The Reports on the Education of the Lower Orders were published between 1816 and 1819 by a select committee of the House of Commons (Parliament of the United Kingdom) under the chairmanship of Henry Brougham. The committee made only the second ever government inquiry into education, as it comprehensively investigated the provision of education for poor working class children in Great Britain during the early 19th century. The reports exposed the inadequate provision of schooling and the maladministration of charitable funds given for educating the poor. It was eventually used to justify the first state intervention into English and Welsh education in 1833 when the Treasury started to help fund the badly needed construction of new school-houses through an annual grant. It also started a parliamentary commission of inquiry into improving charitable foundations which eventually led to formation of present-day charities commission.
Background
In the early 19th century, most poor working class children were expected to work in factories or on farms at a very young age, so received little or no education. It was debated whether the state should intervene and promote universal education, for instance along the lines of the Prussian education system. The case for such state intervention was made in their major publications by contemporary philosophers such as Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations), La Chalotais (Essay on National Education) and Tom Paine (Rights of Man). At that time, education for the children of the poor was mainly provided by charities, led by two charitable societies: the British and Foreign School Society and the Anglican National Society, who both advocated the use of the Monitorial System as a cheap and effective method to teach poor children. Although a degree of state support for education had existed in Scotland since the Education Act 1633, and grants had recently been introduced in Ireland, there was none in England and Wales. Consequently Samuel Whitbread, a founder of the British and Foreign School Society, submitted the Parochial Schools Bill to Parliament in 1807, which tried to extend a similar system to that of the Scots, to the rest of Great Britain; but this was blocked in parliament with the following arguments used to oppose the bill:
Minimal state: There existed a deep-rooted idea that the state should not interfere in peoples' lives, including the provision of education, which should be left to the churches, charities and private schools. Subservience: It was thought that educating the working class would cause unrest, whereas the uneducated working class were more accepting of their place in society and their poor living and working conditions Taxes: Landowners and factory owners were against being forced to pay rates (taxes) for education; they argued this should be funded by benevolent voluntary donations. Secularisation: The Anglican church was concerned that the state would eventually introduce secular education, taking away churches' sway over education and so undermining the Anglican faith in future generations. Non-conformists: Non-conformists were concerned that state-provided education would become dominated by Anglican denominational teaching, undermining their faiths for future generations.
Although these arguments succeeded in blocking this bill, it was clear from the parliamentary debate that a general sympathy had emerged in Parliament for action to improve education for poor children.
Parliamentary inquiry
After Whitbread's death by suicide in 1815, Henry Brougham who was also on the Lancastrian committee supporting the British & Foreign School Society, became the new de facto leader of the parliamentary group endeavouring to improve education for poor children. Subsequently, in May 1816, Brougham secured the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the education of the lower orders of the metropolis (London) under his chairmanship with the following remit: –
Membership of the committee
Reports The following reports were submitted to the House of Commons by the select committee then subsequently published: -SubmittedReportSectionSection DescriptionPages7 June 1816Reports from the 1816 Select Committee on the Education of the Lower Orders in the MetropolisReportTerms of Reference, Report & Recommendationsi – iiFirst ReportMinutes of Evidence (22/05/1816 – 01/06/1816)001–19413 June 1816Second ReportMinutes of Evidence (03/06/1816 – 05/06/1816)195–29419 June 1816Third ReportMinutes of Evidence (06/06/1816 – 13/06/1816)295–48220 June 1816Fourth ReportMinutes of Evidence (14/06/1816 – 19/06/1816)483–554AppendixInformation Returns from London Charity Schools555–568Gilbert Act 1786, Educational Charity Returns569–577AddendaExtracts from Deed of Gift of St Martins Library579–580Example Charter for King Edward VI hospital580–590Extracts from Bull Unigenitus591–596Index597–6087 July 1817Report from the 1817 Select Committee on the Education of the Lower Orders in the MetropolisReportRecommend expanding remit to England & Wales001 -85317 March 1818Reports from the 1818 Select Committee on the Education of the Lower OrdersFirst ReportRecommending Proceedings25 May 1818Second ReportParochial & Other Schools3 June 1818Third ReportAbuses at Charities for the Education the Poor et al.5 June 1818Appendix AEton Statutes6 June 1818Appendix BStatutes of Trinity and St John's College Cambridge1 April 1819Digest of Parochial Returns made to the Education Committee of 1818Volume IEngland (part 1) – Counties by alphabetic order001–576Volume IIEngland (part 2) – Counties by alphabetic order577–1170Volume IIIWales, Scotland, British Isles and Additional Returns1171–1496
Findings
Charities
Education for poor children was mostly funded by charitable trusts. Unfortunately the committee found high levels of abuse and maladministration in those charities, in particular in managing valuable endowments bequeathed by benevolent donors to fund the charity schools. This took many forms:
Neglect: Trustees were often negligent or careless in their management of charitable estates, for instance in failing to increase rents, this was partly explained by the fact they normally acted on a voluntary basis and were unpaid. Limited Powers: Trustees often had not been granted powers by the trust deed to manage estates efficiently, for instance to sell under-developed land for building purposes then use the proceeds to buy higher yielding alternative property. Surplus: Often the income from an estate would expand well beyond the amounts needed for its charitable purpose resulting in large unused surplus funds, the trustees had not the powers to expand the original charitable purpose. No Trustees: Some trust deeds had no clauses for appointment of new trustees; thus, on the last trustee's death the endowment trust would become unmanaged; while others fell into the same situation accidentally when the last trustee did not appoint a successor before their death. Diversion: The clergy, who were often the trustees, sometimes diverted funds earmarked for the poor to teaching middle-class ecclesiastical subjects such as Latin and Greek needed for future clergymen Under-funding: Trustees sometimes under-funded their charity schools by hiring unqualified teachers, or allowing schools to fall into disrepair, or taking on very few scholars, then embezzling the majority of the endowment income for themselves. Nepotism: Trustees sometimes rented estates out to family or friends at much reduced rents or vastly extended leases, thus dispossessing the charity of income. Fraud: Endowed assets were sometimes stolen through outright fraud. Teachers: Schoolmasters sometimes received funding, including board and lodgings but taught no poor children in return. Audits: Charity auditors, sometimes known as visitors, were supposed to check that charitable trusts were acting appropriately, but some deeds never appointed visitors; while in other cases, the visitors failed to carry out their duties.
Cases of such abuses and maladministration were most prominently publicised through speeches in parliament, the reports of the inquiries and the public letter from Brougham to Romilly of 20 August 1818, where examples were given for the following schools: St. Bees, Winchester, Highgate, Pocklington, Brentwood, Mere, Spital, Yeovil, Huntingdon and Eton College. Furthermore, the final committee found anecdotal evidence that similar situations were likely to be found at all charities.
Educational provision
The basis for educating poor children
The very basic tenets for educating the poor had yet to become established in society, so the committee presented the reasoning with evidence:
Poor parents universally desired and sought to educate their children, dispelling any misconceptions which may have suggested otherwise There was deemed to be a great public benefit to educating the poor, in particular to improve their morals through reading of scriptures and prayer books and to reduce crime. Charity schools were applauded for the education they provided poor children, and by using the efficient Monitorial System, testaments estimated that £400,000 per annum would be sufficient to educate all the poor children in England. Unfortunately, there was a substantive shortage of free or subsidised school places to educate poor children at charity schools.
Shortage of school places The committee endeavoured to quantify the shortage of both schools and school places. The 1818 select committee had expanded its remit to include rural parishes, whereupon they discovered that 3,500 of the 12,000 parishes had no school whatsoever. In addition, the extensive returns in the digest of parochial returns showed 650,000 children were educated, to of the total population of England. Edmund Halley's seminal demographic analysis of Breslau had suggested that the number of children of school-going age should be of the population; meanwhile the digest of parochial returns suggested that in England this ratio should be closer to of the population, making between and of the population (approx. one million) being children who required education; this meant that about 350,000 children were receiving no education.
Religious constraints
The majority of charitable schools were parochial schools including those of the largest charitable society, the Anglican National School Society, these schools would often only take children whose parents were members of the local church's congregation. In addition, these parochial schools had denominated religious teaching within their curriculum including the catechism of their theology which parents and clergy of other theologies would object to and so refuse to send their children to those schools. For instance Roman Catholics, Protestant Dissenters & Jews may refuse to send their children to an Anglican school which taught the Anglican catechisms. This was not necessarily a problem in urban areas where the large populations could support many schools of different faiths but in small rural parishes where it was only economical for a single school to exist, this prevented children of some faiths from receiving any education.