Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- 1 A Church Divided and the Educational Solution
- 2 The Status of Catholic Education at Mid-Century and the Catholic Educational Philosophy
- 3 Educational Obstacles to Overcome
- 4 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1847–70: Preparing for Battle
- 5 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1870: The Battle Begins
- 6 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1871–90: Engaging With the Enemy
- 7 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1891–1902: A Strategy for Success
- 8 Catholic Education and Identity after the Balfour Act: The Battle Ends but the Fight Continues
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Preface and Acknowledgements
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- 1 A Church Divided and the Educational Solution
- 2 The Status of Catholic Education at Mid-Century and the Catholic Educational Philosophy
- 3 Educational Obstacles to Overcome
- 4 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1847–70: Preparing for Battle
- 5 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1870: The Battle Begins
- 6 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1871–90: Engaging With the Enemy
- 7 English Catholics and the Politics of Education, 1891–1902: A Strategy for Success
- 8 Catholic Education and Identity after the Balfour Act: The Battle Ends but the Fight Continues
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
While the historiography of nineteenth-century English Catholicism has been a rather crowded field filled with general overviews, biographies and narrower monographs, as well as what a scholar once warned me were landmines both professional and personal, the field has lacked a systematic book-length study of the educational efforts of the Catholic community to provide elementary education to the Catholic poor in the important half century following the entry of the Catholics into the state grant system in 1847. While much of the earliest work done on this topic fell under the category of educational history, I like to think that this study is as much or more about religious history and the positioning (or repositioning) of Roman Catholic identity within that elaborate milieu we call Victorian religion. If the subject of English Catholics and elementary education has filled several pages of an overview or a chapter of an edited volume or biography, it has not been viewed, as it is here, as a facilitator of change in the identity of that English Catholic community. That said, I owe a tremendous debt to the scholars who have marked the historiographical trail before me and provided glimpses into the Victorian world of English Roman Catholicism with its historical richness and financial poverty, its Irishness and Englishness, its intellectuals and industrious working class, its eccentric personalities and sober leaders and finally its determination to make life better for its flock amidst the turmoil and progress of nineteenth-century Britain.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- English Catholics and the Education of the Poor, 1847–1902 , pp. vii - viiiPublisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014