.Footnote 68 The school was funded by donations and ran for at least three years; apart from the superintendent, teachers were unpaid volunteers. About seventy children attended each year.Footnote 69 In contrast to the British School, the initiative was supported across the political and religious spectrum. With the right leadership, therefore, people in Dartmouth could and did work together successfully.

Conclusion

The climate of the early Victorian period fostered the willingness to extend an elementary education to all children of the labouring poor. Development of appropriate schools was no longer exclusively the province of religious organizations; it attracted parliamentary attention and resources, and drew in employers as well as philanthropists. However, the need to secure adequate local resources even when national grants were available meant that not all proposals succeeded.

The lack of schools in poor rural parishes was clearly not a priority for the diocese of Exeter at this period. The Diocesan Board of Education, established in 1839, worked through local boards set up within the archdeaconries. Their initial decision was to secure schools ‘in the principal towns’.Footnote 70 On the Exeter Local Board, for example, to which Throwleigh was assigned, members were more concerned with sorting out Exeter's schools and creating a commercial school for the middle classes than with the needs of peripheral villages for elementary education.Footnote 71 Where there was a dynamic individual like Revd James Holman Mason of Widecombe, the ‘Bishop of the Moor’, and a wealthy inhabitant of a generous turn, like Mrs Larpent who paid for the school at Leusdon, provision could be made, even though the quality of the teaching in these tiny schools led one inspector to refer to them as ‘hedge schools’.Footnote 72 In Throwleigh, however, where the Bible Christians had established a robust congregation capable of financing their children's education, the two successive Anglican rectors, whilst committed personally to developing a school, could not raise sufficient funds from the Diocesan Board, the Anglicans in the parish or the National Society to complement the money they were prepared personally to invest.

In Bovey Tracey the development of the National School might have proceeded on conventional lines, under a wealthy vicar willing not only to provide a subscription but subsequently to resource his preferred developments. However, doctrinal differences precipitated a split within his congregation, and abhorrence of his Tractarian views led to the emergence of an unlikely entrepreneur, Annie Croker. She was one of the unmarried, childless women of the ‘middling sort’ who had the time and could command the money to carry out her community vision. In this respect she was like other pioneering women in Victorian England.Footnote 73 Unlike Mrs Larpent, mentioned above, Croker was not just a passive investor in good works but an actual agent of change. She reacted against Tractarianism and perhaps, as her work continued, she was also spurred on by the counter-example of the female leadership of the local sisterhood. Susan Mumm has suggested that because of the sisterhoods other laywomen found themselves able to expand their roles within Anglicanism with less opposition and less scrutiny. ‘This can be seen as an example of how the advanced guard allows the centre of gravity to gradually shift; in this case to a more woman-oriented direction, although with great difficulty and considerable slowness.’Footnote 74

Jennifer Ayto has argued that it was difficult to measure the contribution of Victorian women to the establishment of schools for the poor. In Bovey Tracey the evidence is clear: the children of the poor benefited from a female philanthropist with a great deal of drive.Footnote 75 This is a small town example of the evolution of feminization in Anglicanism which supports Mumm's view that a religious impulse such as the Oxford Movement could have positive effects upon the lives of women, even when they were opposed to what it represented, an argument which some historians have been slow to recognize.Footnote 76 Strong points out that Anglican diversity was not just about divisions, and that antagonism invigorated both sides.Footnote 77

In Dartmouth, a community significantly larger than Throwleigh or Bovey Tracey, the development of both the National and the British Schools demonstrates a party political dimension absent from the other communities. Overt support for the National School may have been one tactic in the efforts of the Seale family to challenge the long-standing Tory control of the borough and build support for reform. The development of a British School for nondenominational teaching became a totemic Liberal cause to which both Sir Henry Seale and George Moffatt were attached. Their considerable influence gave momentum to the process, and when they fell out and removed their support from the school, it foundered. In contrast, Richard Cleland seems to have tried to overcome ‘party spirit’, and successfully involved leading members of Dartmouth's political and religious communities in his scheme. His success may have been because he was widely liked, or because the scheme was philanthropic, with no political dimension. However, the limited evidence suggests that the support he created for such a school evaporated soon after he ceased to lead it. It appears that without Cleland to champion it, the initiative could not survive.

The evidence from these studies suggests that inter- and intra-sectarian tensions were not the only explanatory factor for the haphazard pattern of elementary education provision before 1870. A further factor is the haphazard availability of local champions. It is unsurprising that so much of the development of schools for the poor in the early nineteenth century rested on the actions of individuals. Even when government grants were introduced, it remained the responsibility of local people to create and at least part-fund the premises and the teaching. A community leader or ‘entrepreneur’ was required, someone who could champion the idea that a school was needed, seize opportunities, such as the availability of premises or grants, and manage relationships to deliver the change.Footnote 78 These individuals can only be uncovered by detailed research at a local level: more local studies will surely identify similar community leaders elsewhere.

Footnotes

This article has been produced by members of Devon History Society undertaking a research project on early Victorian schools in Devon.

1 Sturt, Mary, The Education of the People: A History of Primary Education in England and Wales in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1967); Sutherland, Gillian, Elementary Education in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1971); Lawson, John and Silver, Harold, A Social History of Education in England (London, 1973).

2 The National Society was established in 1811. At that time, whether religious education should be part of any school curriculum, and whether the poor should be educated, were hotly debated. In 1809 the perceived need for religious education of the urban and industrialized poor led to the funding of church schools through Queen Anne's Bounty. This, coupled with the interdependence of church and state, led some high church Tories to form a society ‘to instruct and educate the Poor in suitable learning, works of industry and the principles of the Christian Religion according to the Established Church’. Schools in industrialized towns and teacher training were the initial priority. Grants to build schools were made available under strict conditions which necessitated part-funding by the local community: see Louden, Lois, Distinctive and Inclusive: The National Society and Church of England Schools 1811–2011 (London, 2012), 12–17; and, in this volume, Nicholas Dixon, ‘The Political Dimension of the Education of the Poor in the National Society's Church of England Schools, 1811–37’, 290–306.

3 The British Society was established following publication in 1803 of Joseph Lancaster's Improvements in Education as it respects the Industrious Classes of the Community, drawing on his practical experience of nondenominational teaching. Re-founded in 1814, it continued to promote the foundation of nondenominational schools: see Richard Aldrich, ‘The British and Foreign School Society, Past and Present’, History of Education Researcher 91 (2013), 5–12.

4 R. R. Sellman, Devon Village Schools in the Nineteenth Century (Newton Abbot, 1967). Sellman, who was interested in the role of local government, devotes significantly more attention to the period after 1870 than to earlier years.

5 Sutherland, Elementary Education, 46, refers to Rex C. Russell, A History of Schools & Education in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, 1800–1902, 3 parts (Lincoln, 1965), Parts 1 and 2; Brian Simon, ed., Education in Leicestershire, 1540–1940 (Leicester, 1968); Marion Johnson, Derbyshire Village Schools in the Nineteenth Century (Newton Abbot, 1970); R. J. Smith, ‘Education, Society and Literacy: Nottinghamshire in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’ University of Birmingham Historical Journal 12 (1969), 42–56.

6 Pamela Horn, The Victorian and Edwardian Schoolchild (Stroud, 1989); Roderick Gordon, Victorian Education and the Ideal of Womanhood (Abingdon, 2016).

7 For example, Marianne Larsen, The Making and Shaping of the Victorian Teacher: A comparative new Cultural History (New York, 2011); Rowland William Rich, The Training of Teachers in England and Wales during the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 2015).

8 Louden, Distinctive and Inclusive.

9 This description appears to have first been used by Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (London, 1961), 156.

10 For a discussion of microhistorical techniques, see the early work of Barry Reay, Microhistories: Demography, Society and Culture in Rural England, 1800–1930 (Cambridge, 1996), 259–62. More recent contributions include Matt Peltonen, ‘What is Micro in Microhistory?’, in Hans Renders and Binny De Haan, eds, Theoretical Discussions of Biography: Approaches from History, Microhistory, and Life Writing (Leiden, 2014), 103–18; Zoltán Simon, ‘Microhistory: In General’, JSH 49 (2015), 237–48.

11 Asa Briggs, ‘Select and Reject: Aspects of the Study of the History of Education’, in idem, The Collected Essays of Asa Briggs, 3: Serious Pursuits: Communications and Education (London, 1991), 231–45, at 236.

12 Bruce Coleman, ‘The Nineteenth Century: Nonconformity’, in Nicholas Orme, ed., Unity and Variety: A History of the Church in Devon and Cornwall (Exeter, 1991), 129–56.

13 1833 data has been used as data is missing from the 1851 census: see Education Enquiry. Abstract of the Answers and Returns made pursuant to an Address of the House of Commons, dated 24th May 1833. England, 1: Bedford – Lancaster (London, 1833), 197 (St Petrox), 203, 209 (Townstal and St Saviour), online at: <https://parlipapers.proquest.com/parlipapers/result/pqpdocumentview?accountid=10792&groupid=105147&pgId=0c9056da-c0e3-43f7-ad19-a86ed9b2af3e>, accessed 12 May 2018.

14 Select Committee on the Education of the Poor (1818), Digest of Parochial Returns, vol. 1, (London, 1819), online at: <https://parlipapers.proquest.com/parlipapers/result/pqpdocumentview?accountid=10792&groupid=105147&pgId=f37a4e0e-4727-4d1e-bafd-2d471908a719>, accessed 12 May 2018.

15 Education Enquiry 1833.

16 Michael Cook, ed., The Diocese of Exeter in 1821: Bishop Carey's Replies to Queries before Visitation, 2: Devon, Devon and Cornwall Record Society n.s. 4 (Exeter, 1960), 174.

17 Clergy of the Church of England Database, online at: <http://db.theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/locations/index.jsp>, Throwleigh, accessed 22 July 2017; London, CERC, National Society Operational Records, School Files, NS/7/1/12604, Throwleigh.

18 Digest 1818, 187.

19 Cook, ed., Replies, 174.

20 Education Enquiry 1833, 208.

21 CERC, NS/7/1/12604, Throwleigh.

22 Footnote Ibid.

23 Emmie Varwell, Throwleigh: The Story of a Dartmoor Village (Throwleigh, 1938), 132.

24 CERC, NS/7/1/12604, Throwleigh.

25 The Ironmonger's Company managed a portion of Betton Charity funds to support Church of England charity schools. The funds were distributed through the dioceses, each chosen school receiving between £5 and £20. The company decided which schools should receive payment: City of London Livery Companies Commission, Report on the Charities of the Ironmongers’ Company, vol. 4 (London, 1884), 517–38, online at: <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/livery-companies-commission/vol4>, accessed 18 November 2015.

26 CERC, NS/7/1/12604, Throwleigh.

27 Throwleigh, Throwleigh Archive, ‘Providence Methodist Church 1839–1989: Commemorative Programme celebrating 150 Years’, digital copy.

28 Exeter, Devon Heritage Centre (hereafter: DHC), 2200D/0/1, Chagford Methodist Circuit 1st Deposit, Circuit Stewards Account Book, 1827–48.

29 DHC, 2200D/0/28, Chagford Methodist Circuit 1st Deposit, Minute Book of Elders’ Meetings, 1842–55.

30 DHC, 2200D/2/16, Chagford Methodist Circuit 2nd Additional Deposit, Chagford Chapel Account Book, 1842–46.

31 1851 Census, HO107/1885/477/5, Throwleigh; 1861 Census, RG09/1468/15/9, Throwleigh, ‘Find My Past’, online at: <http://www.findmypast.co.uk>, accessed 27 February 2017.

32 Elders’ Minutes, 1842–55, 28.

33 Kelly's Post Office Directory of Devonshire (London, 1856), 298.

34 DHC, 2200D/0/2, Chagford Methodist Circuit 1st Deposit, Circuit Stewards Account and Quarterly Minute Book, 1848–67.

35 DHC, 2200D/6/2, Chagford Methodist Circuit 6th Additional Deposit, Providence Chapel Throwleigh, 1839–1917.

36 Digest 1818, 153; Endowed Charities (County of Devon) Parish of Bovey Tracey, Charity Commission (London, 1907), 3–5.

37 Cook, ed., Replies, 26–7.

38 Education Enquiry 1833, 172; Charity Commission Enquiry, 3–5.

39 The Globe, 6 June 1849, 3.

40 Western Courier, 22 June 1853, 8.

41 Western Times (hereafter: WT), 3 June 1854, 7.

42 WT, 24 June 1854, 7.

43 Uxbridge, Brunel University London Archives (hereafter: BULA), British and Foreign School Society Papers, BFSS/1/7/2/2/3/4, Annie Croker to Mr Wilkes (BFSS secretary), 30 December 1865. The authors are grateful to Jan Wood for drawing this reference to their attention.

44 WT, 21 June 1862, 2.

45 Valerie Bonham, A Joyous Service: The Clewer Sisters and their Work (Windsor, 1989), 10; Janice Wallace, ‘The Devon House of Mercy, Bovey Tracey, 1863– 1940’, Transactions of the Devonshire Association 133 (2001), 191–216, at 209.

46 Susan Mumm, Stolen Daughters, Virgin Mothers (Leicester, 1999), ix–x, 4, 8.

47 BULA, BFSS/1/7/2/2/3/4, Annie Croker to the secretary, 3 June 1865.

48 Bovey Tracey, Bovey Tracey Heritage Trust, Anne Croker, ‘Little Ones in Devonshire’, articles from the British School, March and May 1866, pasted into Anne Croker's scrapbook, 1865–1900.

49 WT, 24 July 1866, 5.

50 Digest 1818, 181 (St Petrox), 182 (St Saviour), 188 (Townstal). The Townstal return includes two ‘classical schools’ omitted from the summary table, presumably because they were considered not to be for poor children.

51 Education Enquiry 1833, 203, 209. The apparent drop in provision may be misleading, as it is difficult to match the schools reported to schools recorded in other sources.

52 Presumed to be the ‘daily school’ in St Petrox parish for ‘66 males and 59 females’, as this closely matches the figures given for the St Petrox National School in 1831.

53 A panel in St Petrox Church, Dartmouth, records the gift.

54 CERC, NS 7/7/1/1, National Society Operational Records, Church School Inquiry, c.1831, 190.

55 Terry Jenkins, ‘Dartmouth’, in D. R. Fisher, ed., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1820–1832, 7 vols (Cambridge, 2009), online at: <http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/dartmouth>, accessed 11 May 2018.

56 Freeman, Ray, Dartmouth and its Neighbours (Dartmouth, 2007), 131.

57 According to Freeman (ibid. 139), John Seale also founded a school for the poor in Townstal in 1820. However, it does not appear in National Society records, and is not apparently included in the 1833 return.

58 Moffatt, a wealthy London merchant, stood for Dartmouth in 1844, with Sir Henry's support, but narrowly failed to secure the seat. However, the incoming Conservative MP, Joseph Somes, died in 1845, and Moffatt won the resulting by-election.

59 List of British Schools (England and Wales), 1897 (London, 1897), 17; Robson's Directory 1838 for Dartmouth shows the school in rented rooms in Coles Court.

60 WT, 16 May 1846, 3.

61 WT, 30 August 1845, 4.

62 Dartmouth Chronicle, 24 March 1871, 2.

63 WT, 22 July 1848, 7. George Moffatt contributed £400; Sir Henry laid the foundation stone.

64 Morning Chronicle, 22 March 1852, 3; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 17 July 1852, 3.

65 Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Herbert (1793–1861), MP for Dartmouth 1852–7.

66 ‘Notice of Subscribers to British School’, Dartmouth Chronicle, April 1855, 4; ‘Notice of Subscribers to National School Year commencing 1st January 1855’, Dartmouth Chronicle, April 1856, 2.

67 Census of Great Britain, 1851: Education, England and Wales, Report and Tables (London, 1854), cxciv–ccv (Table T), cxcvi–cxcvii (Dartmouth); this reported 286 children on the books of the two ‘public’ schools; 563 children on the books of fifteen schools in total. Dartmouth was reported upon as a municipal borough; the other communities in this study were not included in this exercise.

68 Cleland himself once called this project a ‘Ragged School’, suggesting he may have been inspired by the ragged school movement (ragged schools were charitable organizations providing completely free education to the poorest children). Other than this reference, however, his initiative was not linked, so far as can be established, with the Ragged School Union, or with ragged schools elsewhere.

69 Dartmouth Chronicle, 2 April 1861, 2; 1 April 1862, 4; 2 February 1863, 4.

70 Reports of the Exeter Diocesan Board of Education, 1839–1860, Preliminary Proceedings (Exeter, 1839), 11; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 27 April 1839, 3.

71 Reports of the Exeter Diocesan Board of Education, First Annual Report (Exeter, 1840), 24.

72 Stanbrook, Mary, Old Dartmoor Schools remembered (Brixham, 1991), 68, 87, 73.

73 Mumm, Susan, ‘The Feminization of Nineteenth-Century Anglicanism’, in Strong, Rowan, ed., OHA, 3: Partisan Anglicanism and its Global Expansion 1829–c.1914 (Oxford, 2017), 440–55, at 443.

74 Footnote Ibid.

75 Jennifer Ayto, ‘The Contribution by Women to the Social and Economic Development of the Victorian Town in Hertfordshire’ (PhD thesis, University of Hertfordshire, 2012), 179.

76 Susan Mumm, ‘Lady Guerrillas of Philanthropy; Anglican Sisterhoods in Victorian England’ (PhD thesis, University of Sussex, 1992), 31.

77 Rowan Strong, ‘Introduction’ to idem, ed., OHA 3, 1–23, at 15.

78 Characteristics of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ described in Kingdon, John, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, 2nd edn (New York, 2003), 122–4.

Ibid
Ibid
Figure 0

Fig. 1.Devon Historic Parishes Map (2002), adapted to show case study parishes. Reproduced by kind permission of Devon County Council.