The work of the Salford school board.

Abstract

Salford was unique in 1870 in being a large town, of some 120,000 inhabitants, with an excess of public elementary school accommodation. In November 1870 Salford elected the sixth board in the country. The Board retained for the whole of its existence the voluntaryist majority with which it was first returned. Almost immediately the Board took over the payment of school-pence of poor but non-pauper children and with Manchester, up to 1st January 1877, paid more in fees than all the other boards together. Indeed, it was ever the policy of the Board to aid the Salford voluntary schools in any way possible, such as by fees assistance, and from this attitude and the initial excess of voluntary school places, it developed a reluctance to provide new board schools. From 1880 onwards this policy resulted in acute shortages of accommodation in various parts of Salford. The inspectorate constantly exhorted the Board to supply new school places. The Board did not even manage a school until 1877.The Board resolved to make attendance compulsory as soon as practicable, and this was enforced from 1872. However, the standards of exemption were low and the Board not particularly zealous in securing attendance. With the passing of the 1880 Elementary Education Act, it unavailingly sought to retain ease of exemption, but thereafter it remained slightly in front of the country generally in its regard for the children's welfare. It was never easy to induce children to stay on at school - even to-day Salford has the lowest proportion of sixth-formers in the country - and with the passing of the I889 Technical Instruction Act (largely engineered by the most famous member of the Salford Board, William Mather, who had been a member of the Samuelson Commission) a period of friction between the School Board and the Council's Technical Instruction Committee ensued. A large new technical college was built, and despite agreement, the college attempted to attract children from the upper standards of the Board's higher grade schools. Later, there were rival claims for the recognition as the local authority responsible for Science and Art Instruction, under Clause VII of the 1897 Directory. By 1901, however, a complete reconciliation had occurred.