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A parlour boarder is an archaic term for a privileged category of pupil at a
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...
. Parlour boarders are described by a modern historian as paying more than the other pupils, in return for which they got a room of their own. A
parlour A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessar ...
was a small reception room, from the French "parler", implying a place for quiet conversation; "board" means meals, as in the expression
room and board Room and board describes an accommodation which, in exchange for money, labour or other recompense, a person is provided with a place to live in addition to meals. It commonly occurs as a fee at higher educational institutions, such as colleges ...
. The term is mostly historic in
British English British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...
. In 18th and 19th century England, there were a profusion of small schools, always single-sex, with the number of pupils ranging from fewer than a dozen to a few score, on a much more domestic scale than the so-called public schools such as Eton and Harrow. Many of these small schools were operated on a family basis, often by a married couple (for boys), or by sisters or female friends (for girls). They would accept day pupils, common boarders, and parlour boarders.


18–19th centuries

Elizabeth Lachlan was at school in London when its owner, a Miss Shepherd, impulsively decided to move her school from Percy Street to France during the
Peace of Amiens The Treaty of Amiens (, ) temporarily ended hostilities between France, the Spanish Empire, and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marked the end of the French Revolutionary Wars; after a short peace it set t ...
in 1802. She set out on this venture with "thirty to forty girls of respectable families, and ten or twelve ladies as parlour boarders". Thomas Reynolds (1771–1836), the Irish informer, son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, was sent at eight years old as a parlour boarder to the school of Rev. Archibald Crawford at
Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district in West London, split between the London Borough of Hounslow, London Boroughs of Hounslow and London Borough of Ealing, Ealing. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist Wi ...
, then a village on the outskirts of London. :The school was composed of eight parlour-boarders, and about sixty other lads. The parlour-boarders lived entirely at the Doctor's table, and joined in all his society as part of his family. In their walks they were usually accompanied by the Doctor himself, who rarely entrusted that responsibility to an usher.


20th century

The Indian diplomat Venkata Siddharthacharry was largely educated in England, and entitled a chapter of his memoir "Parlour Boarder". He defines it as a situation that allows access "to both the family dining room and the family drawing room", "a great privilege naturally, paid for sumptuously". One much-valued benefit was the fire, which was lit from mid-autumn "right up to the end of spring", in contrast to the frigid dormitories. The Jesuit school named after
Francis de Sales Francis de Sales, Congregation of the Oratory, C.O., Order of Minims, O.M. (; ; 21 August 156728 December 1622) was a Savoyard state, Savoyard Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Geneva and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He became n ...
in
Nagpur Nagpur (; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Nāgapura'') is the second capital and third-largest city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is called the heart of India because of its central geographical location. It is the largest and most populated city i ...
, India, even in the mid 20th century: :ran a three tier system of boarding. Parlour boarders, ordinary boarders, and charity boarders. The Parlour boarders were treated like residents of a five star hotel, Ordinary like two star residents, and Charity like poor relations, only a little better off than the orphan children described in the novels of Charles Dickens. One
Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indian people are a distinct minority group, minority community of mixed-race British and Indian ancestry. During the colonial period, their ancestry was defined as British paternal and Indian maternal heritage; post-independence, "Angl ...
family sent the light-skinned son as a parlour boarder, while his darker brothers were merely ordinary boarders.page 106 above (See
Discrimination based on skin color Discrimination based on skin tone, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which individuals of the same race receive benefits or disadvantages based on the color of their skin. More specifcally, coloris ...
or "colorism".)


Fictional examples

*Harriet Smith in '' Emma'' by
Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...
. *Sara Crewe in '' A Little Princess'' by
Frances Hodgson Burnett Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (1886), ''A Little Princess'' (1905), a ...
. *James Steerforth in ''
David Copperfield ''David Copperfield''Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work; see is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to matur ...
'' by
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
.


References

Anthropology Boarding schools Archaic English words and phrases {{anthropology-stub