The School Board for London, commonly known as the London School Board (LSB), was an institution of local government and the first directly elected body covering the whole of London.
The
Elementary Education Act 1870
The Elementary Education Act 1870, commonly known as Forster's Education Act, set the framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in England and Wales. It established local education authorities with defined powers, autho ...
was the first to provide for education for the whole population of
England and Wales
England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is En ...
. It created elected
school boards, which had power to build and run
elementary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...
s where there were insufficient voluntary school places; they could also compel attendance. In most places, the school boards were based on
borough districts or
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...
es, but in London the board covered the whole area of the
Metropolitan Board of Works
The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London Coun ...
– the area today known as
Inner London
Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was ...
.
Between 1870 and 1904, the LSB was the single largest educational provider in London and the infrastructure and policies it developed were an important influence on London schooling long after the body was abolished.
School board members
The entire board was elected every three years, with the first elections held in November 1870. The LSB originally consisted of forty-nine members elected from ten divisions, based around London's
constituencies or the Districts formed under the
Metropolis Management Act 1855
The Metropolis Management Act 1855 (18 & 19 Vict. c.120) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the Metropolitan Board of Works, a London-wide body to co-ordinate the construction of the city's infrastructure. The Act ...
.
[ Four divisions, representing the ]City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
, Southwark, Chelsea and Greenwich returned four members each. The divisions of Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Westminster returned five members each. Finally, Finsbury and Marylebone returned six and seven members respectively. The membership increased over time: to 50 in 1876 when Lambeth was given an extra member, to 51 in 1882 when the representation of Chelsea increased to five members and to 55 in 1885 when Lambeth was sub-divided into two smaller divisions: Lambeth East and Lambeth West with four and six members respectively.
The electoral system of the LSB contained several innovations. Firstly, the board's election of 1870 was polled by secret ballot, being the first large-scale election to use this approach in Britain. Secondly, the cumulative voting system gave electors a number of votes equal to the number of seats in the division in which they were voting. The elector could use up as many of their votes on a single candidate as they wished, which meant that minority interests often found representation.
The LSB, at the time of its creation had one of the broadest mandates of any elected body in Britain. Unusually, women were permitted to vote on the same terms as men for the school boards and also to stand for election. Three women stood in the first board election in 1870: Elizabeth Garrett, who topped the poll, Emily Davies, who also won election, and Maria Georgina Grey. When the second elections were held, in 1873, Garrett and Davies stood down, to be replaced by Jane Agnes Chessar and Alice Cowell, while in 1876, Florence Fenwick Miller, Elizabeth Surr, Helen Taylor and Alice Westlake all won election.[Patricia Hollis, ''Ladies Elect: Women in English Local Government 1865-1914'', pp.75-90]
One measure of the LSB's importance can be seen in the number of notable figures who stood for election to the board. The board attracted a number of the leading figures of the day, including the scientist Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The stori ...
, Helen Taylor, stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
, and Lord Lawrence, who served as the LSB's first chairman. The board was also responsible for launching a number of political careers, including those of Charles Reed, Benjamin Waugh
Benjamin Waugh (20 February 183911 March 1908) was a Victorian social reformer and campaigner who founded the UK charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ( NSPCC) in the late 19th century, and also wrote various ...
, and the Conservative cabinet minister, William Henry Smith.
Work of the school board
The original intention of the board was to provide a sufficient number of school places for the poorest children in London, which were originally estimated at little more than 100,000. The policy adopted by the LSB was to provide London with modern, high-quality schools, whilst compelling parents, by law, to educate their children. Although education would not be compulsory on a national level until 1880, the board passed a by-law
A by-law (bye-law, by(e)law, by(e) law), or as it is most commonly known in the United States bylaws, is a set of rules or law established by an organization or community so as to regulate itself, as allowed or provided for by some higher authori ...
in 1871 that compelled parents to have their children schooled between the ages of five and thirteen.
The LSB was largely successful in their aims and often struggled to keep up with the demand for their services. For instance, by the end of the 1880s, the board was providing school places for more than 350,000 children. This growth was frequently attributed to the quality of school premises, which were often far superior to those of private or charity schools.
The board was responsible for constructing over four hundred schools across London. An important figure in this process was Edward Robert Robson
Edward Robert Robson FRIBA FSA FSI (2 March 1836 – 19 January 1917) was an English architect famous for the progressive spirit of his London state-funded school buildings of the 1870s and early 1880s.
Born in Durham, he was the elder son of Ro ...
, the board's first chief architect. Robson was responsible for designing many of the school buildings erected by the board. The board's policy was to construct schools which would be attractive, and would serve to improve the general appearance of the districts in which they were constructed. Although school board architecture drew a considerable amount of criticism at the time, the schools were often sturdy and practical structures, and many schools constructed during this period are still in use.
Abolition of the board
Although the school boards had been largely successful in increasing the number of children attending school in Britain, they were perceived as bureaucratic and expensive. As a response to this, the boards were abolished by the Education Act of 1902, which replaced them with local education authorities
Local education authorities (LEAs) were local councils in England that are responsible for education within their jurisdiction. The term was used to identify which council (district or county) is locally responsible for education in a system wi ...
.
In London, the London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kn ...
had been created in 1889 to replace the Metropolitan Board of Works
The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London Coun ...
and in 1904 the responsibility for education in London was transferred to the LCC. The LSB held its final meeting on 28 April 1904, with the county council taking over on 1 May. The LCC itself was abolished in 1965, with education for the former School Board area passing to the Inner London Education Authority
The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was an ad hoc local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. The authority was reconstituted as a directly elected body corp ...
, a committee of the Greater London Council
The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...
. The ILEA was abolished in 1990, with the inner London borough
The London boroughs are the 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at ...
councils becoming education authorities.
See also
* Birmingham School Board
* List of former board schools in Brighton and Hove
References
Further reading
*''Education in Britain 1750–1914'', W B Stephens, 1998,
*''Educational Documents, England and Wales 1816 to the present day'', J Stuart MacLure, 1965, 1979, 370.942
*''Powerful and Splendid: The London School Board 1870–1904'', Robin Betts, 2015, {{ISBN, 978-0-9573371-3-8
London School Board
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London School Board
London School Board
History of education in England
History of local government in London
1870 establishments in England
1904 disestablishments in England
Organizations established in 1870
Organizations disestablished in 1904