A history of education

[ElizabethHerts]

Whilst researching my 8x-great-grandfather John Williams, I have become very interested in the education system in the 17th century. I have seen various ancestors rise from relatively humble means and gain good jobs and have comfortable lifestyles, which has always made me wonder about their education.

John Williams was from Northampton and attended Oxford University, then being incorporated at Cambridge University.

I have found this resource on the Internet, which seems very well researched and resourced. A new, much longer version is coming out in a few days. It might be of interest to some of you.

Current version:
http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/index.html

New version:
http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/revision.html

[Olde Crone]

I remember being very surprised to find that my ancestors lived in a village in the early 1700s where even the humblest ag lab could write his own name in careful copperplate. There was a free school in the village and it would seem from the records that most of the children attended regularly.

OC

[Jill]

Saving the links for when the World Cup is on! My OH says it will be on for 6 weeks :(

[ElizabethHerts]

Good plan, Jill!

[Nell]

I am very interested in education (I work in a school). My Dad left school at 14, but was a great appreciater of Shakespeare and could recite fluently from Julius Caesar, which I think he must have learnt in his short time.

Many of my ancestors marked X on their certs, but some had beautiful writing. I also have a great-grandmother who worked as assistant school mistress in a small village - her cousin was the school mistress she assisted.

Hitchin, where I live, has the British Schools Museum, worth visiting, and opposite the museum, a road named Jill Grey Place, after the woman who collected so much educational material the Museum now possesses.

[HarrysMum]

I remember reading an article on Hawkshead Grammar School, as OH’s lot were some of the founders. When it started in 1585, part of its ethos was that every child, regardless of station or ability to pay, shall learn their “letters and numbers” to the age of 12.

The gentlemen of the town paid the teachers.

[anne fraser]

I have a family of stone masons who did a lot of work on Cotswold churches. Several of their bills survive demanding payment per letter for inscriptions so I am pretty sure they could write and count. 17th and 18th century. My great grandmother had been a governess before her marriage and after her marriage she was asked by some of the locals to teach their children in addition to her own eight and she ended up founding a school.