The work for education of the Hon E. Lyulph Stanley, later fourth Baron Stanley of Alderly, fourth Baron Sheffield

Abstract

Lyulph Stanley (1839-1925) devoted his life to the development of a national system of education under ad hoc oivic authorities. Educated at Etos and Balliol and embracing an uncompromising radicalism he assisted in attempts to divest Oxford of sectarian influence before joining the School Board for London. So successful were his efforts at initiating school building from 1879 to 1885 that those years witnessed more board school accommodation opened in London than the two greatest provincial boards constructed in three decades. The Cross Commission Extended Minority report was basically his work and the National Education Association, a pressure group opposed to tho Majority's recommendations and vigilant in the defence of school boards rights gas largely controlled by him until 1898. His Vice-Chairmanship of the S.B.L. (1897-1904) was narked by the crisis associated with tho 'Cockerton Judgments', end this crisis may have been exacerbated by his own forth rightness. After tho abolition of school boards, he worked for education in Anglesey, on the Central Welsh Board and in the House of Lords. Throughout his career, during which he produced over thirty publications, ho persistently saw the elementary school as the institution from which the system should grow and improved teacher-training as the means of raising standards. Evaluating his work prompts these tentative conclusions :-(a; the financial weakness of voluntary schools (c, l880-1902) sprang from the meanness of their supporters whose motives were often unrelated to furthering Christian education (b) the Department on occasion administered the Elementary Education Acts with an excessive leniency towards denominational schools. (o, in the countryside the Department could have (i) created more suitable units by amalgamating small school boards and (ii) prevented tho unnecessary multiplication of small schools(d) some of tho administrative units created in 1902 were over-large (a) the development of the best elementary schools was sometimes thwarted until too late (e.g. in London) thereby rendering "parity of estoem" less likely in subsequent reorganisations.