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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was established 8 March 1699. It flourishes happily to this day as a leading Anglican missionary society (it was the first within the Anglican communion), and as the major Anglican publishing house. It is then important in many other connexions than as a founder and an instigator of the foundation of schools. In its early years especially it diffused its energies among a bewildering variety of projects, religious, moral, social and educational. The notes below are concerned with one group only of the Society's multifarious activities, and with but one archival source of information upon them. There is some interest and value in the study of the aims and methods of the Society in the establishment under its auspices of some 1,500 English schools, mainly during the period 1704–32. Much light is thrown upon the ideals and the proceedings of the Society and its members in this connexion by references in the annual Charity Sermons preached during this same period
page 54 note 2 Not, as most of the reference books say, 1698. The date is 8 March 1698/9, according to modern reckoning 1699.
page 54 note 3 The present writer has dealt in detail with some of the Society's more picturesque activities in an article in the current Archives, III. 18 (Michaelmas 1957), 105 ff.Google Scholar
page 54 note 4 See Appendix I.
page 54 note 5 N.E.D. gives the same reference for the first occurrence of ‘charity sermon’ as for ‘charity school’, viz., Marsh's sermon of 1682. Annual school sermons of various kinds are very well recorded, e.g. Eton had one in 1705, Merchant Taylors' in 1707, and St. Paul's in 1674. St. Saviour's, Southwark, had its first in 1718, Bishop's Stortford had one in 1712, Exeter Cathedral School one in 1732, Felstead in 1710. Other printed charity sermons are found e.g. at St. Giles-in-the-Fields 1706, Birmingham 1795, Bishop's Stortford 1704, Dursley, Glos., 1710, Ipswich 1713, and Nottingham 1707. There must also have been a great many sermons which were not printed. In the little Yorkshire town of Aberford the sermon was preached annually, at any rate from 1719 to 1848, for the school account book contains a list of the preachers for this period. The school sermon is preached annually, each St. Thomas's Day, to this day, at Carlton-in-Craven, Yorks.: it has been so preached since 1709. This, however, is rather a Founder's Day sermon, with instructions to the children ‘how to behave themselves toward God and Man’ than a charity sermon properly so called. There seem to be few Dissenting charity sermons in print. Those of Gravel Lane, Southwark, certainly exist from 1719, St. Bartholomew's Close from 1770, and Horsleydown, Southwark from 1779.
page 55 note 1 S.P.C.K. General Minutes 1.242, 25 March 1703; 248, 2 May 1703; 252, 20 May 1703; 266, 11 November 1703; 270, 2 December 1703; 289, 6 April 1704; 290, 27 April 1704.
page 55 note 2 ibid., 296, 22 June 1704; et passim.
page 55 note 3 The Methods … was published at twopence, the Account … and the Sermon in 4to, bound up together at a shilling. Sometimes copies of these works were presented to influential potential patrons. See S.P.C.K. Abstract Letter Books 5.4090, 14 August 1714; 5.4103, 2 September 1714 for the presentations made to George I on his accession.
page 55 note 4 The hymns sung at these services—often written specially for the occasion—are a study in themselves. They are commended to the attention of any hymnologist who may be interested.
page 56 note 1 Stanhope, 1705, 22.
page 56 note 2 Mangey, 1726, 24. The Scripture reference, it is supposed, must be either to Gen. xvi. 16, or to Mt. xxiv. 32.
page 57 note 1 Lupton, 1718, 30.
page 57 note 2 Marshal, 1721, 24, 30.
page 57 note 3 Watson, 1727, 31.
page 58 note 1 Peploe, 1730, 25.
page 58 note 2 Knight, 1720, 24–5.
page 58 note 3 Dawes, 1713, 23.
page 59 note 1 White Kennett, 1706, 12. The reference is to the famous passage in Bede, Lib. II cap. 1, neatly associated with the text in Ps. CXLIV, 12.
page 59 note 2 Willis, 1704, 9–12.
page 59 note 3 Bradford, 1709, 23.
page 60 note1 White Kennett, 1706, 15–16. Willoughby de Broke, 1712, 4–5.
page 60 note2 P. 24.
page 60 note3 Snape, 1711, 25.
page 61 note 1 Talbot, 1717, 29.
page 62 note 1 P. 9.
page 62 note 2 P. 33.
page 62 note 3 Yalden, 1728, 25, 27.
page 63 note 1 Wake MSS. Ch. Ch. Oxon. Arch. 4 Epist. 15. I owe the reference to Dr. Jones, and I have to thank Dr. Mollie Barratt of the Bodleian Library for being so kind as to check it for me. In 1722 the bishop of Bristol (p. 23) specially exhorts masters and mistresses to bring up the children as plain Anglicans, ‘avoiding Party Quarrels and Distinctions’, rather than as amateur ecclesiastical politicians.
page 63 note 2 The Sacheverell Trial was in 1710, the Occasional Conformity Act (10 Anne c. 6) 1711, the Schism Act (13 Anne c. 7) 1713; James Butler, thirteenth earl and second duke of Ormonde, was attainted 20 August 1715.
page 63 note 3 Moss, 1708, 22.
page 63 note 4 Peploe, 1730, 24.
page 63 note 5 Moss, 22. The 1944 Education Act expresses the same point rather less elegantly as according to ‘Age, Ability, and Aptitude’.
page 64 note 1 Boulter, 1722, 21.
page 64 note 2 Waterland, 1723, 13.
page 64 note 3 Mangey, 1726, 19–20.
page 64 note 4 P. 29.
page 65 note 1 Wilcocks, 1731, 22–3 (wrongly paginated for pp. 18–19), 20–1.
page 65 note 2 There had earlier been trouble about charity children being taught fine singing. See G.M. 2–4, 129, 18 November 1708, which illustrates well how the Society's Welsh correspondents rallied to the defence of ‘Divine Musick’.
page 65 note 3 On numerous occasions reactionary correspondents—in the countryside of course—were concerned about education depriving them of their supply of cheap labour. The London trustees had a set policy in this, and consistently refused to let business needs outweigh educational considerations. Thus, e.g., they would not let their boys accept employment as errand boys, unless the master not only promised to ‘prentice the boy to his trade, but also gave security for the fulfilment of the pledge. From the London schools down to 1733, 7,000 boys had been ‘'prenticed’, 3,000 ‘put out to services’ or the sea. With the girls the proportion was otherwise; rather more than 1,000 had been ‘'prenticed’, but nearly 4,000 put out to service.
page 65 note 4 P. 9.
page 65 note 5 Robinson, 1714, 22–3.
page 66 note 1 The present writer is dealing with this in some detail elsewhere.
page 66 note 2 This also is being dealt with in another article.
page 66 note 3 Pp. 24–5.
page 67 note 1 P. 12.
page 67 note 2 p. 31.
page 67 note 3 Pp. 8–9; cf. also Bradford, 1709, 26; Dawes 1713, 28; and Marshal, 1721, 28.
page 67 note 4 Wilson, 1724, 18, 27.
page 68 note 1 Watson, 37, 39; cf. also Sherlock 1719, 25.
page 68 note 2 Waterland, 19.
page 69 note * Excluding London.
page 69 note 1 Adamson, J. W., Short History of Education, Cambridge 1930.Google Scholar
page 69 note 2 C., Birchenough, History of Elementary Education, 3rd ed., London 1938.Google Scholar
page 69 note 3 Curtis, S. J., History of Education in Great Britain, 2nd. ed., London 1950.Google Scholar
page 69 note 4 De Montmorency, J. E. G., State Intervention in English Education, Cambridge 1902.Google Scholar
page 69 note 5 Gray, B. K., History of English Philanthropy, London 1905.Google Scholar
page 69 note 6 Jarman, T. L., Landmarks in the History of Education, London 1951.Google Scholar
page 69 note 7 Jones, M. G., The Charity School Movement, Cambridge, London 1938.Google Scholar
page 69 note 8 Ollard, S. L. and G., Crosse, Dictionary of English Church History, London 1912.Google Scholar
page 69 note 9 Pollard, H. M., Pioneers of Popular Education, 1760–1850, London 1956.Google Scholar