Schools in Victorian Scotland
Victorian, as you know, begins with the letter 'v' but actually this particular post was meant to be all about 's' at the beginning of schools. However and undaunted, since Mr. Gradgrind, in Charles Dickens novel 'Hard Times' was all about drumming 'Facts' into the minds of the schoolkids, this contains a lot of facts about schools in Victorian Scotland.
Researching schools in Milnathort, Kinross-Shire, was one of
my first tasks when I began to write about my character named Margaret. She’s
aged almost five when her story begins and I wondered which school she might
have gone to. My initial thoughts were not actually ‘Did she go to school’ but
definitely more of ‘Which school and for how long’?
I’ve studied enough of Scottish Victorian era schooling
before to know that, in 1845, many children were educated to at least the
basics of reading, and of writing their own name. Luckier pupils were able to
stay at school longer to learn to read well, to write and spell, and to do
basic arithmetic. I knew already that schooling in Scotland had a greater
uptake than schooling in England at this time, but that it was not compulsory
to send a child to school in Scotland till after the Education Acts of 1872.
So, in 1845, my character Margaret would only have gone to school if her
parents had paid for it.
As an ex-primary teacher in Scotland, I knew that quarterly
school fees were commonly paid to the schoolmaster, and that payment for basic
reading lessons had to be supplemented by a further fee for the child to learn
to write, and to count.
What I did not know was what kind of schools were there were
in Milnathort in 1845. I knew that many areas had parochial (Parish) schools
but, that in some cases, these places tended to only educate boys. Since girls
were destined mainly for domestic service, factory work, or running a household
of their own, the priority was often to only give girls basic reading lessons.
They spent the bulk of the time at school learning household crafts like
cooking; laundry; cleaning and sewing. Some of these girls’ establishments were
familiarly named ‘Dame’ schools, i.e. establishments run by females for
females. These schools for females perhaps charged less than the parochial
schools? Another question to find an answer to!
For the more well-to-do parents or guardians, in the
Milnathort area, those who did not employ tutors to teach at home (relatively
common for wealthy girls), there were boarding schools their offspring could be
sent to, from where a pupil only returned home a few times a year, at special
times. In the large cities in Scotland, some pupils (mainly boys) went to
schools which were intended to give them a better education than in their
parochial, local schools.
In Edinburgh, there were the 'Merchant Company' Schools set
up to educate the offspring of Edinburgh merchants, like Melville College,
founded in 1832 for boys. Even older, the Mary Erskine School for Girls,
founded in 1694, was well-established by the time my character, Margaret, ends
up working in Edinburgh in 1851. The Mary Erskine School for Girls is one of
the oldest schools for girls in the world. The High School of Glasgow had been
established in the late 1100s as the Choir School for Glasgow Cathedral and
still exists today, though clearly not in any original building. Robert
Gordon's College in Aberdeen was originally begun as a school with
accommodation for educating boys in the mid-1700s. When it opened in 1750, it
had 14 pupils. It grew to become Robert Gordon's College Day School in 1887.
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But back to Milnathort...and some questions. Did Milnathort
have a Dame School that Margaret would have gone to? Did Milnathort have a
parochial school that she would have been allowed to attend along with the
local boys of the town?
She is a well-educated young woman, evident later in her
story (a 3-book series), but she doesn't come from a well-to-do background. Her
parents aren't the poorest in Milnathort though are not the richest either, and
are unable to send her to board at any of the above mentioned 'higher fee
paying' schools. They manage a draper’s shop, originally owned by her late
grandfather but now owned by an uncle who oversees a grocer’s shop in the town.
Her father wants her to have the best education possible, and wants to provide
that education for as long as he can pay for it. He doesn’t ever want to see
Margaret go into domestic service.
So, what school can she go to in Milnathort, in 1845, that
would be suitable and historically accurate? I found evidence for a parochial
school that was associated with the established Church of Scotland, up on Ba’
Hill (towards the N on the map above) that had long-been established in
Milnathort. What wasn’t easy to prove was that girls attended that school for a
more thorough education than just basic reading.
On the 1846 map above there is a Free Church, and also
marked is a United Presbyterian Church (National Library of Scotland
Collections). The United Presbyterian Church is towards the west of the town
square on a road named Cockamey, parallel to Stirling Road. The Free Church is
marked north-east of the square. Both of those churches would have emerged
after The Great Disruption in 1843 (see a to Z post for Dis is for the [Great]
Disruption), so those church buildings in Milnathort were built fairly soon
after 1843.
On Cockamey, a bit west of the United Presbyterian Church
there is a Subscription School. To date, I've not found sufficient evidence of
exactly what that meant. Does 'subscription' have to do with how the school was
funded other than by parents’ fees, e.g., a collection of some kind?
I decided that the subscription school was built associated
with the United Presbyterian Church and that is the one I have Margaret
attending. Again, using my interpretation as an author of fiction!
Because some of the old ideas of the established Church of
Scotland had been rejected during the 'Disruption', the new churches were more
forward-thinking. From research, I noted that the United Presbyterian Church
set up teaching colleges to train their own ministers, so it seemed reasonable
that Milnathort would have a United Presbyterian School which accepted girls,
for as long as the parents or guardians would pay for them to attend.
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| abacus |
Most Scottish schools during the 1800s had extremely large
classes. Sometimes 70 or so pupils were educated in the same room. To help the
schoolmaster maintain the strict and regimented teaching environment, there
were a few pupil teachers/teaching monitors in the room. Some Scottish schools
had more than one room in their building, if in a more populated area, but that
didn’t mean teaching was easier. Classroom discipline was paramount in small,
or large, classes!
The image of desks above would have been commonplace in the
second half of the nineteenth century, the bench and table combination meant
for two pupils, perhaps even three at the infant stages if the class roll was
very high.
I started primary school in Glasgow in 1957, close to a
century after my character is at school in Milnathort, yet some of my earliest
teaching was done in similar Victorian classrooms to the one above. Some
furniture was very, very old and very, very chipped! The tiered seating was to
enable the teacher to view all the pupils from front row to back row. Where the
floor was flat in a Victorian classroom, the teacher's desk was sometimes built
on an elevated platform at the front, again giving the height needed to see all
the way to the back. Sometimes, it was too easy to trip when descending the
steps, if I was too eager to escape the classroom at playtime.
A system of regular assessment was common and a simple
strategy established. Pupils who were learning the fastest went to the back
rows of the room and those who needed most guidance, and often more control if
unruly, sat near the front nearest the dominie, or pupil teacher. An aisle/s
separated the long rows of desks enabling the dominie, or the pupil teacher, to
walk between, within relatively easy reach of the pupils. and if they
themselves could not reach over to reprimand a particular child for
inattention, or for making errors, then a blackboard pointer could do the job
admirably.
I read somewhere (many years ago) that in some very early
Victorian schools, where a level-floored hall was used, the pupils were
segregated into smaller ‘units’, and sat down in what was effectively different
teaching groups. This would have been in schools which had only bench seating
and no individual desks. Pupils who had progressed well would be expected to do
their work largely unsupervised while the teacher, or pupil teacher, gave
instructions to younger pupil groups. In some schools, in a room of 70 pupils,
a bright pupil could ‘move up the ranks/ groups’ quickly if they were achieving
at a faster rate than most of their peer groups. Ability mattered. Not age.
Rote learning was the regime in most schools, and memory
stretching was paramount to become adept at progressing in all subjects. There
was a high degree of chanting from learning the alphabet letters, to doing
complicated arithmetic sums. If you read my post on M is for Money a few days
ago, you’ll realise how complex it was to do ‘money’ sums pre-1971.
Multiplication tables didn’t stop at the twelve times table for the more able
learners. Recall of multiples of more difficult prime numbers like 13 or 17
were drummed in to the older pupils.
Spelling was also rote learned and chanted till the pupils
were blue in the face, but that system of recall worked for many pupils who
could spell ever after till the cows came home!
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School pens were terrible
to write with! Drippy ink everywhere. |
When a pupil achieved a degree of reading competence,
special writing lessons were offered (for a fee) but sometimes these classes
had to be taught after the main bulk of the pupils were sent home for the day.
It was often a similar case for extended arithmetic lessons, mathematics, and
for other studies like the classics, or sciences.
Schools have definitely changed over the decades since my
character Margaret goes to school in Milnathort in 1845. Schools have also
definitely changed since I personally began my teaching career in 1974!
Time for a break? You bet! Till next time...
Slàinte!
images: Wikimedia Commons
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