'Nurseries of ignorance'? Private adventure and dame schools for the working classes in nineteenth-century Wales

History of Education

Volumn 34, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 243-262

  Grigg, G R ^a  

^a TRINITY COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 27944507396     PISSN: 0046760X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00467600500065126     Document Type: Review

References (100)

1. Annual Report of the Committee of Council on Education, 1875-76, 395 (hereafter, CCE Reports)
2. Advertisement dated 1 November 1871, CAS scrapbook (Carmarthenshire Record Office).
3. See R. A. Griffiths, Singleton Abbey and the Vivians of Swansea (Llandysul: Gwasg Gomer, 1988), 39.
4. Between 1841 and 1851 'schoolmistress' Elizabeth Evans occupied the cottage, with her husband who worked as a farm labourer. B. Morris, The Houses of Singleton (Swansea: West Glamorgan County Archive Service, 1995), 127
5. . 4 S. Hughes, Copperopolis Landscapes of the Early Industrial Period Swansea (Aberystwyth: Royal Commission on the Ancient Historical Monuments of Wales, 2000), 246-7.
6. CCE Report for 1852, 907.
7. D. Leinster-Mackay, 'The Dame Schools of Coventry in 1840: a research note', History of Education Society Bulletin, 35, (Spring 1985), 14-17.
8. Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales (London: 1848), I, 293 (hereafter, 1847 Report).
9. M. Sturt, The Education of the People (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967), 39-40.
10. This was Mary Lewis who died at the age of 66 and who is buried in Laugharne churchyard. Her tombstone remains, dated 10 January 1831. M. Curtis, The Antiquities of Laugharne, Pendine and their Neighbourhoods (London: Clay, Sons & Taylor, 1880), 156.
11. P. Gardner, The Lost Elementary Schools of Victorian England (London: Croom Helm, 1984), 4.
12. D. Vincent, Bread, Knowledge and Freedom. A Study of Nineteenth-Century Working Class Autobiography (London: Methuen, 1981), 100.
13. J. Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (London: Yale University Press, 2002), 152.
14. R. Smith, Schools, Politics and Society: Elementary Education in Wales 1870-1902 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999), 140.
15. G. E. Jones and G. Roderick, A History of Education in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003).
16. See also E. Jenkins, Neath and District. A Symposium (Cowbridge: D. Brown & Sons, 1974), 275. A centenarian from Neath recalled in the 1970s the location of private schools that prospered despite the opening of National schools.
17. Welsh-medium references include D. E. Jones, Hanes Plwyfi Llangeler a Phenboyr (Llandysul: J. D. Lewis, 1899), 249
18. and G. M. Roberts, Hanes Plwyf Lhandybïe (Llandysul: Gwasg Gomer, 1979), 114.
19. W. J. Lewis, Born on a Perilous Rock. Aberystwyth Past and Present (Aberystwyth: Cambrian News, 1980), 163.
20. D. A. Pretty, Two Centuries of Anglesey Schools 1700-1902 (Llangefni: Anglesea Antiquarian Society, 1977).
21. E. T. Davies, Monmouthshire Schools and Education to 1870 (Newport: Starsons, 1957), 63.
22. P. Gardner, The Lost Elementary Schools of Victorian England (London: Croom Helm, 1984), 216-17.
23. H. Elvet Lewis, The Life of E. Herber Evans (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1900), 25.
24. Llanelly and County Guardian, 15 July 1897 and 22 July 1897.
25. See B. I. Coleman, 'The incidence of education in mid-century', in E.A. Wrigley (ed.), Nineteenth-century Society. Essays in the Use of Quantitative Methods for the Study of Social Data (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 398.
26. For a balanced summary, see J. Rule, The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England 1750-1850 (London: Longman, 1986), 238-41.
27. Report of the Select Committee on the Education of the Poor, 1818 [hereafter, 1818 Report], 1245, 1251.
28. In 1851, Stephens adds, the proportion of pupils who attended private schools still amounted to one-third or more in 20 out of the 42 English counties. W. B. Stephens, Education, Literacy and Society 1830-70 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), 49.
29. Tremenheere reported that there were 33 dame schools and 47 common day schools in the districts. Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, 1839-40, Appendix II, 174-9.
30. D. Jones, Statistical Evidence relating to the Welsh Language 1801-1911 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), 338.
31. Ibid., 356.
32. Report of Assistant Commissioner John Jenkins on the State of Popular Education in the Welsh Specimen Districts, 1861, 549 [hereafter, Newcastle Report, 1861].
33. Newcastle Report, 1861, 458, 529.
34. These sources sometimes refer to pupils who have been transferred from private adventure schools. For instance, the admission registers of the National school in Hay-on-Wye note numerous pupils received from Mr Connor's and Miss Llewellyn's private schools in the 1860s. See G. L. Fairs, A History of the Hay (London: Phillimore, 1972), 177.
35. National Archive (PRO) ED15/51.
36. See M. G. Jones, The Charity School Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938).
37. D. Cressy, Education in Tudor and Stuart England (London: Edward Arnold, 1975), 31.
38. For Montgomeryshire see National Library of Wales (NLW) SA/QA/4; NLW SA/RD/28.
39. G. E. Jones and G. Roderick, A History of Education in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), 12.
40. E. T. Lewis, Local Heritage from Efailwen to Whitland (Carmarthen: Lodwick & Sons, 1976), 12.
41. M. Humpheys, The Crisis of Community: Montgomeryshire 1680-1815 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996), 162.
42. G. Williams, Religion, Language and Nationality in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1979), 208.
43. G. N. Evans, Social Life in Mid-Eighteenth Century Anglesey (Llandysul: J. D. Lewis & Sons, 1936), 94.
44. G.T. Clark, Report to the General Board of Health on a Preliminary Inquiry Into the Sewerage, Drainage and Supply of Water and the Sanitary Conditions of the Inhabitants of the Borough of Llanelly (London: W. Clowes and Sons, 1850), 14.
45. N. Evans, 'As Rich as California'...Wales 1780-1870' in G. E. Jones and D. Smith (eds), The People of Wales (Llandysul: Corner, 1999), 134.
46. H. S. Tremenheere, Report of the Commissioner...to Inquire into the Operation of that Act and into the State of Population in the Mining Districts, 1846 (London: 1846), 34-5.
47. See E. T. Davies, Religion and the Industrial Revolution in South Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1965). Also
48. H. G. Williams, 'Learning suitable to the situation of the poorest classes': the National Society and Wales, 1811-1839', Welsh History Review, 19/3 (June 1999), 425-52.
49. NLW, LL/Minor Classes 1-68.
50. Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, 17 July 1846, 'Education of the People', Vol. 87, 1240.
51. CCE Report for 1874, 131.
52. 1847 Report, I, 218.
53. 1847 Report, II, 29.
54. 1847 Report, I, 222.
55. E. G. West, Education and the State (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1970), 167.
56. Slater's South Wales Directory, 1853, 98;
57. Pearse's Swansea Directory, 1856, 23.
58. See M. Mercer, Schooling the Poorer Child. Elementary Education in Sheffield 1560-1902 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 81.
59. Report of the Royal Commission on Children's Employment in Mines and Manufactories, Parliamentary Papers, XVII, 1842, Part II, 516, 526.
60. 1847 Report, I, 216.
61. R. Johnson, 'Notes on the schooling of the English working class 1780-1850', in R. Dale et al. (eds), Schooling and Capitalism. A Sociological Reader (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976), 44.
62. E. D. Jones, The Journal of William Roberts, 1853-62', National Library of Wales Journal, 8 (1953-4), 464.
63. 1847 Report, II, 169.
64. Ariegall, Remarks on the Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales (London: Longman, 1848), 10.
65. D. Jones, Statistical Evidence relating to the Welsh Language 1801-1911 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), 356.
66. R. Floud, The People and the British Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 23-4.
67. For the Welsh context, see I. G. Jones, Mid-Victorian Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992).
68. 62 1847 Report, II, 169.
69. E. G. West, Education and the Industrial Revolution (London: Batsford, 1975), 52.
70. C. Gittins, Primary Education in Wales (London: HMSO, 1968), 460.
71. 65 1847 Report, III, 54
72. Logbook of Cwmdu Board School, 28 July 1873 (Carmarthenshire Record Office).
73. Llanelly and County Guardian, 15 July 1897.
74. Logbook of Skewen National School, 8 May 1867 (West Glamorgan Record Office).
75. R. C. Jones, Felinheli. A Personal History of the Port of Dinorwic (Wrexham: Bridge Books, 1992), 107-8. See also:
76. E. A. Williams, The Day Before Yesterday. Anglesea in the Nineteenth Century (Llangefni: G. Wynn Griffith, 1988), 52-3.
77. One notable case study, that of Mrs Ellen Edwards, 'teacher of navigation', is related by L. Lloyd, The Port of Caernarfon 1793-1900 (Caernarfon: Gwasg Pantycelyn, 1989), 175-84.
78. 70 1847 Report, I, 214.
79. Log Book of Cardigan National School, 23 April 1868 (Cardiganshire Record Office)
80. 1818 Report, 1228.
81. 1847 Report, I, 219-220, & 381.
82. Llanelly and County Guardian, 22 July 1897.
83. 75 1847 Report, I, 363 & 293.
84. See J. Purvis, A History of Women's Education in England (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991), 12-15.
85. G. M. Roberts, Hanes Plwyf Llandybïe (Llandysul: Gwasg Gomer, 1979), 123.
86. Report of the Select Committee on Education, 1835, Appendix 2, 103.
87. Report of the Royal Commission on Children's Employment in Mines and Manufactories, Parliamentary Papers, XVII, 1842, II, 384.
88. The practice of payment in kind, including farmers' 'setting out of potatoes' in exchange for labour at harvest time, continued well into the twentieth century. See D. Jenkins, the Agricultural Community in South-West Wales at the turn of the Twentieth Century (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1971), 51-3.
89. P. McCann (ed.), Popular Education and Socialization in the Nineteenth Century (London: Methuen & Co, 1977), 29.
90. 1847 Report, III, 16.
91. A. Digby and P. Searby, Children, School and Society in Nineteenth-Century England (London: Macmillan, 1981), 5.
92. Return of Civil Parishes in England and Wales under the Education Act, Parliamentary Papers, 1871, LV, 824-67.
93. National Archive (PRO) ED2/601.
94. CCE Report for 1872, 185.
95. CCE Report for 1881, 467.
96. Minute Book of the Swansea School Board, 1875-76, 230.
97. Examples can be found in trade directories. For instance, Butcher's Commercial Directory of Swansea, 1881-82, 376.
98. F. Smith, A History of English Elementary Education 1760-1902 (London: University of London Press, 1931), 303-4.
99. D. Jones, Statistical Evidence relating to the Welsh Language 1801-1911 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), 346.
100. E. Jones, A Vindication of the Educational and Moral Condition of Wales (Llandovery, 1848), 11.