Abstract
This thesis is concerned with the changing face of educational provision in nineteenth century Scotland. In particular, it examines the reasons behind the Church of Scotland's loss of official authority over schooling in 1872. From the time of the Reformation, the Church had been empowered to supervise all education in Scotland, to play the major role in the appointment of teachers, and to ensure that landowners assumed their responsibilities in the placing of a school in every parish. However, this authority had never operated straightforwardly, and in 1803 an Education Act transferred significant aspects of the Church's power over the appointment of teachers in parochial schools - and therefore over the curriculum of those schools - to local landowners. In the course of the nineteenth century, the Church's position was eroded still more substantially, until the Education Act of 1872 formally gave control over State sponsored establishments to locally-elected School Boards. The Church's loss of power was directly connected with the formation of a system of universal, compulsory schooling for Scotland's children.
The study is structured in seven chapters. Chapter 1 considers the background to the educational developments of the nineteenth century: the profound social and ecclesiastical consequences of demographic change, industrialisation, and urbanisation. Section A (Chapters 2-4) explores the history of the Church of Scotland's work in education, and the emergence of other churches which actively developed additional and rival schools in the 1800s. Chapter 2 examines the origins and working of the Church of Scotland's system of parochial schools, and the responses of this system to a changing educational environment. Chapters 3-4 assess the place of the Church of Scotland's ancillary institutions, Sessional and Assembly schools, and the activities of the Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK). Detailed consideration is given to the educational efforts of four other major denominations - the Free Church of Scotland, the United Presbyterian Church, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Church - and to the schools established by the Society of Friends. The demonstrable inability of the Church of Scotland to meet its statutory obligations in both rural and urban areas, and the sheer scale of the educational provision made by other bodies, fostered a growing perception that responsibility for schooling could not be entrusted to any single voluntary institution, but required to be vested in the State.
Section B (Chapters 5-7) examines the evolving ideals of rescue and reformation of the 'perishing classes' in the work of Sunday, ragged, industrial, and reformatory schools, and the parts played by such schools in educating the poorest members of British society in the nineteenth century. As these parts can all be seen to be interconnected, it emerges that the Church of Scotland's withdrawal from Sunday-school provision in 1799 compromised its capacity to meet the needs of a growing constituency of vulnerable children, and exacerbated its inability to provide appropriate instruction for those most affected by the turmoil of industrialisation. The lay composition of the committees that managed all of these schools also contributed to the marginalisation of the institutional voice of the Church in administering Scotland's education.
In the end, the Church of Scotland lost control to the State in 1872 because it was unable to adapt its parochial structure sufficiently to provide appropriate schooling to meet the challenges of a changed world.