Joseph Lancaster and the British and foreign school society: the evolution of an educational organization from 1798 to 1846

Abstract

The scope of this study traces the origins, growth and development of the British and Foreign School Society from its obscure origins in Joseph Lancaster's school at Borough Road to the beginnings of the pupil teacher system in 1846. Lancaster's early life is used as a framework to show the obscure and controversial origins of the Society, and the manner in which his twin contributions of the monitorial system and non-sectarian religious education influenced and directed the Society's response to a rapidly changing historical context. Unlike the National Society, the British and Foreign School Society represented, in its supporters, a wide spectrum of opinions on the social and religious nature of education. Extensive use has been made of the manuscript collections dealing with eminent contemporaries such as Francis Place, Henry Brougham, Samuel Whitbread and William Allen. The intention is to show how a voluntary organization's problems are reflected in the private communications between the people who are involved in its policy planning and control, and the degree to which the organization adapted to internal dissensions and external pressures in the first half of the nineteenth century.