Abstract
In Ireland, during the long eighteenth century, legally established schools were maintained on public institution or were founded by private donation. This chapter concentrates on education received by poor Irish girls in public and private schools. It also looks across the reports of the three commissions examined during the previous chapter at the females involved at the time with education, especially in the province of Munster in south-west Ireland. It highlights women’s involvement as recipients, the girls in public or private institutions, the providers, female patrons, teachers and inspectors. This chapter also outlines the restricted curriculum offered to poor girls at the time.
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Notes
- 1.
Commissioners of Irish Education Enquiry, Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Enquiry, 1791, 1857–58, 342, 355, Appendix, 371, 372; Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland, Eighth Report from the Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland on the Foundling Hospital, 1810, Appendix 3, 186; Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland, Fourteenth Report of the Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland: View of the Chief Foundations with some general Remarks, 1812–13, 329, 330; Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, First Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, 1825, 3, 4; J. Robins, The Lost Children: A Study of Charity Children in Ireland 1700–1900, 17. Public institutions included parish schools, diocesan and royal free schools and the schools of Erasmus Smith. The word “free” in the name of a school did not mean that all scholars were exempt from paying fees. Destitute children received gratuitous schooling in, for example, the Hospital of King Charles II, the Hibernian Marine School, the Hibernian School for Soldiers’ Children, the Blue-Coat Hospital, Wilson’s Hospital and the Foundling Hospital in Dublin.
- 2.
1791 Report, 356, 357; Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland, Third Report from the Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland on the Protestant Charter Schools, 1809, 16; First Report, 1825, 7, 8. Beginning 1733–4, the Charter Schools were supported by private benefactors, an annual donation of £1,000 from the Sovereign, and, from 1747, parliamentary grants amounting to an average of £1,150 per year. In 1775 the Incorporated Society resolved to accept the children of Catholic parents only. However, from 1803 the orphan children of Protestant parents were admitted in preference. The objective was to teach the children of “the Popish and other poor natives” virtue and industry, English (spoken language, reading and writing), the principles of the Protestant religion, arithmetic and manual occupations. Not surprisingly, the Irish poor, in the main, viewed the schools with suspicion.
- 3.
1791 Report, Appendix 1, 363, 373, 374, 378; Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland, Twelfth Report from the Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland on Classical Schools of Private Foundations, 1812, 5, 6; Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland, Thirteenth Report from the Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland on English Schools of Private Foundations in Ireland, 1812, 306.
- 4.
R.E. Ward, An Encyclopedia of Irish Schools 1500–1800, 2. Ward cites R.B. McDowell, Ireland in the Age of Imperialism and Revolution, 90, 91; M.G. Jones, The Charity School Movement: A Study of Eighteenth Century Puritanism in Action, 18, 19. Jones posits that English had became the language of instruction in charity schools in England from the seventeenth century. She links an increase in the number of English or elementary schools with “the victory of the vernacular tongue,” an increased interest in mathematics and science, membership of libraries, an “extension of the printing press,” previously confined to London and other urban areas, and more accessible newspapers and literary journals.
- 5.
1791 Report, 356–359, Appendix 1, 371, 372; Third Report, 1809; First Report, 1825, 5–30.
- 6.
K. Milne, The Irish Charter Schools 1730–1830, 201.
- 7.
Ibid., Appendix C, 347.
- 8.
1791 Report, 357, Appendix 1, “The Protestant Charter Schools, 29th September, 1799,” 372.
- 9.
Third Report, 1809, Appendix 8, 92, 93.
- 10.
First Report, 1825, Appendix 168, “RETURN of the Number of Elopements that have taken place from each of the Schools of the Incorporated Society, from the Year 1800 to the Year 1824.”
- 11.
Third Report, 1809, Appendix 8, 92, 93, 106.
- 12.
In Charter Schools, masters or mistresses might teach the children but would also be charged with administering or managing the institution. An usher or usheress filled the role of assistant schoolmaster or mistress.
- 13.
Third Report, 1809, 92, 107.
- 14.
First Report, 1825, 113, 114; Appendix 14, “CHARLEVILLE SCHOOL; visited 10th, 11th and 12th August, 1817,” 50, 51.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid., 18, Appendix 35, “CHARLEVILLE SCHOOL; visited October 4th, 1818,” 72, 73, Appendix 139. Another girl from the Charleville School, Eliza McDonough, was admitted to the class on 7 September 1822 at fifteen years of age. She was still in the institution two years later.
- 17.
Ibid., Appendix 35, “CHARLEVILLE SCHOOL; visited October 4th, 1818,” 72, 73.
- 18.
Ibid., Appendix 60, “CHARLEVILLE SCHOOL, July 1819,” 128, 129.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Milne, Irish Charter Schools, 310 citing TCD 5261, 31 October 1827; Appendix C, 347.
- 22.
1791 Report, Appendix 1, 374–378.
- 23.
Ibid., 363; Appendix 1, 374; D. Hayton, “Did Protestantism fail in early eighteenth-century Ireland? Charity schools and the enterprise of religious and social reform, c. 1690–1730,” in As by Law Established The Church of Ireland since the Reformation, ed. A. Ford, J. McGuire and K. Milne, 169, 170.
- 24.
Thirteenth Report, 1812.
- 25.
1791 Report, Appendix 1, 377.
- 26.
First Report, 1825, Appendix 239, 670. According to the census “taken by order of the Legislature in 1821,” the population of Munster was 2,005,363, that of Ulster was 2,001,966, that of Leinster was 1,785,702, and that of Connacht was 1,053,918.
- 27.
Fourteenth Report, 1812–13, 331; Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, Second Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry (Abstract of Returns in 1824, from the Protestant and Roman Catholic Clergy in Ireland, of the State of Education in their respective Parishes), 1826–27, 4, Appendix 3, 48.
- 28.
Second Report, 1826–27, 5. According to the returns made by the Protestant clergy “after amending them from the Returns of the Catholic Clergy, by adding such Schools as were not noticed in the former,” there were 64,022 girls and according to the Catholic returns “amended from the Returns of the Protestant Clergy, on the principle above stated,” there were 65,342.
- 29.
Ibid., 4. According to the returns made by the Protestant clergy, there were 57,242 girls in school in Ulster; 62,557 in Leinster and 23,972 in Connacht. According to the Catholic returns there were 54,556 girls in school in Ulster, 64,502 in Leinster, and 25,527 in Connacht. Returns amended as before.
- 30.
Fourteenth Report, 1812–13, 331; Second Report, 1826–27, Appendix 22, 1084, 1085; C. Maxwell, Country and Town in Ireland under the Georges, 174; A. McManus, The Irish Hedge School and Its Books, 1695–1831, 73. McManus cites A. Stopford Green, “Irish national tradition” in History, July 1917, 28 and Dowling, The hedge schools of Ireland, 77.
- 31.
Second Report, 1826–27, Appendix 22, 904, 905, 1012, 1013, 1018, 1019, 1112, 1113, 1060, 1061, 1066, 1067, 1164, 1165.
- 32.
Third Report, 1809, Appendix 8, 92.
- 33.
First Report, 1825, Appendix 14, 50, 51; Appendix 35, 72, 73; Appendix 59, “Examination of the Reverend Elias Thackeray, Friday, 31st December, 1824,” 89–122; Milne, Irish Charter Schools, 75. Elias Thackeray’s cousin, William Makepeace, sometimes stayed with him while in Ireland.
- 34.
First Report, 1825, Appendix 35, 72, 73.
- 35.
Milne, Irish Charter Schools, 221, 222.
- 36.
First Report, 1825, Appendix 35, 73.
- 37.
1791 Report, Appendix 1, 376, 377. The other female teacher was Sarah Dawson who, along with John Dawson, taught in St. Werburgh’s English School, Dublin, where twenty boys and sixteen girls were enrolled.
- 38.
Thirteenth Report, 1812, 317.
- 39.
Second Report, 1826–27, Appendix 3, 48. There were 3,830 teachers in Leinster, 3,540 in Ulster, and 1,588 in Connacht giving a total of 12, 530 teachers throughout Ireland; 2,913 of teachers in Munster were Catholic.
- 40.
Ibid., Appendix 22, 888, 889, 894, 895, 900–903, 964, 965, 968, 969, 970, 971, 990, 991, 1002, 1003, 1006–1011, 1014, 1015, 1030, 1031, 1050, 1051, 1062, 1063, 1066, 1067, 1112, 1113, 1118–1112, 1148, 1149, 1162–1165.
- 41.
Ibid., 896, 897, 1008, 1009, 1076, 1077. J. Sheedy McNamara taught in “a miserable narrow mud cabin” in Tomgreany, Co. Clare while John Sheedy taught in a “bad schoolhouse” which had cost £2 in Coolygorman, Mahonagh, Co. Limerick.
- 42.
Ibid., 902, 903, 1000–1003, 1006–1009, 1012–1015, 1018–1021, 1120, 1121, 1142, 1143, 1062–1067, 1162–1165.
- 43.
Thirteenth Report, 1812, 297.
- 44.
S. Tillyard, Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox 1740–1832, 411.
- 45.
1791 Report; Thirteenth Report, 1812; First Report, 1825, 8, 15.
- 46.
1791 Report, Appendix 1, 375, 376, 377. The other women were Mrs Mercer who endowed a school in Rathcool, Co. Dublin, Lady Margaret Alexander who endowed a school in Donaghadee, in the diocese of Down and Connor, Mrs Jane Stewart who supported a school in Ballintoy, possibly in Co. Antrim and Lady Loftus who patronized a school in Monasterevin, Co. Kildare; Thirteenth Report, 1812, 304.
- 47.
Thirteenth Report, 1812, 289–321. Other schools that were identified as being established by women included two already mentioned by the commissioners of 1791. These were the schools in Rathcool endowed in 1734 by Mrs Mary Mercer and in Ballintoy founded by Mrs Jane Stewart, d. 1766. Other schools founded by women and mentioned in the report of 1812 were: Drelincourt’s Charity School in Armagh, founded in 1732 by “the widow of Dean Drelincourt,” and Lady Alexander’s school, in Donaghadee, founded 1764.
- 48.
Ibid., 292, 293; Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, Sixth Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry (Hibernian Society for Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children), 1826–27; R. Raughter, “A Natural Tenderness: The Ideal and the Reality of Eighteenth-Century Female Philanthropy,” in Women & Irish History, ed. M.G. Valiulis and M. O’Dowd, 74.
- 49.
Second Report, 1826–27, Appendix 40, “Act of Incorporation, 40 Geo. III. c. 65. An Act for incorporating the Governors and Governesses of the Female Orphan House, on the Circular Road, near Dublin,” 90, 91. Elizabeth Monck, 1743–1816, became the first Marchioness of Waterford.
- 50.
Ibid., Appendix 3, 48; Appendix 22.
- 51.
Ibid., 902, 903, 1006–1009, 1066, 1067, 1122, 1123.
- 52.
First Report, 1825, 14, 102.
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O’Sullivan, E. (2017). Education for Poor Irish Girls at the End of the Long Eighteenth Century. In: Ascendancy Women and Elementary Education in Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54639-1_5
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