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English Dissenters: Educators For An Industrial Society
Lisa Prueter
History/Social Sciences Department
Wilmington Friends School
Wilmington, DE
NEH Seminar 2004
“It has often been observed that the growth of industry was connected historically with the rise of groups which dissented from the Church by law established in England.”[1] T. S. Ashton was not alone in his emphasis on Dissenters as the primary agents of industrialization in England. Historians have noted that important figures in British science, industry, and banking - men such as Joseph Priestley, Abraham Darby, and Richard Reynolds - were also non-Conformists. This singling out of one social group for special praise deserves some critical examination. Were there aspects of Dissenting philosophy that encouraged its adherents to innovation? What role did the separate education academies established by non-Conformists play in industrialization? By looking at the life of one Dissenter of eighteenth-century England, the Quaker physician John Fothergill, one can appreciate the ways in which Dissenters’ ideology and their educational institutions fostered industrial development.
As a Quaker, John Fothergill was a spiritual descendent of the movement’s founder, George Fox. Fox was one of the many in the seventeenth century dissatisfied with the Church of England. Many Dissenters such as Fox criticized the Church of England for not breaking sufficiently with Catholic tradition and not offering its parishioners a personal, meaningful religious experience. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Fox’s diatribes against the Church resulted in prison sentences in Nottingham and in nearby Derby. In 1652 while standing on Pendle Hill, Fox received a religious vision. This transformative event enabled him to articulate the message of his own religious society. The Quakers, as Fox’s followers became known, believed that all people carry in themselves part of the Divine.
Belief in this Inner Light, as well as the conviction that people can communicate directly with God without clerical assistance, had significant implications for the lives of Quakers. Spiritual equality among believers implied social equality as well. Among the Quakers, accordingly, there seemed to be greater equality between economic classes and the sexes than was common in England at the time. While this relative egalitarianism might have made for harmonious relations within the Society of Friends, Quaker practice often chafed with English society at large. Quakers famously refused to doff their hats to social superiors and declined to take political oaths (for one’s true loyalty could only be to God). Such actions, especially the latter, led the Anglican royalty to view Quakers with hostility and suspicion. After the Restoration, Quakers were legally barred from government service and English universities
One aspect of Quaker life most relevant to the focus of this paper is the high level of literacy among Friends communities. The importance of printing to Protestant groups since the Reformation is well known; the Protestant emphasis on the Bible and rejection of clerical interpretation led many sects to become prolific publishers. Adrian Davies argues, however, that the Quakers had an additional motive for printing their own religious reading material. “The Society’s desire to avoid the worldly contamination of members influenced the determination of Quakers to publish so many books and pamphlets, and the levels of education and literacy among male and female Friends.”[2] Davies discovered that the literacy rate among Friends was significantly higher than the general population of England. In the 1690s, for example, only 46% of men in County Essex could read and write, in contrast to 80% of Quaker men.[3] This discrepancy in literacy rates can be partially explained by economics; Quakers were largely drawn from the middle classes, which were more likely to receive the rudiments of education. The contrast in literacy rates becomes more meaningful, however, ‘with a study of women. Women in the seventeenth century, regardless of social status, did not commonly know how to read and write. Davies reports that while the literacy rate for all English women did not exceed 30%, the rate for Quaker women was between 43% and 81%.[4]The determination of the Quakers to remain pure of “worldly contagion” and their dedication to a personal understanding of the Bible can account for these high rates of literacy. However, David H. Pratt reminds us that the Quaker Meeting, which meticulously recorded the births, marriages, deaths, and testimonies of the members, also required literacy skills.[5] And we should not forget that the business advantages gained through literacy were not lost on the Quakers.
The Quakers resembled other Dissenters in the importance that they placed on education. Non-Conformists generally promoted the Baconian-Puritan model of education, which emphasized empiricism and the natural sciences. Pratt explains that “experimental science was embraced as an appropriate medium for outward action which served the dual purpose of avoiding the idleness associated with contemplation while revealing more about the eternal purposes of God concealed in nature.”[6] Dissenters were at the forefront of the movement for educational reform. They desired education that was more relevant to daily life than classical curricula. Reformers called for replacing Scholastic studies with classes that taught a practical understanding of the world. They rejected the idea of a “gentleman’s education” which sought an “acquaintance with polite literature through study of the classics.”[7]
Education reformers saw some of their goals realized under the Puritan Republic. The English government led by Oliver Cromwell designated more finding for English universities and established a new institution of higher learning at Durham. These changes came to a halt, however, with the restoration of Charles II. With the support of the reinstated royals, the Church of England reasserted its control over all of the country’s educational institutions. Changes to curricula sought by reformers were tainted by association with Puritan radicals and abandoned. According to Brian Simon, after the Restoration, Oxford and Cambridge ceased to make meaningful contributions to either science or education.[8]
Dissenters responded to their exclusion from English universities by founding their own institutions. Dissenting academies educated clergymen for non-Conformist churches, as well as lay people. One such Dissenting institution, Warrington Academy, exemplified the reformist desire for practical education based on the natural sciences. Warrington Academy, which received its financial support from industrialists and merchants from Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, graduated such notable men as wealthy gun manufacturer (and expelled Quaker) Samuel Galton, ironmaster John Wilkinson, and philosopher William Godwin. The groundbreaking scientist Joseph Priestley taught languages and literature at Warrington Academy, in addition to courses in history and geography. Priestley’s introduction of history and geography into the Academy’s curriculum reflected the Dissenters’ faith in practical education. Priestley believed that knowledge of geography was necessary “to assist the nation in the ‘competition for world trade.”[9] Priestley clearly saw a connection between formal education and the social obligations of the individual, which he claimed “include not merely the maintenance of himself and his dependents, but also a contribution to the building up of national wealth.”[10]
If the bright and ambitious Sons of Dissenting families did not attend academies such as Warringlon, they might have enrolled in the Scottish universities at Edinburgh and Glasgow. Unlike Cambridge and Oxford, the Scottish universities had a Calvinist tradition that gave them freedom from the stifling influence of the Church of England. Adam Smith explained that because Edinburgh and Glasgow lacked the generous endowments of English universities, they were forced by economic necessity to be more responsive to the needs and desires of their students.[11]By the late seventeenth century, the University of Edinburgh had earned the reputation as one the most progressive schools of medicine in the whole of Europe. The now commonplace practices of clinical rounds and careful data collection were pioneered at Edinburgh’s medical school.[12]
The career of John Fothergill (1712-1780) followed a path not uncommon for a capable son of Quakers. After he served as an apprentice to an apothecary in Bradford for seven years, Fothergill was sent to medical school at Edinburgh. Upon completion of his studies, Fothergill se up his medical practice in London. Fothergill made a name himself in medical circles during an outbreak of Scarlatina in 1747 Fothergill kept meticulous notes on his patients, and treated them with a salubrious regimen of nutritious food, careful hygiene, and bed rest, which proved more successful than his colleagues’ reliance on bleeding. After a later influenza epidemic, Fothergill circulated his collection of data to other physicians, encouraging them to add their own observations. Fothergill’s concern for the empirical study of disease thus enabled him to create the first comprehensive study of influenza.[13] Despite the wealth Fothergill accumulated in his practice, he remained committed to the treatment of London’s poor.
Fothergill’s sense of social responsibility was not limited to medicine. Fothergill, like many Quakers, was active in the anti-slavery movement. Fothergill was also an advocate for prison reform, urban housing reform, and water sanitation.[14] With like-minded Quakers from banking and industry, Fothergill established an association to buy basic foodstuffs to sell at a loss to those hurt by food shortages and high prices. Fothergill even ate the food himself to ensure its quality.[15]
Fothergill was also moved by the plight of children from poor Quaker families. These boys and girls often did not have access to the education so highly prized by Friends. Fothergill took the lead in raising funds for the establishment of a school for children of Friends “not of affluence.”[16] In 1779, the Quaker Yearly Meeting purchased a former foundling home in Yorkshire to house the new Ackworth School. Young Quakers flocked to the new school; over 1000 students were educated at Ackworth in the first ten years of its existence.[17]Although both boys and girls attended Ackworth, the school did not become fully co-educational until 1947. In the early years, boys and girls kept to separate quarters and classes. Both sexes received instruction in reading, writing, grammar, history, geography, and accounting. Girls were also taught knitting, spinning, and needlework. All students were required to perform domestic chores, since “Friends held clear views on the dignity of labour, believing that no task was degrading…”[18]
Ackworth School, which continues to thrive today, seems to have been an important success in the eyes of English Friends. According to one early nineteenth- century observer, “ there were only three pictures found in a Quaker home; these were of William Penn’s treaty with the Indians of the West, a crowded slave ship, and the plan for the building of Ackworth School near York.”[19] William Howitt, an Ackworth graduate, remembered fondly the isolation of the school that provided a secure environment for the development of Quaker values. “It is impossible that evil communications from without can corrupt their [students] good manners; and within, they are free from the distinctions of wealth and rank which torment the world.”[20] In Howitt’s rosy memories, students at Ackworth learned to value men “not by wealth and artificial rank, but by the everlasting distinctions of virtue and talent.”[21] By the late nineteenth century, Ackworth School, as well as Quakers in general, had become less dedicated to separatism. The school was known as a respected institution for the middle classes, Quaker and non-Quaker alike. Students educated in Ackworth’s practical curriculum learned skills that served them well out in the world. “Ackworth... was said to have had the effect of raising the families from which the boys and girls came ‘rather above the middle class in life’ and making rich men of those who would otherwise have been in humble circumstances.”[22] Two of the three nineteenth century Ackworth graduates went to careers in commerce, and one in ten entered the professions.[23]
John Fothergill’s career and the success of the school that he founded illustrate the effect of Dissenting ideology on the lives of its adherents. Fothergill’s education in the Baconian-Puritan tradition made him a leader in the medical field. His Quaker commitment to social progress prompted him to found a school for the disadvantaged. Dissenting schools such as Fothergill’s Ackworth and Warrington Academy trained young non-Conformists for careers in business, science, and industry. Although we should not claim that Dissenters were solely responsible for the Industrial Revolution, it is clear that the non-Conformist, which made virtues of science, practical skills and social responsibility, did encourage England’s economic development. An examination of Dissenting schools and academies also undermines the stereotype on the Industrial “Self-made Man.” Many leaders of business and industry were educated in schools that explicitly prepared them for worldly success.
[1] T. S. Ashton, The industrial Revolution (London: Oxford University Press, 1948), 17.
[2] Adrian Davies, The Quakers in English Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 109.
[3] Davies, 116.
[4] 119.
[5] David H. Pratt, English Quakers and the First industrial Revolution: A Study of the Quaker Community in Four Industrial Counties - Lancashire, York Warwick, and Gloucester, 1750 - 1830 (London: Garland Publishing, Inc.,
1985)
[6] Pratt.
[7] ‘Brian Simon, Studies in the History of Education 1780-1870 (London: Lawrence & Wisehart, 1960), 28.
[8] Simon, 27.
[9] Pratt.
[10] Pratt.
[11] Simon, 29.
[12] Arthur Raistrick, Quakers in Science and Industry (London: The Bannisdale Press, 1950), 289.
[13] Raistrick, 293.
[14] Raistrick, 296-97
[15] Raistrick, 299.
[16] W.A.C. Stewart, Progressives and Radicals in English Education, 1750-1970 (London: The Macmillan Press, 1972/. 177.
[17] Pratt.
[18] Stewart, 176.
[19] Thomas Clarkson, A Portraiture of Quakerism, as quoted in Balwant Nevaskar, Capitalists Without Capitalism: The Jams of India and the Quakers of the West (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971), 90.
[20] William Howitt, “Reminiscences of Ackworth School” in the Winter’s Wreath for 1831 (Bury St. Edmund’s: Market Hill, 1831), 8-9.
[21] Howitt, 9.
[22] Stewart, 180-81.
[23] Stewart, 181.