Early Education in Sharnbrook

Volume 81 published by Bedfordshire Historical Records Society (2002) is a series of episcopal visitations| undertaken in the first twenty years of the 18th century, edited by former County Archivist Patricia Bell. At each visitation a list of questions was sent out in advance, one of which enquired about the provision of schools in each parish. The various replies for Sharnbrook were as follows:

• 1706: "There is no Lecture, School, Almeshouse, nor Hospital endowed within this parish;
• 1709: No public or Charity Schole;
• 1717: No publick or charity school;
• 1720: No publick school.

In 1818 a Select Committee was established to enquire into educational provision for the poor. This was no doubt prompted, in part, by the recent foundation of two societies promoting education and specifically the building of schools. The Society for Promoting the Lancasterian System for the Education of the Poor was established in 1808 promoting schools run along the lines pioneered by Joseph Lancaster, who had himself copied those of Dr.Andrew Bell, in which older children taught their younger fellows. The Society was renamed the British and Foreign School Society in 1814,. It was supported by a number of prominent nonconformists, Lancaster himself was a Quaker, and sought to teach a non-sectarian curriculum. In answer to this perceived nonconformist takeover of local education the National Society was formed in 1811 to encourage the teaching of poor children along Anglican lines, including the catechism. The Select Committee sent a questionnaire to all parishes in the country asking for: particulars relating to endowments for the education of children; other educational institutions; observations of parish needs etc. In those days a Sunday School was just that, a school which met on a Sunday, usually in the church or nonconformist chapel or other similar building, teaching more than the religious topics with which they are associated today. The return for Sharnbrook reported: "Two Sunday schools, supported by voluntary subscription, one belonging to the Established Church, containing 26 girls and 7 or 8 boys, and the other to the Baptists, consisting of 60 boys and 56 girls. the master of the latter keeps the parish school, in which 28 children are instructed. the poor readily avail themselves of the means of education in their power".

In the country generally the number of schools built continued to grow over the next fifteen years so that by 1833 the government agreed to supplement the work of the two societies, and local benefactors, by making £20,000 per annum available in grants to help build schools. It also prompted another questionnaire to be sent to each parish in England asking for details of local educational provision. The reply for Sharnbrook was: "Three Infant Schools, containing 15 males and 14 females. Three daily schools, two of which contain nine males and ten females; and the other (commenced 1833) twenty males, all supported by payments from the parents. two Sunday Schools; one consists of 15 males and 23 females, of the Established Church; the other, of 84 males and 48 females, appertains to Dissenters; both are supported by subscriptions". The school which began in 1833 was commonly called a National School, although no evidence exists that it was ever affiliated to the National Society, so it is probably more accurate to call it a Church School.