Dear Ernie,
The annual parliamentary reports of the Committee of Council on
Education for the early 1860s list Benenden as an Industrial School, but
it doesn't feature in the corresponding reports of the Inspector of
Reformatories and Industrial Schools. It sounds as if Benenden was using
the term industrial school in the meaning more common prior to the
Industrial Schools Act of 1857, i.e. a school whose curriculum included
"industrial" training for older pupils i.e. agricultural and craft
skills (for boys) or domestic training (for girls). Some poor law
authorities (e.g. Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Shoreditch) set up
Industrial Schools for pauper children in the 1840s/50s along these
lines. On a rather smaller scale, Faringdon in Berkshire had a small
"Female School of Industry" from as 1833. However, the term "industrial
schools" was, rather confusingly, hijacked for the post-1857
establishments set up for the detention of vagrant/neglected/in-danger
children. A recent "Who Do You Think You Are" programme rtaher
unfortunately misled Griff Rhys Jones by telling him that the
Liverpool's Kirkdale (poor law) Industrial School where one of his
forebears spent some time was of the latter type.
Peter Higginbotham
ernie pollard wrote:
> Brian,
>
> Thanks for the reference. However, the Benenden National School (aka
> Benenden Industrial School) was not for vagrant, neglected,
> or similar children, but for all the village children. My assumption is
> that the girls may have been given some sort of "work" in addition to
> teaching, but I have not been able to confirm this.
>
> Ernie
|