The Works School

1885 · Works School · Work 385 of 1,871

The Works School, 1885, Works School

Children at sloping desks in a works school room, slates and slate pencils in hand, a teacher at a wall map, an abacus frame standing beside the stove.

What it was used for
Schooling for factory children, imposed as a condition of their employment. The Factory Act of 1833, as the UK Parliament's account puts it, required children under thirteen to receive two hours of elementary schooling each day and created a four-man inspectorate with power to impose penalties — four inspectors for 4,000 mills, which is why, in the words of that same account, the Act was widely evaded. At Saltaire the half-timers aged eight to thirteen were at first taught in the mill's dining hall; the Salt Schools opened in 1868 — the building is dated 1869 — with room for 750 children, boys and girls segregated in the two principal rooms and infants in the smaller central room. For 1896 the Wakefield Express of 24 September 1898 reported 30,938 boys and 32,675 girls working as half-timers under the Factory and Workshop Acts.
What was new
What was new was not the teaching but the legal device: from 1833 the law required daily schooling for factory children under thirteen, enforced by a state inspectorate. In this way the state reached into a child's employment. Which works had the first factory school cannot be decided from the sources checked, and none of them makes that claim for a particular firm. The barb lies in the reversal of the protection: on 12 March 1891 Mr. Picton asked in the Commons about alleged cases of employers in and about Rochdale, Stockport and Oldham interfering with the right of half-timers' parents to choose the school; Sir W. Hart Dyke replied that an inspector's report substantially confirmed the allegations, but that he had no power to interfere, as no Education Act forbade it. The daily hour limit for nine- to thirteen-year-olds is given differently by two official bodies, eight or nine hours a day.

Connections

Every connection names its kind. “Forerunner” on its own would be a claim.

  1. Works withThe Works Village1880The school worked together with the mill: the Salt Schools opened at Saltaire in 1868 for day scholars and for half-timers, who worked half the day in the mill and sat in school for the other half. In 1878 the infants moved out to the Albert Road Board School.Source: Saltaire Collection / Saltaire Stories, Heritage Trail Saltaire (PDF), Nr. 16 Salt Schools und Nr. 18 Primary School · UNESCO, Nomination Dossier Saltaire (Nr. 1028), Zitat aus The Builder, 1852 (Schulen im Bauprogramm)
  2. Works withThe Canteen Table1890At Saltaire the school and the dining room were one room: the Dining Hall served 600 breakfasts and 700 dinners a day and doubled as the school for the half-timers, who worked in the mill in the morning and were taught there in the afternoon - until the Salt Schools opened in 1868.Source: Saltaire Collection / Saltaire Stories, Heritage Trail Saltaire (PDF), Nr. 2 Dining Hall und Nr. 16 Salt Schools

Further reading