The development of elementary education in Crewe, 1840-1918

Abstract

The thesis examines the rapid if occasionally uncertain progress of education during the difficult period of transition from voluntary to State control in a nineteenth century 'new town' which was created and, for he first century of its existence, largely dominated by a single industrial organization, the London and North Western (formerly Grand Junction) Railway Company. After a brief explanatory account of the foundation of Crewe in a rural parish where no nucleated settlement had previously existed, the early chapters describe the various contribution is made by Anglican, Roman Catholic and Nonconformist communities and by the Railway Company towards the provision of public elementary schools during the first thirty years of the town's growth. Some detail is also given of the work and progress of the schools. The central section of the thesis is concerned with the period between the two major Education Acts of 1870 and 1902, during which Crewe's population increased from less than 17,000 to more than 42,000, and deals in turn with the local response to the requirements of the 1870 Act and of subsequent educational legislation, the determined struggle on the part of the town's rate payers, denominational bodies and the Railway Company to maintain elementary education on a voluntary basis, the improvements effected by the Crewe School Attendance Committee, the influences of the State grant system on the curriculum and organization of the schools and, finally, with the training of pupil teachers. Following the Education Act of 1902, Crewe Borough Council became a 'Part III' local authority, and the remainder of the thesis constitutes an appraisal of the work and achievements, necessarily limited by steadily increasing financial restrictions, of the Crewe Education Committee during the first fifteen years of municipal control.