Teacher training at St. Hild’s college Durham, 1858-1910

Abstract

The period covered by this thesis sees the assumption by the State of control over the training of teachers, through its control of finance and the curriculum, the examination system and the appointment of Staff. A uniformity of practice is thus, to some degree, inevitable in the colleges. The study of St. Hild's as an individual college in this period shows, however, that initiatives are not stifled, but that in providing the basic means, i.e. finance, the State actually provides a positive framework for the exercise of initiative in the creation of the College. Within the wider context of teacher training in this country, the study draws out two significant features of St. Hild's: the all-pervading influence of the founders of the College throughout this period, Rowland Burdon, d. l875, H.B. Tristran, d. l906, and G.H. Hamilton, d. 1905, and secondly, the importance of the link with the University of Durham. The study of St. Hild's as a Church College illustrates the nature of the relationship between Church and State in Education in this period, and suggests that State concern provides a stimulus to continued voluntary effort and the expression of its distinctive concerns. Nevertheless it is a relationship of tension in which the College is caught up at national level, even though at the end of the period the tension is not so keenly felt at the local level as the College prepares the ground for its evolution from an exclusively denominational institution to one expressing wider Christian concerns.