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Abstract
Recent concerns in Ireland with memorialisation and cultural nationalism facilitate a sociological appraisal of the unjustly neglected Kildare Commission on Endowed Schools, 1854–58. Uniquely, it was an exercise in modernisation and rationalisation of cultural capital set to supply hope to Irish Protestants in the post-Famine era. The sociological significance of the Commission lies in the understandings it offers of the link between print culture, Blue Books (parliamentary inquiries) and politics; Bourdieu's notion of informational capital; and Weber's interest in social inquiries as checks on bureaucratic power. The fieldwork of the inquiry had ritual and quasi-ethnographic properties which systematically brought to light the hidden social conditions of these schools.
Acknowledgements
The essay is based on a paper given on 17 November 2010 to the Seminar in Irish History, Hertford College, Oxford. I am most grateful to Professor Roy Foster for inviting me and to Dr Tim Wilson for looking after the seminar which gave rise to much useful critical response. The staff of the Arts and Social Science Library, University of Bristol were most helpful in giving me easy access to the volumes of the Commission. My thanks go to the three anonymous referees who supplied constructive responses which much improved the essay. Finally, and again, for his useful stylistic suggestions on the essay, I am indebted to the Revd Dr Peter C. Jupp.
Notes
2. CitationComerford, ‘Ireland 1850–70’, 393–5.
4. CitationGodkin, A Handbook of the Education Question, 146.
5. CitationAnon. ‘Charles Graves’, 345–6; CitationCooke, ‘The Graves Family in Ireland’, 25–39.
6. CitationGraves, To Return to All That, 14–18.
7. CitationCochrane, Presidential Address, 1–22. It was difficult to find biographical material on Kildare.
8. CitationNorwood and Hope, The Higher Education of Boys in England, 21–7.
9. CitationBalls, ‘The Endowed Schools Act 1869 and the Development of the English Grammar School in the Nineteenth Century I’, 207.
10. CitationAtkinson, Irish Education, 113–14; CitationBalfour, The Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland, 196–8.
11. CitationFlanagan, ‘The Shaping of Irish Anglican Secondary Schools 1854–1878’, 27–43.
12. CitationMacDonagh, ‘Introduction’, lix.
13. House of Lords, CXLIX, 3 May 1858, cols. 2104–116.
14. House of Commons, CLI, 29 June 1858, cols. 624–36.
15. House of Commons, CL, 11 May 1858, col. 428.
16. Balfour, The Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland, 198–200, 205–9.
17. The Daily News, 5 October 1858.
18. CitationMartineau, The Endowed Schools of Ireland.
19. Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 8 July 1858.
20. Godkin, A Handbook of the Education Question, 147.
21. Cited in CitationMacDonagh, Ireland, 34.
22. CitationVaughan, A New History of Ireland.
23. CitationConnerton, How Modernity Forgets, 2.
24. CitationNora, Realms of Memory, xvii.
25. CitationNora, Realms of Memory, 19.
26. CitationP. Ford and G. Ford, Select List of British Parliamentary Papers 1833–1899, 116–34.
27. CitationHutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism, 9.
28. CitationCampbell, The Irish Establishment.
29. Graves, To Return to All That, 22–3.
30. CitationMill, England and Ireland, 41.
31. CitationSpenser, ‘A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596)’, 183.
32. CitationByrne, ‘Anthony Trollope in Ireland’, 128.
33. CitationMeloy, ‘Touring Connemara’, 31.
34. Auguste Comte (1798–1857) initially conceived of sociology as a form of social physics. He also founded a positivist religion based on the advance of reason which was set to displace Catholicism. His religion attracted a number of followers amongst the Protestant intelligentsia in Dublin in the 1850s.
35. CitationHooper, Travel Writing and Ireland, 1760–1860, 184–5.
36. Martineau, The Endowed Schools.
37. CitationGeorge Griffith, The Endowed Schools of England and Ireland.
38. CitationAnon. ‘The Endowed Grammar Schools of Ireland with a Sketch of Their History and Condition’, 721–52.
39. CitationFlanagan, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Celtic Ineligible’, 242–75; CitationJordan, ‘“A Great Statistical Operation”’, 94–114.
40. CitationHume, Results of the Irish Census of 1861.
41. CitationFlanagan, ‘The Godless and the Burlesque’, 239–77.
42. CitationShaw, ‘How to Improve School Education in Ireland’, 369.
43. CitationM'Cosh, The Necessity for an Intermediate System of Education, 6.
44. CitationAkenson, The Irish Education Experiment.
45. Balfour, The Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland, 195.
46. House of Commons, CXLIX, 25 March 1858, col. 729; CitationMacDonagh, Early Victorian Government 1830–1870, 178–96.
47. CitationLoughlin, The British Monarchy and Ireland 1800 to the Present; see especially Part II.
48. CitationFlanagan, ‘The Chief Secretary's Office 1853–1914’, 197–225.
49. MacDonagh, Ireland: The Union, 41.
50. CitationJordan, ‘Two Thomases’, 286–7.
51. Graves, To Return to All That, 22.
52. Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism.
53. CitationFrankel, ‘Scenes of Commission’, 24–6.
54. CitationFrankel, ‘Scenes of Commission’, 29.
55. CitationFrankel, ‘Blue Books and the Victorian Reader’, 308.
56. CitationFrankel, States of Inquiry, 42.
57. CitationFrankel, States of Inquiry, 191–4.
58. CitationFrankel, States of Inquiry, 47.
59. CitationCartwright, Royal Commissions and Departmental Committees in Britain, 37.
60. Frankel, States of Inquiry, 25–7.
61. House of Commons, CXLIX, 25 March 1858, cols. 782–3.
62. Return of the Cost of Printing Endowed Schools, 4.
63. House of Lords, CXLIX, 3 May 1858, cols. 2109–2110.
64. Martineau, The Endowed Schools, 2.
65. Treasury Minute relating to Printing Reports, 2.
66. Return of the Cost of Printing Reports, 1–3.
67. Return of the COST of PRINTING REPORTS and PAPERS presented by COMMAND OF HER MAJESTY, during the Sessions of 1857, specifying the Number of Copies Printed, with the Name of the Public Department which authorised the same, House of Commons 1857–58 (123), 3.
68. Treasury Minute relating to PRINTING REPORTS, 1.
69. Return of the Cost of PRINTING ENDOWED SCHOOLS.
70. Select Committee on Printing, iv; 25.
71. Return of the Cost of PRINTING ENDOWED SCHOOLS.
72. Select Committee on Printing, 31.
73. Return of Expenditure into the Endowed Schools, Ireland.
74. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, I, 188.
75. CitationWeber, From Max Weber, 214, 224.
76. CitationWeber, From Max Weber, 234.
77. See CitationJenkins, Pierre Bourdieu; CitationWebb, Schirato, and Danaher, Understanding Bourdieu; and CitationHarker, Mahar, and Wilkes, An Introduction to Pierre Bourdieu.
78. CitationGrenfell, Pierre Bourdieu.
79. CitationEngler, ‘Modern Times’, 445–67.
80. CitationWacquant, ‘From Class to Field of Power’, 39.
81. CitationReed-Danahay, Locating Bourdieu, 69–98.
82. CitationBourdieu, The State Nobility, 360–9.
83. CitationBourdieu, Wacquant, and Farage, ‘Rethinking the State’, 7–8.
84. CitationBourdieu, Wacquant, and Farage, ‘Rethinking the State’, 13.
85. CitationBourdieu, Wacquant, and Farage, ‘Rethinking the State’, 17.
86. CitationRadkau, Max Weber, 93.
87. CitationKäsler, Max Weber, 53.
88. CitationKäsler, Max Weber, 57.
89. CitationKäsler, Max Weber, 79.
90. CitationTitunik, ‘Democracy, Domination and Legitimacy in Max Weber's Political Thought’, 157–8.
91. Frankel, ‘Scenes of Commission’, 23.
92. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, III, 590.
93. Return of Expenditure into the Endowed Schools, Ireland.
94. Frankel, States of Inquiry, 171.
95. CitationAshforth, ‘Reckoning Schemes of Legitimation’, 3.
96. CitationArnold, The Symbols of Government, 233.
97. Ashforth, ‘Reckoning Schemes of Legitimation’, 7.
98. CitationKertzer, Rituals, Politics and Power, 11.
99. CitationDymond, Ceremonial in the House of Lords, 14.
100. CitationGoodsell, ‘Administration as Ritual’, 941.
101. Frankel, States of Inquiry, 181–91.
102. CitationSchreuder, ‘Ireland and the Expertise of Imperial Administration’, 147.
103. CitationSchreuder, ‘Ireland and the Expertise of Imperial Administration’, 145.
104. CitationSchreuder, ‘Ireland and the Expertise of Imperial Administration’, 153–61.
105. CitationSchaffner, ‘The Figure of the Questions versus the Prose of the Answers’, 241–3.
106. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, II, 942, question 18037.
107. Ashforth, ‘Reckoning Schemes of Legitimation’, 10.
108. CitationWinn, ‘Legal Ritual’, 215.
109. The Morning Post, 26 September 1855.
110. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, I, 4–5.
111. The Belfast News-Letter, 6 October 1855.
112. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, IV.
113. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 861–913.
114. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 913, questions 17588–17596.
115. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 759–99, 801–59.
116. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 914–85.
117. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 942–6.
118. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 123.
119. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 122–70, 217–22.
120. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 161, 218.
121. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 461–505.
122. Endowed Schools, Ireland Commission, II, 501–5.
123. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, I, 81–2.
124. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, I, 223–25.
125. Endowed Schools, Ireland, Commission, I, 248.
126. Flanagan, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Clever Ineligible’, especially chap. 5; CitationCook, ‘The Irish Raj’, 507–29.
127. Flanagan, ‘The Shaping of Irish Anglican Secondary Schools’.
128. CitationGriffith, ‘A Short Guide to the Public Record Office of Ireland’, 45–58.