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They ‘Come for a Lark’: London Ragged School Union Teaching Advice in Practice, 1844–70
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2019
Abstract
Ragged schools provided a free education to impoverished children in the mid-nineteenth century. Inspired by religious fervour and presided over by Lord Shaftesbury, that figurehead of evangelical Anglicans, the schools taught the most destitute to read and write, as well as about the God who loved them. By 1870 the London schools alone recorded an average attendance of 32,231 children. The missionary aspect of the classroom shaped the recommended character of the teacher. Teachers were to be benevolent, while corporal punishment was discouraged. Teaching advice demonstrates that the classroom could prove difficult terrain and suggests that the respect of scholars was hard-won and highly valued. With children attending freely, it was necessary that they desired to return. The children were consumers whom teachers sought to please; their responses determined the success or failure of lessons. This article responds to recent scholarship that interprets the teachers as imposed and powerful agents. By focusing on advice given to teachers, it highlights both how the children were perceived and the impact evangelical theology had upon ideas regarding the teacher's character. Largely overlooked by church historians, the ragged school movement embodies the profound impact of evangelical Christians on popular education in the nineteenth century.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2019
Footnotes
This article builds on the findings of my Religion and Relationships in Ragged Schools: An Intimate History of Educating the Poor, 1844–1870, forthcoming in Routledge's Studies in Evangelicalism series during 2019.
References
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32 ‘Papers, Original and Selected: The Liverpool Ragged School Union’, RSUM, March 1854, 64.
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51 This figure is given in a handwritten note from John Kirk, the secretary of the LRSU at the time of Ware's death in December 1895, enclosed in SHC 1585/7, Ware, Journal.
52 Obituary in The Record, pasted ibid. While local newspapers presented versions of the same syndicated obituary, those published in major newspapers and evangelical journals were composed by different individuals and thus had different emphases.
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54 ‘Local Sport’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 6 January 1896, 4, ‘Births, Deaths, Marriages and Obituaries’, Leeds Mercury, 7 January 1896, 8.
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57 Untitled article, Derby Mercury, 24 January 1849, 2; ‘Notes on Popular Movements’, Northern Star and National Trades’ Journal, 9 December 1848, 4.
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59 SHC 1585/1, Ware, Journal, 8 December 1850, 15 December 1850.
60 SHC 1585/2, Ware, Journal, 16 November 1851.
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62 ‘Visits to the London Ragged Schools’.
63 ‘Correspondence’, RSUM, March 1849, 55.
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65 ‘Bristol Ragged School’, The Observer, 25 January 1847, 3.
66 ‘Visits to the London Ragged Schools’; SHC 1585/7, Ware, Journal, anonymous letter, 18 June 1848.
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68 ‘Visits to the London Ragged Schools’.
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78 ‘Visits to the London Ragged Schools’.
79 ‘Correspondence’, RSUM, March 1849, 55. It is possible that the boy who attempted to ‘stab the superintendent’ is the same boy mentioned in the Daily News, although this cannot be verified.
80 ‘Correspondence: How to Treat the Roughs’, RSUM, January 1863, 20.
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82 SHC 1585/7, Ware, Journal, 27 November 1864.
83 SHC 1585/6, Ware, Journal, 6 January 1861, 23 August 1863.
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85 Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, 17–18; Gardner, Lost Elementary Schools.
86 ‘Plans and Progress: Hints to Parties thinking about establishing Industrial Schools for the Outcast and Destitute’, RSUM, July 1849, 128.
87 The Third Annual Report of the Ragged School Union, established for the Support of Free Schools for the Destitute Poor of London and its Suburbs (London, 1847), 6.
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89 ‘Teachers’ Column: How to Win a Child's Heart’, RSUM, February 1865, 43.
90 Following the 1857 Industrial Schools Act, ‘criminal’ children could be committed by the order of a magistrate to attend an industrial school. As some ragged schools also qualified as industrial schools, they often received such children. Nevertheless, the focus of ragged school pedagogical advice was on those scholars attending voluntarily.
91 Hall, Sought and Saved, 27.
92 Ibid. 39.
93 Gardner, Lost Elementary Schools, 174.
94 ‘The Teachers’ Column: Delegates’ Meeting’, RSUM, June 1856, 122.
95 SHC 1585/2, Ware, Journal, 11 and 25 July 1852.
96 Ibid. 21 November, 26 December 1852.
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102 SHC 1585/1, Ware, Journal, 15 July 1851.
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105 SHC 1585/1, Ware, Journal, 17 February 1850.
106 SHC 1585/5, Ware, Journal, 3 May 1858.
107 SHC 1585/7, Ware, Journal, 22 October 1864.
108 Hall, Sought and Saved, 49.
109 ‘The Teachers’ Column: Prayer in Ragged Schools’, RSUM, January 1868, 19.
110 ‘The Shoeblack Brigade’, Punch, 21 February 1857, 80.
111 SHC 1585/1, Ware, Journal, 7, 21 July 1850.
112 Ibid. 30 June 1850.
113 SHC 1585/6, Ware, Journal, 2 November 1862.