Posted by FamilyHistoryFour on Thursday, April 18, 2019 in Presentation
Wow! I didn't know that school records can provide a great wealth of information for your genealogy research. I definitely learnt a thing or two from our talk by Sue.
Sue a former head teacher shared with us her knowledge of what schools today and in the past recorded in the School Admission Registers and Log-books.
The talk started with a brief outline of the history of 'Education for All' which led to the title of Sue's talk 'Would your ancestors attended school'
A brief outline of the history of 'Education for All'
The back story
- The Industrial Revolution began in the middle of 18th century
- Before then, most people (population 6m) lived and worked in the countrysideBy the end of 18th century, population increased to nearly 9 million.
- This increase was a continuing trend, by 1831 population nearly 14m
- A quarter of the population now lived in towns, with a population of over 20, 000 and by 1851 half the population, 9 million people, lived in urban areas.
In the 18th & early 19th century there were a variety of reports by social reformers and government officials, highlighting the lack of education amongst the poor but there was little government motivation to change things.
Schools for the working classes - Since the state was still unwilling to provide mass education, it was left to the working classes to provide their own schools or to rely on others - mostly the churches - to supply some basic education for their children. By 1750 'schools of some kind were within geographical reach of all but comparatively few children.
In England and Wales during this period there was a wide range of elementary schools, some private, some connected with parish churches:
- Charity schools
- Church schools
- Sunday schools
- Monitorial schools
- Workhouse schools
- Ragged schools
- Industrial and reformatory schools
In the 19th century the Church of England sponsored most formal education until the government established free, compulsory education towards the end of that century when Education Acts came thick and fast!
- 1870 - Education Act (Forster Act)
- 1872 - Six standards of education
- 1880 - Elementary Education Act: Attendance from age 5 – 10 years
- 1891 - The Elementary Education Act provided for the state payment of school fees up to ten shillings per head, making primary education effectively free.
- 1893 - The Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act, raised the school leaving age to 11.
- 1893 - The Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act of the same year extended compulsory education to blind and deaf children, and made provision for the creation of special schools
School Records Website
The schoolrecords.org.uk site provides information about the school records, school registers and admission books from Victorian times, how to access the records online, how to make the most from your searches, what is available and not available, and much, much, more.
The schoolrecords.org.uk site provides information about the school records, school registers and admission books from Victorian times, how to access the records online, how to make the most from your searches, what is available and not available, and much, much, more.
If you're trying to trace your family tree, track down your ancestry, the starting point should be birth, marriage and death records and census records to try and form the skeleton of your family tree. These can all be searched on line now, with subscriptions from organisations like FindMyPast and Ancestry or from free resources such as FreeBMD or FamilySearch.
Once the basics of your family tree are in place, you then want to flesh out the details, either finding those elusive ancestors that don't show up in the census or just finding out more about their lives.
One set of records that is now becoming available online that help you do this is school records, or school registers.The National Archives
School records are held at The National Archives and can be found using TNA Discovery. Discovery is The National Archives' catalogue. It provides a way to explore archival collections from The National Archives and over 2,500 archives across the UK.
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| Screenshot of The National Archives Discovery Page |
An example of a page from a school admission register
The following are six 'Standards of Education' contained in the Revised Code of Regulations 1872
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| Remember you can click on the image to view it larger |
