Chapter V: Catholic Education in Chester

Philip Lane with a class of boys, 1883.

Education for boys

With boys, the story is a very different one. We know very little about how boys of the more well-to-do families were educated. In 1705-6, there were two Catholic teachers in the city, William Kingsley, who taught Mathematics, and Bartholomew Casey, who was a fencing master. Where, or whom they taught does not appear.

At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, "Academies for Young Gentlemen" were as common in Chester as the "Seminaries for Young Ladies", and they advertised their existence in the newspapers and directories of the town. Some, especially those run by Anglican clergymen, gave a classical education similar to that of the King's School. Others were more commercially minded. Pigot's Directory for 1828 lists one belonging to John Gorst in Goss Street. What connection he had, if any, with the John Gorst, whose name appears as sponsor on the baptismal registers in 1815 and 1816, cannot be said. He may have been a son, and was probably a Catholic. What is clear is that Catholic families who could afford it, had to look elsewhere than Chester, for a Catholic education for their sons.

As late as 1811, Anglican vicars in Chester were giving a categorical negative to the question asked at a Visitation, "Is there a Popish school in your parish?". As the nineteenth century progressed, however, the rapid growth of the Catholic population made it imperative that its children should receive some form of elementary education in a Catholic school, if they were not to be lost to the Church. As soon as he arrived, Father Carbery began to devise means of building such a school.

The great problem, of course, was finding the money to finance the building of a school, its maintenance and a teacher's salary. This would be entirely beyond the means of the Catholic body. Many were poor, and unable to afford a large sum of money, either to build a school or to pay fees for their children's education. Yet the need was made greater by the influx of large numbers of Irish immigrants. Nor as yet did the Catholics qualify for the grant which other voluntary bodies were beginning to receive from the newly created Committee of Council on Education.

At a meeting of the Cheshire clergy at the end of 1838, it was decided that £50 should be taken from a fund established by the Earl of Shrewsbury, and given to Father Carbery for the building of a Free School in Chester. Unfortunately, the Earl had required that this subscription should be used only for buildings of which Augustine Welby Pugin was the architect, and now, though the Chester project was so small, he insisted that this condition should be respected.3 The result was that the whole matter was shelved for another fifteen years, though more than one hundred children needed to be educated.

Father Carbery was more fortunate in having a teacher. This was Hugh Rigney, an Irishman by birth, and in 1838 about forty seven years of age. He lived in Claremont Walk, with the Catholic jeweller, Charles Testi. He seems to have been already a familiar member of the congregation and was probably teaching Catholic children before 1838, for he was frequently asked to witness Catholic marriages, and continued to do so until as late as 1854. The first place where he conducted his "school" for fifty five boys seems to have been a small room over the wooden sacristy attached to the Queen Street chapel. Bagshaw's Directory of Chester for 1850 speaks of "a Sabbath and day school, attached to the chapel, of which Hugh Rigney is the master". This, in the words of the Inspector, was

an apartment which for singular shape and narrow area was certainly comical, and, I hope, unique.4

Before the end of 1854, however, Hugh Rigney had either relinquished his position or had died, for Mother Louise of Dee House was then teaching "a few children, numbering ten to fifteen" in the same room. More children began to come, and it became imperative to find other accommodation. For a brief spell, a room was rented in a house off Watergate Row, and some boys were taught by a Dublin man named John Martin, who also sold trunks and so was known as "Trunky Martin". Another Irishman, named John Clarke, had a similar "school" in a room in Wilson Court in Love Street. Their efforts were finally taken over by the Faithful Companions of Jesus, and all were transferred to the coach house and hayloft of Dee House.

Writing nearly forty years later, Mother Louise recalled what it was Iike:­

Arrangements", she wrote, "were made to open a parish school, which until then did not really exist. The site on your right as you enter the convent gate was the coach-house and the hay-loft, with the space in front roughly paved. The girls and infants were in the hay-loft; the boys in the coach-­house under a master. The girls entered at the convent gate, the boys at a small door in the wall leading to the river.

The H.M.I. who visited the school here, regarded the premises as "provisional but serviceable", though later he described them as "an old stable" and classified them in his list as "bad" . In any case, the old building was not able to stand up to the unwonted movement. The ground used as a playground by the girls suddenly collapsed without apparent cause, and fell several feet into the lane below: no one was hurt.

Meanwhile, Father Carbery was working towards the building of proper schools. In 1852, the synod of Oscott had laid down that "no congregation was to be allowed to remain without its schools, one for each sex". The Account Book of Bishop Brown5 at this time refers on several occasions to sums of money sent to Father Carbery. For instance, in 1852, the bishop sent him a cheque for £205 towards the purchase of land, and in the following year, another £40 10s. 0d. During the 1860's, a special account was opened for the "Chester Girls' School". Finally, in 1858, a schoolroom for the boys was opened behind the chapel in Queen Street, at the cost of £400. John Marsden was appointed school master. White's Directory for 1860 describes it as "neat and well ventilated". It was built to accommodate one hundred and eighty children.

In 1847, State aid was sanctioned for Catholic schools, on the understanding from the Catholic bishops that they would control and supervise the schools, since to them religion should be "the pervading principle" of a Catholic school, not merely another subject on the timetable. The Catholic Poor School Committee - the ancestor of the present Catholic Education Council - was established, to communicate with the Committee of Council on Education. Its first secretary was Scott Naysmith Stokes, who, as Inspector for the Catholic schools of North West England, came regularly to Chester. The Poor School Committee, working on a national level, was responsible for allocating the grant to the schools which applied for it. It voted its first grant of £70 to Father Carbery in 1850, though he did not claim it until 1853. The parishes themselves contributed towards the Poor Schools Fund by an annual collection. The amount which Chester managed to collect averaged about £4. This had to be augmented by voluntary donations from better-off members of the parish, by charity sermons and by the school-pence, paid as fees by the parents of children attending the schools. With the total sum obtained, the school buildings had to be erected and maintained, the teacher's salary paid, and apparatus and equipment bought. In addition, the cost of training one or more apprentice teachers, or pupil teachers, as they were eventually called, had to be met. These were in addition to the monitors whom the teacher still used. It is hardly surprising that all this cost Father Carbery more money than he could find .

In 1861, the findings of the Newcastle Commission brought about a change in earlier legislation, whereby the State now paid a "capitation grant" for each pupil, with an additional grant for any pupil teacher, to schools which received a satisfactory report from the Inspector. School fees still had to be paid by the parents. The first mention of a "capitation grant" being paid to the Chester Boys' School appeared in a Report sent that year by S. N. Stokes, to the newly formed Education Department. It came to £4 16s. 0d. only, in contrast to the £10 5s. 0d. allocated to the Catholic school at Birkenhead, and the much larger sum of £138 10s. 0d. paid to Stockport, both of which were older schools than Chester. It indicates how small the Chester school still was.

S. N. Stokes had frequently complained in the 1850's about the inadequate salary which Catholic teachers in his area received. They were "ill-paid and ill supported" he said; i.e. the school was badly attended. He recommended that the average fee of 1d. a week paid by the parents be raised to 2d., in order to obtain better teaching in the schools. Though his argument was valid, many of the Catholic poor were not able to afford the extra 1d.

In 1862, the findings of the Newcastle Commission were modified by the "Revised Code". Henceforward, the capitation grant depended upon the number of children in regular attendance, who were being taught by a certificated teacher, and who passsed the Inspector's examination in the "3 R's", reading, writing and arithmetic. The school could receive a maximum grant of 12s. for each child; 4s. if he had put in a minimum number of 200 attendances during the year, and 8s. if he had passed in all three R's. 2s. 8d. was deducted for each child's failure in a subject. The Inspector carried out an annual inspection, and also had the power to make "surprise visits" without warning, to make sure that standards were being maintained. If his Report was unsatisfactory, the grant could be seriously reduced or withdrawn altogether. This notorious "Payment by Results", which affected the schools of all religious denominations seeking the grant, hampered the development of elementary education in England for the next fifty years. It explains the constant anxiety expressed in the Chester school Log Books and in the Parish Notice Books about the attendance of the children and the standard of their attainments, especially in the weeks immediately before the inspection was due. On both of them depended the amount of grant the school would receive during the coming year.

The Chester Boys' School was immediately affected by the Revised Code. The school no longer fulfilled the conditions requisite for receiving the grant, and from 1863 until 1866, it was withdrawn. The Report for 1863 made by S. N. Stokes reads that

a number of schools, including Chester, had ceased to employ certificated teachers, and no longer fulfilled the conditions which necessitate inspection preliminary to the payment of public grant.

John Marsden had either left the school, or was not certificated, probably the latter. The Report then goes on to make the cryptic remark that the reason for the withdrawal was "the Manager's fear of responsibility under the New Code". Father Hopkins, who was then the priest in charge of the Mission, may have felt himself unable, at that moment, to cope with the new demands through lack of resources. No grants were made in the area between 1863 and 1866, and the Inspector entered in his annual Report the statement that "there are nine Missions in Cheshire which have never received from the public purse any assistance towards the erection or maintenance of a Roman Catholic school". Indeed, it looks as if the school might have had to be closed during those three years, for the Parish Notices for the year 1866 open with the announcement, on the second Sunday after the Epiphany, "Tomorrow the Boys' School will commence". The first Log Book of the school also begins on this day, with a similar entry by the newly appointed teacher, Luke Ryder. "Monday, February 12th, 1866", he wrote, "This is the first day of my engagement". He then goes on to explain that he did no teaching that day because he spent the whole time classifying and registering the names of the 120 boys who arrived at the school.

It is true to say, therefore, that Monday, February 12th, 1866, opened a new chapter in the history of elementary education for Catholic boys in Chester. The picture which now emerges is much clearer, thanks to the preservation of the school Log Books and the Parish Notice Books,6 which bear witness to the constant concern of the clergy with the education of the children.

Luke Ryder was twenty six years of age when he took up his new teaching post. He remained in charge of the school until December 19th, 1879, when he made his last entry in the Log Book, "Dismissed the children for the Christmas holidays at noon on Friday. My duties as master of this school end today". He was a trained teacher, having spent two years, 1862-3, at St. Mary's, Hammersmith. This was the first Catholic Training College for men, and was founded at Hammersmith in 1850 as part of the policy of the Catholic Poor School Committee. He had obtained there a Third Class Certificate. Before coming to Chester, he had taught at Newcastle-under-Lyme. His own unselfconscious entries day by day in the Log Book, together with the Inspector's Report, which had to be written up year by year, bear testimony to his devotedness as a teacher. They also illustrate the difficulties he encountered, in his endeavours to raise the level of intellectual ability of his pupils and develop their moral training. To the hours he spent in the schoolroom, teaching boys who at times he had to admit were "noisy and very rough", he added daily lessons from four o'clock till 5.30 for the pupil teachers he had in his charge. After October, 1866, he was also responsible three nights a week for a Night School, whose purpose, in the words of the Inspector, was "to impart the rudiments of secular and religious learning to young persons employed during the day in manual labour". For all this, he received as a certificated teacher an annual salary of £171 14s. 3d.

In May, 1869, the Inspector's Report declared:­

Much credit is due to the Master for the pains he takes to render the instruction of his school sound, which efforts are attended by respectable results.

The following year, it spoke of:­

The moral tone pervading, and the discipline of the boys, which is very gratifying, and is a credit to their respectable master.

The last report he received at St. Werburgh's, written in 1879, praises him in the words:­

Mr. Ryder has a very difficult class of boys to deal with, and he is entitled to full credit for their good discipline and the neatness of some of their work.

By then, one senses from the entries in the Log Book that he was a tired and sick man, perhaps prematurely aged by his task. Moreover, family sorrows over the years lay hidden beneath businesslike, almost callous entries. In 1866, he writes, "I heard the news of the death of my sister"; in the following year, there is an identical entry about the death of his brother. On January 26th, 1872, he was obliged to explain,

I dismissed the school because my child died and I had to look after the grave and coffin. January 27th. There was no school because of the funeral of my child. January 28th. School as usual.

There is yet another entry in 1877,

One of my children being dead, I was obliged to leave the school twice today, to order the grave etc. Left McGrath (he was a pupil teacher) in charge. The following day, 2 o'clock to 4.30. I had to attend the funeral.

One of the problems Luke Ryder had to face was the large number of boys for whom he was responsible. One hundred and twenty turned up the day the school opened in 1866. This was only the beginning of a steady increase during the coming months, and by the end of the year it had gone up to one hundred and sixty. It is hardly surprising that the Inspector's Report for 1867 opens with the comment:­

The attendance here is numerous ... The numbers must not be allowed to outgrow the accommodation.

In 1869, the numbers on the register stood at one hundred and fifty, and by 1871 there were about two hundred and twenty boys, whose ages ranged from five to ten or eleven. This year, however, the Inspector could report:­

A new Infants' School is about to be built, which will effect a great improvement in relieving the Boys' Room from the very young children, of whom it now contains a very large number ... The superficial area of the classroom is not calculated to admit the number at present in attendance.

Trying to teach so large a number of boys single-handed was, of course, beyond the ingenuity of any teacher. Yet it was the feature of education which posed the most common problem to all English elementary schools at the time. The attempted solution was the Monitorial System, whereby a few older boys were taught by the teacher, and they in their turn passed on the small stock of knowledge they had acquired to the younger children. After the middle of the century, it was gradually superseded by the pupil-teacher system. Pupil-teachers were children chosen at the age of thirteen from the most promising pupils in the elementary school. They were apprenticed to the master for a period of five years, and were examined at the end of each year on a prescribed syllabus. If they passed creditably, the master received a grant. At the end of the apprenticeship, they could sit for an examination which qualified them for a Queen's Scholarship, entitling them to a three-year course in a training college.

When Luke Ryder first took over St. Werburgh's school, he seems to have had only monitors, possibly because there were no boys old enough or able to become pupil teachers. He explains in the Log Book how he divided the school into two classes, the older boys and the infants, and placed the latter under a monitor. The older boys were separated into two groups, and they too seem to have been taught by monitors. By 1867, he, or the priest in charge, seems to have been hoping that they would be counted as pupil-teachers, but they were too young. The Report for that year refused to accept them as such, in the words :

Martin Gough and Robert Davies cannot be regarded as pupil-teachers as they are less than thirteen years of age on April 1st 1867.

They were, indeed, only children themselves, in trouble for playing truant, or having to be warned against playing with the younger children instead of teaching them.

These were the days before compulsory schooling, and Luke Ryder quickly found that, in spite of apparent overcrowding, his greatest problem was absenteeism among his pupils. One of the most important causes of this was the poverty of so many of the parents. Many of the children were poorly clad, and bad weather inevitably kept them at home. A heavy fall of snow or rain, or an excessively cold spell is usually noted in the Log Book, and followed by the remark that many children have stayed away. But if wintry weather kept them away from school, so did the long summer days, when all manner of exciting things went on in the streets to tempt truants. There might be a review of the Militia or the Yeomanry on the Roodee, or the opening of the Agricultural Show there. The Freemasons held a procession in the city, or Tram Omnibuses started running, and this attracted the boys. Even more exciting, Mander's Wild Beast Show or the Circus arrived; and "therefore boys were absent" adds the Log Book, sometimes as many as twenty in an afternoon. Neither punishment the next day, nor small prizes for good attendance deterred the culprits, any more than a visit of the master to their homes. With some new arrival, "many children commenced the old game of truant playing".

Luke Ryder's successor, Patrick Clarke, put his finger on one of the causes for the truancy. It was not merely the natural excitement of watching soldiers on parade, or the coming of a menagerie which drew the children. It was the opportunity of earning a little money which such events also gave them. In 1880, the new master reported,

It is usual for a great number of children to stay away on Fair Days, to earn a few pence by selling matches, or holding horses.

A later teacher complained in 1884 that

the recent opening of a branch office of the 'Liverpool Echo' in Chester was causing truancy. "The Manager", he declared, "offers special facilities to boys who will sell these papers in the streets. There has been quite 'a rage' amongst the boys for selling Echos.

Some of the parents were so poor, particularly in the winter months when they were out of work, that at times they could not afford to pay the school fee of a penny a week. Sending the children home to get it did not work, for often they did not come back for the rest of the week. In one case, the boys were removed and sent to another school.

Patrick Clarke tried to raise the amount of the school fees, and to arrange their scale. Standards I, II, and III, after 1880, were supposed to pay 3d. a week, and Standards IV, V, and VI, 4d. He reported in his Log Book that a few of the better class of lads in each class paid 6d. and was able to add, "Total School Fees for the year 1881, £96 5s. 3d. an increase of £16 on last year and £36 on the previous year".

Five years later, however, Canon Lynch was begging the parents to send their children to school regularly and punctually, in preparation for the school examinations (i.e. for the visit of the H.M.I.). Many parents, he said, still neglected to pay the school pence or to apply to the authorities to pay for them. It was upon the school pence that the priest as Manager of the school, had to rely for help in payment of the teacher's salary, meagre as it was. He had to warn parents on one occasion that their children would not be admitted to the school if they did not pay the fees, for, he explained

our schools cost us between £700 and £800 a year to maintain, and we cannot keep up unless parents do their duty. The Board of Guardians, on application, will help if parents cannot do this through poverty or failure of work.

And he added,

it is downright cruel and unjust to throw this burden upon us, burdened as we are with a mission debt of £6,000.

Poor and irregular attendance could result in failure at the time of the Inspector's examination, and the consequent loss of grant for the school. Another difficulty which teachers found was the early age at which parents took the boys away from school and sent them to work. It was quite possible for a child of twelve or less to leave school for work. In 1867, three boys under twelve years of age were in the Night School, which means that they were in some kind of employment during the daytime. It was still possible until as late as 1870, for children under thirteen to be employed in factories and workshops as "half timers". Chester never became an industrialised city, and only one half-timer is mentioned in the Log Books, working in Mr. Johnson's Foundry. None­theless, there are frequent criticisms in the H.M.I.'s Reports of the small number of children in the higher standards of the school. In 1867, the Report noted,

Efforts should be made in future to prepare more boys for higher standards.

This was repeated much more strongly the following year:­

The classification is too low, and strenuous efforts should be made to bring forward a larger number of boys into the higher standards. Out of one hundred and twelve boys examined, only seven are above Standard 3, and these should have been in Standard 6. We shall be obliged to reduce the grant next year unless a much larger proportion of children are presented in the 4th and 5th Standards.

The grant was in fact reduced by £10.

With great difficulty, the teacher managed in 1869 to present the minimum number to qualify for the grant, and the H.M.I. noted how small it was, considering the number of boys of advanced age who were in the lower Standards. The problem was how to get boys to stay on, when parents were so poor as to need the few shillings they could earn in wages. In 1870, several boys left to go to work in a brewery.

In 1880, legislation was passed making education compulsory for children between the ages of five and ten. Beyond that age, however, individual towns were left free to make their own bye-laws, and these varied greatly from place to place. In Chester, until 1883, the bye-law stated that children could leave school at the age of thirteen, or earlier if they had obtained a certificate of proficiency in the three R's. Many Catholic parents clearly made use of the right which the bye-law gave them, and children left as soon as they reached the age of thirteen. Indeed, in some cases it was taken all too literally! The Log Book records the following remark by a boy,

Please Sir, I shall not be coming to school this afternoon. I shall be thirteen at dinnertime.

In desperation, Patrick Clarke wrote a long complaint in the Log Book in the July of 1881.

Of the twenty six boys who passed Standard IV in April, only twelve are now attending. The remainder, though many are only ten or eleven years of age, have left, the bye-laws of the city allowing children who pass Standard IV to leave school. Many of these lads only run about the streets, and they offer inducement to other children who ought to be attending, to play truant.

Later on in the year when another group left, he wrote,

It is impossible to get any proportion of children to remain at school after passing Standard IV.

The situation was no better in 1882, with the consequent fear of a drop in the grant:

Boys of ten and eleven are leaving because they have passed Standard IV. This has led to a decrease in numbers in the school from two hundred to one hundred and eighty one. Parents do not seem inclined to let children stay on a single day after they reach the age of thirteen, or after they have passed Standard IV.

After about 1875, efforts were made to widen the school syllabus by the introduction, in addition to the three R's, of what became known as "class subjects". The Inventories of school books now entered in the Log Book include such items as Test cards in Arithmetic and Grammar, and the Newspaper Readers which were needed for the examinations in the basic subjects, but also Geography and History Readers, and even a copy of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Unfortunately, these subjects were tested by the Inspector for the sake of the grant, and such entries appear in the Reports as, "Music needs improvement", or "Geography is so weak as to imperil the whole grant. Better results will be looked for next year."

Faced with the constant danger of losing part of the grant, it is hardly surprising that mechanical learning by heart became the educational method of the day.

After spending two years at St. Werburgh's school, Patrick Clarke decided to accept Canon Buquet's invitation to take charge of the school at Birkenhead, when the Canon transferred there. Though he had received high commendation from the H.M.I. for his work in the school, the teacher who succeeded him probably had more influence over the boys. This was Philip Lane, who came on October 30th, 1882, from the Pro­Cathedral school at Clifton. While carrying on efficiently the work of his predecessor, the entries in the Log Book seem to reveal in Philip Lane a kindly and sympathetic element in his dealings with his charges. The old difficulties remained, but he was quick to give praise and notice improvement, whether in attendance, in the payment of school fees, or in punctuality. He was helped in 1883 by the alteration of the Chester bye-law, which raised the standard of exemption (i.e. the right to leave) to the 5th Standard, and to the 4th Standard in the case of half-timers. This had the beneficial result of bringing up the numbers in the upper standards of the school and of making children in Standard V attend regularly. The detrimental effects of "payment by results" were also beginning to be recognised and modified, with a consequent relaxation of tension. In 1891, the Mistress of the Infant school reported in her Log Book, "The Manager has accepted a 'Fee Grant' for this school". This was a grant of 10s. a head which was brought in by legislation that year, and presumably it was accepted for all the Chester Catholic schools. As she went on to say,

Thus an immense amount of labour and difficulty will be spared ... The freeing of the school from the payment promises to secure greater regularity of attendance.

Other events, bringing happiness to the children of the poor, begin to find mention in the school record. Probably they had been taking place in earlier years, since they are related in the records of the Girls' and Infants' Schools, and the boys would hardly have been left out. But now they lighten the pages of the Log Book. Christmas time brought the children a party and "a Christmas tree, abundantly supplied with presents by ladies in the congregation". We learn from the Mistress of the Infants' school that one of the benefactresses was Mrs. Hostage. There was the occasion when Alderman Sir Thomas Frost visited the school. He was so pleased that he left £5 towards providing a treat for all the children, and the boys, girls and infants sent him an address of thanks. Another highlight for the boys must have been the day when a photograph of the entire school was taken. Five copies were given to the master to be hung in the school. One of them is reproduced here. June 21st, 1887 was celebrated in all the schools for it was the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The children marched in procession to the Town Hall, there to be regaled with a special tea-party.

Philip Lane remained in charge of the school until 1924, when he was succeeded by Mr. John Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham retired in 1950, and the 11+ pupils were transferred to the newly erected Secondary Modern School of St. Bede's, in Handbridge.

Catholic Education: Early days and education for girls	Contents	Catholic Education: Great strides
From Catholicism in Chester: A Double Centenary 1875-1975
© 1975 Sister Mary Winefride Sturman, OSU