Education and the Middle Classes: The Case of the English Grammar Schools, 1868–1944

Abstract

This paper investigates the history of the education of the middle classes with particular reference to the historical experience of the English grammar schools between 1868 and 1944. It indicates a general neglect of the history of middle‐class education and an opportunity to develop this in greater depth in terms of the range and diversity of provision, the experience of education and the emotions of social class. The historical development of grammar schools from the Taunton report of 1868 and the writings of Matthew Arnold to the Norwood report of 1943 and the Education Act of 1944 is outlined as an example of the characteristics of the education of the middle classes, with lasting implications that help to explain the continuing conflicts over secondary education in the early twenty‐first century.

Notes

² Matthew Arnold, “A French Eton, or middle‐class education and the State.” In Matthew Arnold and the Education of a New Order, edited by Peter Smith and Geoffrey Summerfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969 (first published 1864): 112–13.

¹ Matthew Arnold, Schools and Universities on the Continent, edited by R.H. Super. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964—first written as a report to the Schools Inquiry (Taunton) Commission, 1865–67: 328.

³ Ibid., 117.

⁴ Ibid., 132.

⁵ Ibid., 145.

⁶ Ibid., 152.

⁷ Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, edited by J. Dover Willson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932 (first published 1869): 70.

⁸ Department for Education and Skills, Higher Standards, Better Schools For All: More Choice for Parents and Pupils. London: Stationery Office, 2005; Shepherd, Alison. “Blair only cares about pushy middle‐classes.” Times Educational Supplement (28 October 2005): 22; Wilby, Peter. “The richest are white paper winners.” Times Educational Supplement (4 November 2005): 23.

⁹ See for example the report in the Observer, “Will social class be the factor that does for Cameron the toff?” Observer (30 October 2005): 13.

¹⁰ See for example Gary McCulloch and William Richardson, Historical Research in Educational Settings. Buckingham, Open University Press, 2000 for a discussion of these general themes.

¹¹ For examples of a massive literature in each area, see Wilkinson, Rupert. The Prefects: British Leadership and the Public School Tradition. London: Oxford University Press, 1964; Honey, J. R. de S. Tom Brown’s Universe: The Development of the Public School in the 19^th Century. London: Millington Books, 1977; Mangan, J. A. Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School. London: Falmer Press, 1986; Simon, Brian. The Two Nations and the Educational Structure, 1780–1870. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1960; Simon, Brian. The Politics of Educational Reform, 1920–1940. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1965. Two of my earlier works, Philosophers and Kings: Education for Leadership in Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 and Failing the Ordinary Child? The Theory and Practice of Working‐Class Secondary Education. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998 explored these ‘elite’ and ‘mass’ traditions respectively.

¹² Searby, Peter. “Foreword.” In Educating the Victorian Middle Class, edited by Peter Searby. Leicester: History of Education Society, 1982: vi.

¹³ See especially Marsden, W. E. Unequal Educational Provision in England and Wales: The Nineteenth Century Roots. London: Woburn Press, 1987; Marsden, W. E. Educating The Respectable: A Study of Fleet Road Board School, Hampstead, 1879–1903. London: Woburn Press, 1991; Reeder, David. “The reconstruction of secondary education in England, 1869–1920.” In The Rise of the Modern Educational System: Structural Change and Social Reproduction 1879–1920, edited by D. Muller, F. Ringer and B. Simon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987: 135–50.

¹⁴ With apologies to Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.

¹⁵ Banks, Olive. Parity and Prestige in English Secondary Education. London: RKP. 1955: 12.

¹⁶ Ibid., 248.

¹⁷ Simon, Brian. The Politics of Educational Reform, 1920–1940. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1974: 318.

¹⁸ Ibid., 333.

¹⁹ Hunt, Felicity. Gender and Policy in English Education: Schooling for Girls 1902–44. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.

²⁰ See for example Vlaeminke, Meriel. The English Higher Grade Schools: A Lost Opportunity. London: Woburn, 2000; Manton, Kevin. Socialism and Education in Britain, 1883–1902. London: Woburn Press, 2001; Simon, Brian. “David Reeder’s ‘alternative system’: the school boards in the 1890s.” In Cities of Ideas: Civil Society and Urban Governance in Britain, 1800–2000, edited by Robert Colls and Richard Rodger. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004: 178–206.

²¹ Tawney, R. H. Equality, edited by Richard Titmuss. London: Unwin Books (1931; 1964 ed.): 64.

²² Ibid.

²³ Clarke, Fred. Education and Social Change: An English Interpretation. London: Sheldon Press, 1940: 10.

²⁴ Bourke, Joanna. Fear: A Cultural History. London: Virago, 2005: 27.

²⁵ Bledstein, Burton J. “Introduction: Story tellers to the middle class.” In The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class, edited by Burton J. Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston. London: Routledge, 2001: 5.

²⁶ Aronowitz, Stanley. How Class Works: Power and Social Movement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003: 34.

²⁷ Gay, Peter. The Bourgeois Experience, Victoria To Freud, vol. I, Education of the Senses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984: 17, 67.

²⁸ Wright Mills, C. The Sociological Imagination. London: Oxford University Press, 1959: 5.

²⁹ Vlaeminke, The English Higher Grade Schools, Manton, Socialism and Education.

³⁰ Halsey, A. H. “The relation between education and social mobility with reference to the grammar school since 1944.” Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1954.

³¹ Hunt, Felicity. “Social class and the grading of schools: realities in girls” secondary education, 1880–1940.” In The Education of Girls and Women, edited by June Purvis. Leicester: History of Education Society, 1985: 27–46.

³² Blades, Barry. “Deacon’s School, Peterborough, 1902–1920: A Study of the Social and Economic Function of Secondary Schooling.” Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 2003.

³³ Thompson, F. M. L. The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830–1900. London: Fontana, 1988.

³⁴ McKibbin, Ross. Classes And Cultures: England 1918–1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998: 104.

³⁵ See for example Kidd, Alan, and David Nicholls, eds. The Making of the British Middle Class? Studies of Regional and Cultural Diversity since the Eighteenth Century. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998; and Kidd, Alan, and David Nicholls, eds. Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle–Class Identity in Britain, 1800–1940. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.

³⁶ Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850. London: Hutchinson, 1987: 28, 35. See also for example Morris, R. J. “A year in the public life of the British bourgeoisie.” In Colls and Rodger, eds, Cities of Ideas, 121–43.

³⁷ Crossick, Geoffrey. “From gentlemen to the residuum: languages of social description in Victorian Britain.” In Language, History and Class, edited by Penelope Corfield. London: Basil Blackwell, 1991: 173.

³⁸ For example, Trainor, Richard. “The middle class.” In The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, edited by Martin Daunton, vol. III, 1840–195. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991: 673–713.

³⁹ Devine, Fiona, and Mike Savage. “The cultural turn: sociology and class analysis.” In Rethinking Class: Culture, Identities and Lifestyles, edited by Fiona Devine, Mike Savage, John Scott and Rosemary Crompton. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005: 1–23; Skeggs, Beverley. Class, Self Culture. London: Routledge, 2004. See also Reay, Diane. “Thinking class, making class” British Journal of Sociology of Education 26, no. 1 (2005): 139–43.

⁴⁰ For example, Devine, Fiona. Class Practices: How Parents Help Their Children to get Good Jobs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. See also Furlong, Andy. “Maintaining middle class advantage.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 26, no. 5 (2005): 683–85.

⁴¹ See for example Grenfell, Michael. Bourdieu and Education: Acts of Practical Theory. London: Falmer, 1998; and Brown, Nicholas, and Imre Szeman, eds. Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

⁴⁵ Tomlinson, Sally. Education in a Post‐Welfare Society. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2005: 173.

⁴² Power, Sally, et al. Education and the Middle Class. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003.

⁴³ Ball, Stephen. Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003: 2.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 4.

⁴⁶ For further details of the Taunton commission, see especially Allsobrook, David. Schools for the Shires: The Reform of Middle‐Class Education in Victorian England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986.

⁴⁷ Report by Mr J. Bryce (Schools Inquiry Commission), vol. IX, General Reports by Assistant Commissioners: Northern Counties: 428.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 497–98.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 491.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Ibid., 493.

⁵² Ibid., 494.

⁵³ Orwell, George. The Road to Wigan Pier. London: Gollancz, 1937. See e.g. Corbin, Alain. The Foul and the Fragrant: Odour and the French Social Imagination. London: Picador, 1994 for historical discussion of ‘olfactory perception’.

⁵⁴ Hughes, Thomas. Tom Brown’s Schooldays London: Dent, 1857/1949.

⁵⁵ Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1850/1948: 78.

⁵⁶ Hill, C. P. The History of Bristol Grammar School. London: Pitman, 1951: 171.

⁵⁷ See also McCulloch, Gary. “Cyril Norwood and the English tradition of education.” Oxford Review of Education 32, no. 1 (2006): 55–69; and McCulloch, Gary. Cyril Norwood and the Ideal of Secondary Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.

⁶⁰ Ibid., 268.

⁵⁸ Report of the committee appointed by the prime minister to enquire into the position of classics in the educational system of the United Kingdom. London: HMSO, 1921: 6.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 43.

⁶¹ See also e.g. Hunt, Gender and Policy in English Education.

⁶² Board of Education. Report of the Consultative Committee on Differentiation of the Curriculum for Boys and Girls Respectively in Secondary Schools. London: HMSO, 1921.

⁶³ Board of Education. Report of the Consultative Committee on the Education of the Adolescent (Hadow Report). London: HMSO, 1926.

⁶⁴ Norwood, Cyril. The English Tradition of Education. London: John Murray, 1929: 249, 4.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 239, 300.

⁶⁶ Fred Clarke, note, August 1943 (Clarke papers, Institute of Education London).

⁶⁷ Board of Education. Curriculum and Examinations in Secondary Schools. London: HMSO, 1943: vii–viii.

⁶⁸ See for example Stevens, Frances. The Living Tradition: The Social and Educational Assumptions of the Grammar School. London: Hutchinson, 1972.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gary McCulloch

I am most grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for its support for the research project ‘The life and educational career of Sir Cyril Norwood (1875–1956)’ (F/118/AU) on which this paper is based; and to participants in the History of Education Society annual conference, Birmingham, 2–4 December 2005, and in the staff–student seminar at the School of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, 7 December 2005, for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.