Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:27:42.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lady Astor's Campaign for Nursery Schools in Britain, 1930–1939: Attempting to Valorize Cultural Capital in a Male-Dominated Political Field

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Kevin J. Brehony
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article examines the work of Lady Nancy Astor (1879–1964) in campaigning for nursery education and nursery schools in Britain from the late 1920s until the Second World War. Arguably no elected politician in England at any time, including the present, has identified themselves more closely with the cause of nursery schooling in Britain. Historiography that focuses on the impact of exceptional “pioneers” is frequently hagiographical and emphasizes the actions of charismatic figures at the expense of contexts and the hidden political, economic, and social forces operating within them. The main assumption underlying the approach here is that individuals are themselves shaped by social relations and that their capacity to impact on events depends on the structure of social relations and their place within them. This formulation, although derived mainly from debates within Marxist theory, shares affinities with the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who saw society as constituted by fields in which agents endowed with varying amounts of economic, cultural, and symbolic capital compete for scarce material and symbolic goods in “a general economy of practices.”

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , May 2009 , pp. 196 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Bourdieu, Pierre, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge: Polity, 1991); Pierre Bourdieu, Sociology in Question, Theory, Culture & Society (London: Sage Publications, 1993); Bourdieu, Pierre, “The Forms of Capital,” in Education: Culture, Economy, Society, ed. Halsey, A.H., et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 46–58.Google Scholar

2 Orbell, John, “Baring, John, Second Baron Revelstoke (1863–1929)” Oxford University Press, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37152 (accessed 3 June 2007).Google Scholar

3 Pugh, Martin, “Astor, Nancy Witcher, Viscountess Astor (1879–1964),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2006), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30489 (accessed 26 September 2007).Google Scholar

4 Ibid.Google Scholar

5 Harrison, Brian, “Women in a Men's House: The Women M.P.s, 1919–1945.” The Historical Journal 29, 3 (1986): 623–654.Google Scholar

6 On spiritual motherhood, see for example: Allen, Ann Taylor, “Spiritual Motherhood: German Feminists and the Kindergarten Movement 1848–1911.” History of Education Quarterly 22, 3 (1982): 319–339; Allen, Ann Taylor, Feminism and Motherhood in Germany, 1800–1914 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991); Allen, Ann Taylor, Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe, 1890–1970: The Maternal Dilemma (New York; Palgrave MacMillan, 2007); On social maternalism, see for example: Koven, Seth and Michel, Sonya, Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge, 1993); Harrison, , “Women in a Men's House,” 628.Google Scholar

7 Harrison, , “Women in a Men's House,” 628.Google Scholar

8 Pugh, , “Astor, Nancy Witcher.”Google Scholar

9 Pugh, Martin, “Popular Conservatism in Britain: Continuity and Change, 1880–1987.” The Journal of British Studies 27, 3 (1988): 254–282.Google Scholar

10 Board of Education, Reports on Children under Five Years of Age in Public Elementary Schools by Women Inspectors of the Board of Education (London: HMSO, 1905), i.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., ii.Google Scholar

12 Independent Labour Party, Annual Conference Report 1905, Manchester, 42.Google Scholar

13 McMillan, Margaret and the Independent Labour Party, The Child and the State (London: Independent Labour Party, 1906), 5.Google Scholar

14 Brehony, Kevin J., “The School Masters Parliament: The Origins and Formation of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education 1868–1916.” History of Education 23, 2 (1994): 171–193.Google Scholar

15 Board of Education, Report of the Consultative Committee Upon the School Attendance of Children Below the Age of Five (London: HMSO, 1908), 16.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 19.Google Scholar

17 NSA 1928 Fifth Annual Report, ED 24/1466 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

18 Grigg, John, Nancy Astor (Feltham: Hamlyn, 1980).Google Scholar

19 Sykes., Christopher Nancy: The Life of Lady Astor (London: Collins, 1972), 329.Google Scholar

20 Eddy, Mary Baker, Science and Health: With Key to the Scriptures (Boston, MA: First Church of Christ Scientist, 1994); Nancy Witcher Astor and Elizabeth Langhorne, Nancy Astor and Her Friends (London: Barker, 1974); Shaw, Bernard, Astor, Nancy, and Wearing, J.P., Bernard Shaw and Nancy Astor, Selected Correspondence of Bernard Shaw (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005).Google Scholar

21 Nursery School Association of Great Britain, Historical Record of the Nursery School Association of Great Britain from 1923–1944 (London NSA of GB, 1944) [written by Grace Owen and Margaret P. Eggar].Google Scholar

22 Astor to Percy, 24 February 1927 MS 1416/2/2/205 Papers of Nancy Astor, The University of Reading.Google Scholar

23 Wicks, Pembroke to Wood, R. S., 18 June 1928. Board of Education and predecessors: Private Office: Papers (Series 1) ED 24 1466. National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

24 Eustace Percy to Pembroke Wicks, 19 June 1928. Board of Education and predecessors: Private Office: Papers (Series 1) ED 24 1466. National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

25 McMillan, Margaret to Astor, Nancy, 23 February 1928. Papers of Nancy Astor, MS1416/1/1/71.Google Scholar

26 Steedman, Carolyn, Childhood Culture and Class in Britain: Margaret McMillan 1860–1931 (London: Virago, 1990), 59.Google Scholar

27 Sykes, Christopher, Nancy: The Life of Lady Astor (London: Collins, 1972), 353–54.Google Scholar

28 Son-in-law of the novelist Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, who, with her daughter, promoted children's playgrounds. See: Brehony, , “A ‘Socially Civilising Influence'? Play and the Urban ‘Degenerate.”'Google Scholar

29 Mansbridge, , Margaret McMillan, 147.Google Scholar

30 Mrs. S. Burford Scott to Astor, 4 October 1926. Papers of Nancy Astor, MS1416/1/1/68.Google Scholar

31 Memorandum, , “Note on Nursery Schools, Day Nurseries and other methods of making provision for the education or nurture of children under 5,” Wood, A.H. 27 October 1925. ED 102 2 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

32 Lady Astor to Edward (Halifax, Lord) 6 June 1934. ED 102 4 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

33 Lady Astor's Memorandum. ED 102 4, W2412/13 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

34 Memorandum, Maudslay, 13 June 1934. Ed 102 4 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

35 Robinson, Sir W.A., Ministry of Health, to Sir Henry Pelham, Board of Education, 14 June 1934. ED 102 4 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

36 Vincent, H.G., Downing Street to Cleary, W.C., Board of Education, 21 June 1934. ED 102 4 The National Archives, Kew. In his capacity as Labour leader, MacDonald had become a Vice President of the NSA when it was founded.Google Scholar

37 Halifax to Astor, 25 June 1934. ED 102 4 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

38 Halifax to Astor, 18 December 1934. ED 102 4 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

39 [Pelham?l to Philip., C.I. Miss ED 102 4 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

40 Ibid.Google Scholar

41 Whitbread, Nanette, The Evolution of the Nursery-Infant School (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), 79.Google Scholar

42 Sykes, , Nancy: The Life of Lady Astor, 420.Google Scholar

43 Hansard, , 30 May 1934.Google Scholar

44 Leaflet, : “A Ten Year Plan for Children,” first published December 1935. ED 136 16 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

45 The 1993 film Remains of the Day is loosely based on the activities of the “Cliveden Set.”Google Scholar

46 Leaflet: “A Ten Year Plan for Children: the First Stage and the Next,” July 1936. Ed 136 16 The National Archives, Kew.Google Scholar

47 Year Children Nursery schools 1930 1,431 30 1933 3,277 58 1935 3,747 65 1936 4,234 79 1938 5,666 103 Source: Nanette Whitbread, The Evaluation of the Nursery-Infant School (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), 79.Google Scholar

48 Astor to Mcmillan, 30 July 1936. Papers of Nancy Astor, MS 1416/1/1/1612.Google Scholar

49 Pugh, , “Astor, Nancy Witcher.”Google Scholar

50 Workman, Joanne, “Wading through the Mire: An Historiographical Study of the British Women's Movement between the Wars,” University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History, http://www.sussex.ac.uk/history/documents2._workman_wading_through_the_mire.pdf (accessed 4 February 2007).Google Scholar

51 Pugh, , “Popular Conservatism,” 276.Google Scholar

52 Michel, Sonya and Rosen, Robyn, “The Paradox of Maternalism: Elizabeth Lowell Putnam and the American Welfare State.” Gender and History 4, 3 (1992): 364–386.Google Scholar