‘Sending gossoons to be made oul’ mollies of’: Rule 127(b) and the feminisation of teaching in Ireland

Abstract

This article examines a decision known as Rule 127(b), taken in 1905 by the National Commissioners for Education in Ireland. The rule raised concerns about the displacement of male teachers and their replacement with poorly paid and sometimes untrained females. It appeared to condone the sexual division of labour with women teaching in infant schools and is regarded as having hastened the feminisation of the teaching profession in Ireland. Through the study of contemporaneous sources, this article considers whether Rule 127(b) contributed to the supplanting of male teachers by female teachers and focuses specifically on the reaction of the members of the teaching profession to the rule.

Notes

1. On the eve of the rule being put into practice, there were 13,392 teachers in the service of the Commissioners, 5795 male assistants and principals and 5486 female assistants and principals. The remainder (1051) comprised JAMs, manual instructresses, workmistresses and temporary assistants. Of all male teachers, 80% were principals and 20% were assistants. Of all women teachers 66% were principals and 44% were assistants (Seventy-first report, 1905, p. 39; see also Logan, 1997).

2. The Irish School Weekly was founded in 1904 as a ‘practical journal for practical teachers and a record of the work of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation [INTO].’ It cost a penny and was published by the Educational Company of Ireland although its editorial and literary sections were written by members of the INTO. In 1919 the INTO took over full editorial control. The Irish School Monthly was founded in 1900 as a ‘magazine of practical schoolwork’ and was published by Blackie and Son, Dublin. It cost threepence and was edited by Mr. W. G. Lyons, chairman of the Educational Company of Ireland. The ISM published monthly accounts of the work of the INTO written by a prominent member of the executive. Publication of the ISM ceased in 1906.

3. Dale report, p. 37, point 125. Mr F. H. Dale had been commissioned by the British government to ‘inquire and report how typical Irish Elementary Day Schools compared with similarly circumstanced Public Elementary Schools in England as regards Premises, Equipment, Staffing and Instruction; and to what causes differences in economy and efficiency appear to be chiefly due’.

4. Sir Alfred Mosley organised an Educational Commission which visited the United States from October to December 1903 to ‘ascertain how far education in the United States is responsible for her industrial progress’.

5. There were three grades, and all teachers appointed after 1 April 1900 were placed on grade three. There were two divisions in first grade. Teachers’ grades were determined by inspectors’ reports, average attendance numbers and standard numbers. The standard numbers system allowed for a fixed number of teachers in either division of the first grade and no promotion to either grade was possible when that number was reached unless a teacher already in the grade resigned or died. An average attendance of 70 was necessary to reach first division of first grade. Three consecutive ‘very good’ inspection reports were required for promotion to the first grade (see O'Connell, 1968).

6. The Irish Education Act of 1892 provided for a residual capitation grant to be paid to schools based on the daily average attendance.

7. In the same report the commissioners made much of the fact that 60.3% of teachers in their service on 31 December 1905 were trained.

8. The JAMs comprised less than 1% of the teaching force in 1905. By 1909, they comprised 15% of all teachers in the national schools (Seventy-first report, 1905, p. 39; Seventy-sixth report, 1910, p. 27).