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The Beginnings of the Catholic Poor Schools in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

John P. Marmion
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Extract

The extent of the achievement on the part of the Catholic community in developing its own poor schools in the last century in England can only be gauged in the light of the deprived social conditions out of which they came. So some brief mention of the plight of the majority of the Catholics is here given as an introduction to the work of the Catholic Poor School Committee (henceforth CPSC); the role of the religious orders is next considered, and the training colleges. Some indications of the growth conclude this paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 67 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1984

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References

Notes

1 Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844: German edition, 1844; first English translation, 1892. On p. 164 he notes the trifling sum of £40,000 on public education.

2 Nora, Pole, ‘The Development of Elementary Education in the Borough of Macclesfield, 1833–1918’, M. A. Sheffield, 1975, p. 54.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., pp. 118–121.

4 Ruddock, as inspector to the S. W. District, gave this in his report of 1852: Parliamentary Papers, 1854, vol. 51, p. 45.

5 Owen, Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 1, p. 326.Google Scholar

6 Charles, Dickens, Oliver Twist (London, 1838), p. 61.Google Scholar

7 The Times, quoted from James Murphy, Church, State and. School in Britain, 1800–1970, p. 20.

8 The Evangelical Societies which supported the Protestant crusade in both England and Ireland, and which were richly financed, do not seem to have been directly studied. For some indications of their activities: Desmond Bowen, The Protestant Crusade in Ireland, 1800–1870; E. R. Norman, Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England; W. R. Ward, Religion and Society in England, 1790–1850, especially pp. 210–219. Regrettably, there is no history of the Protestant Alliance, the Protestant Reformation Society etc.

9 Groups like the Manchester Statistical Society abounded and produced considerable documentation, which helped to inform public opinion.

10 In the Talbot Papers, Bayswater. The reference is from Sheridan Gilley, ‘Evangelical and Roman Catholic Missions to the Irish in London, 1830–1870’, Cambridge Ph.D. 1971, p. 213.

11 J. Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850, and J. Kitching, ‘The Catholic Poor Schools, 1800–1845’ in Journal of Educational Administration and History, 1/2 and 2/1, June and December 1969.

12 Kitching, op. cit 1/2, p. 5.

13 Catholic Institute Tracts, vol. 1 (1843–41), pp. 1–3.

14 The Orthodox Journal & Catholic Intelligencer, 21/530 (August 1845), pp. 69–73.

15 From Beck, G. (ed.) English Catholics, 1850–1950, p. 236.Google Scholar

15a E. P. Microform Ltd. 1979, for the annual reports of the CPSC, and The Catholic School which is rare, but is still preserved in the offices of the Catholic Education Council in London.

16 From Beck, G. (ed.), English Catholics, 1850–1950, p.236.Google Scholar

17 The Tablet, August 1891, p. 228, for his obituary.

18 Allies, Mary H., Thomas William Allies (1907)Google Scholar.

19 Illing, M. J., ‘An Early H.M.I., Thomas William Marshall, in the Light of New Evidence’ in British Journal of Educational Studies 20 (1972), pp. 58–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Education Commission 1860 (Newcastle Commission), p. 172, nos. 1327 to 1334.

21 See Joseph, Gillow, A Literary & Biographical History or Bibligraphical Dictionary of the English Catholics (1885–1902)Google Scholar.

22 John A. Britton, ‘The Origin and Subsequent Development of St. Mary’s College, (Hammersmith), 1847–1899’, M.A. (Educ) London 1964.

23 The Catholic School 2, 2 October 1850, p. 27.

24 Gillespie, W., The Christian Brothers in England, 1825–1880 (Burleigh Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

25 Mary Sturt, The Education of the People, p. 286, p. 104; M. A. Murphy, ‘The Origin, Growth and Development of Schools for Roman Catholic Poor Children in the Archdiocese of Westminster, 1760–1861’, London M. Phil 1969, p. 246; J. F. C. Harrison, Learning and Living 1790–1900: A Study in the History of the English Adult Education Movement, p. 25.

26 George Spencer translated Crabbe’s The Life of Bernard Overberg (1844), explaining in his preface that the first translation had been ‘in Protestant form’, abridging the more Catholic actions. For the references in The Catholic School there is an index to volume 2, p. 357.

27 The Catholic School 3 (4 September 1856).

28 The Catholic School 2/1 (August 1850); 3/1 (October 1853); 2/6 (May 1851).

29 The Catholic School 1/2; 1/4; 2/5 &c.

30 The Catholic School 2/8 (December 1851).

31 The Catholic School 3/1 (October 1853) in a report of Marshall’s.

32 Canon St. John, Manning’s Work for Children (1929) gives many quotations; there is also a contemporary pamphlet in the British Library: Legalised Perversion of Catholic Children in the English Workhouses… by a Catholic Englishman, pp. 28 (1864), shelf-mark 3939 aaa 55.

33 The Catholic School 3 (September 1856) listed 88 parishes from which no collection had been received and excluded such from grants.

34 The Catholic School 3 (October 1854), p. 66.

35 Formby occurs both in adverts and reports, and also in the CPSC annual accounts. The British Library catalogue lists quite a number of his publications.

36 Miss Margaret Gaynor, described as an ‘organizing mistress’, who later joined the IBVM at York; and Miss McCormack, who in 1852 was appointed to the Galway Model School. CPSC Report 1852, p. 5.

37 The Catholic School 3/5 (September 1856) and 3/4 (June 1855).

38 Westminster Diocesan Archives. Res. of the V.A. 1846. Decreta Quatuor Conciliorum Provincialium Westmonasteriensium, 1852–1873 (Salford, John Roberts, n.d.), pp. 4–6.

39 A. C. F. Beales, Education Under Penalty; A. S. Barnes, The Catholic Schools of England.

40 Signum: Faithful Companions of Jesus in England, 1830–1858 by S. Mary Clare Holland, FCJ; 28 September 1981, vol. 9; 15.

41 Bolton, C. A., Salford Diocese and its Catholic Past (1950)Google Scholar; Beck, G. (ed.) The English Catholics, 1850–1950, p. 340 Google Scholar

42 Quoted in Beck, op. cit., p. 356.

43 Society of the Holy Child Jesus Archives, The Old Palace, Mayfield, Sussex.

44 Arnstein, Walter L., Protestant versus Catholic in Mid-Victorian England: Mr. Newdegate and the Nuns (1982)Google Scholar. Newdegate and Whalley were eventually succeeded by T. H. Sloan at the turn of the century.

45 In 1880 Fr. Amherst wrote that the laws against religious orders were still not repealed. In 1865 R. R. Madden’s Historical Notice of Penal Laws against Roman Catholics had listed disabilities which still remained, and, p. 73, against religious. A Report of Select Committee, 23 June 1871 concluded that the Greek Orthodox and virtually anyone else were free to take monastic vows; but not Roman Catholics. This was a Select Committee of Newdegate’s. In an effort to counter much bigotry, John Nicholas Murphy published in 1873 his Terra Incognita; or The Convents of the United Kingdom. There was a similar publication by Francesca M. Steele. The Convents of Great Britain in 1902. Fraser’s Magazine in 1874 had a series of articles on convents and their schools. New Series 9 and 10, pp. 186–199, 778–786, 473–478.

46 Owen, Chadwick, The Victorian Church (1966–70), 1, pp. 505–06.Google Scholar

47 Denis Grady, ‘Notre Dame College, Liverpool: The Origin and Subsequent Development of a Teacher Training College, 1857–1904’, M.Ed. Manchester, 1980, pp. 41 ff.

48 Wiseman to Cornelia Connelly from Rome 23 July 1847; transcript in SHCJ archives.

49 The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809–1879, by a Member of the Society [M. Gompertz] (1922), pp. 364 ff. The archives have papers concerning the legal troubles which followed this and how they were finally solved.

50 The Tablet, 21 January 1843: parish closed because of debt; 22 April 1843: Rev. O’Moore liberated from prison. Mass is now said every Sunday. Cuthbert, Butler, The Life and Times of Bishop Ullathorne, 1, pp. 171–74.Google Scholar

51 Quoted in Gillespie, op. cit., p. 131.

52 From Marshall’s report for 1850, which is in CPSC Annual Report for 1851 and in The Catholic School 2 (September 1851), esp. 190–91; and Parliamentary Papers.

53 The Catholic School ibid, p. 191.

54 Ullathorne, , Three Lectures on the Conventual Life, 2nd. ed., 1910.Google Scholar

55 Marshall’s Report, 1859/60.

56 Ibid. The confraternities which had begun in the Jesuit Roman College in the sixteenth century were followed by most of the religious teaching orders. The SHCJ had four different confraternities in some of their schools, to cater for the different age groups, culminating in the Children of Mary.

57 To the Newcastle Commission: 4, p. 177.

58 Ibid, p. 32.

59 Annual Report CPSC, 1854, p. 99.

60 The information is from John A. Britton’s thesis, op. cit.

61 The Cross Report, 1888, c.4863, p. 454, q.12012.

62 S. Mary of the Holy Angels, Quiet Revolution. The Educational Experience of Blessed Julie Billiart and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (1966), pp. 111 ff. And also the thesis of Denis Grady.

63 Marshall’s report on the colleges in 1858.

64 Figures from Mary Sturt, op. cit., p. 292.

65 Cumulative figures from CPSC Annual Reports.

66 The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809–1879 (1922), pp. 326 ff.

67 For Kitching see n.ll.

68 Mostly in unpublished theses, such as those of Denis Grady, John Britton, M. A. Murphy, Sheridan Gilley (all cited); to which add M. M. Cullen, ‘The Growth of Roman Catholic Training Colleges for Women in England during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, Durham M.Ed 1964; Marie Gertrude Diamond, ‘The Work of the Catholic Poor-School Committee, 1847–1905’, Liverpool M.Ed., 1963; Mary Elizabeth Fitzgerald, ‘Catholic Elementary Schools in the Manchester Area during the Nineteenth Century’, M.Ed. Manchester, 1975; S. A. Kennedy, ‘An Examination of Catholic Education and the Work of the Catholic Poor School Committee, 1800–1888’, M.Ed. Bristol, 1977; Francis Geoffrey Peers, ‘The Development of R.C. Popular Education in some Midland Counties in the Nineteenth Century’, M.Ed. Hull, 1966; D. E. Selby, The Work of Cardinal Manning in the field of Elementary Education, with special reference to the Cross Commission, 1886–88’, M.Ed. Leicester, 1974; McClelland, V. A., ‘The Protestant Alliance and Roman Catholic Schools’ in Victorian Studies 1 (December 1964), pp. 173–82.Google Scholar

69 Wilfrid, Ward, The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman (1897) 2, pp. 456–60 Google Scholar; R. J. Schiefen, ‘The Crusade of Nicholas Wiseman’ in The View from the Pulpit, ed. P. J. Phillips (1978), esp. p. 264.

70 Schiefen, ibid.

71 Bishop, Ullathorne, Notes on the Education Question (1857), p. 8.Google Scholar

72 Matthew, Arnold, Reports on Elementary Schools, 1852–1882, ed. Sandford (1889), pp. 107 etcGoogle Scholar; J. G. Fitch and D. R. Fearon, Report on Schools for the Poorer Classes in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester: House of Commons Paper 91, vol. 64, 1870, pp. 27–31.

73 Education Commission 1860 (Newcastle Commission) 5, pp. 30–31.