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THE RECORDS OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETY AT

BOROUGH ROAD
G. F. Bartle a
a
West London Institute of Higher Education,
Online Publication Date: 01 July 1980

To cite this Article Bartle, G. F.(1980)'THE RECORDS OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETY AT BOROUGH

ROAD',Journal of Educational Administration and History,12:2,1 6

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/0022062800120201
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0022062800120201

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THE RECORDS OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETY AT BOROUGH ROAD

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The archives at Borough Road contain what is probably one of the best collections in the country
on the history of teacher training. The cream of the collection is the papers of the British and Foreign
School Society extending from the early 19th century until almost the present day. But there also
exist important records of the Society's training colleges throughout much of their history. The most
complete are those of Borough Road College. But the collection also includes many documents referring
to Stockwell, Darlington and Saffron Walden Colleges as well as a small amount relevant to the Society's
colleges in Wales. In addition to these records, there is a fine collection of early 19th century books
and pamphlets on popular education presented to Borough Road College by David Salmon, biographer
of Joseph Lancaster and a former student of the College. There is also a complete set of the Annual
Reports of the Society as well as the Society's journal, the Educational Record (1848-1929).
The history of the collection may briefly be described. For many years it was generally believed
that the records of the British and Foreign School Society had been destroyed in 1941 when the office
at Temple Chambers was burned out during an air-raid. Some valuable records, indeed, perished on that
occasion, including most of the Society's minute books and the official papers and correspondence of
the secretaries between 1890 and the Second World War. But fortunately the bulk of the early papers
of the Society had been transferred to Isleworth in 1890 when Borough Road College abandoned its
nearly century old site in Southwark and moved to Middlesex. This arrangement had probably been
made because of inadequate storage space at the Society's office in London. The records remained at
Isleworth almost forgotten until they gradually came to light in cupboards and storerooms during reconstruction work in the early 1960s and a small number of interesting documents were put on display
for the centenary visit of the Queen Mother to Borough Road in 1960. Later, mainly as a result of the
efforts of the chief librarian and the staff of the history department, a Borough Road Archives Committee
was formed and a preliminary survey of the vast amount of material was gradually carried out, some
of the more important papers being listed and filed. In 1973 an exhibition of books, photographs and
documents from the archives was mounted for the annual conference of the History of Education
Society at Borough Road. Some extracts from the documents were also quoted in the present author's
History of Borough Road College and in various magazine articles. Then in 1977 an archive committee
of the British and Foreign School Society itself was established with the aim of finding a suitable permanent depository for the records of all the Society's remaining colleges, including those at Darlington
and Saffron Walden which were closing as part of the government's cut-back in teacher training.1
Eventually it was decided that all the records of the Society and its colleges, except for those of
Darlington College (which would be handed over to Durham County Records Office)2 would be deposited at Borough Road, now part of West London Institute of Higher Education, on whose governing
body the Society was represented. A grant from the Society was allocated to the decoration and
equipping of a new archive centre at Borough Road which was to replace the inadequate storage space
in which the large collection of documents had hitherto been housed. Early in 1979 virtually the whole
of the Society's own post-war records, including the papers of its secretaries since 1941, were transferred
from the Society's new offices at Kingston to Borough Road where they were joined by the records of
Saffron Walden College. Thus, after almost a century, most of the records of the Society and its
former colleges, except for those remaining near Darlington and the more recent records of Stockwell
(now a local authority college and due to close in 1980) were brought together at Borough Road where
they await the detailed sorting and cataloguing which will make them readily available to researchers.3
In spite of the vast amount of work which remains to be done, enough is now known about these
records for a general description of their contents to be possible. Of the Society's records, the majority
of the pre-1890 documents consist of the correspondence and administrative papers of the secretaries.
At least two of these secretaries, Henry Dunn (1829-1857) and Alfred Bourne (1868-1907) were men
1

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of strong personality and exceptional industry who gathered the reins of power in their hands to an
extent which would be impossible for an officer of the Society in the present century.4 During their
tenure of office the duties of the secretary, indeed, steadily increased. For the period before 1830 when
part-time secretaries were employed, the papers are limited in quantity, at least after the Society's first
years of pioneering enthusiasm. After 1830, however, when Dunn was appointed, the impressive mass
of documents reflects the growing importance of the Society's work, with more students undergoing
the short period of training, an increasing number of 'British' schools and local committees, both at
home and overseas, and more regular dealings with central government following the instigation of
grants-in-aid and the beginning of the pupil-teacher system. The volume of papers continued to increase
under secretary Wilks and reached a climax during the long secretaryship of Rev. Alfred Bourne. During
Bourne's tenure of office, women's colleges were opened at Darlington, Saffron Walden and Swansea
whilst the number of students taking a two year training course at Borough Road and Stockwell
(opened in 1861) greatly increased. At the same time, the growing demand for elementary school
teachers from the Society's colleges following the 1870 Elementary Education Act, lead to a heavier
burden of correspondence and administrative duties for the secretary. Even though he was aided at
this period by an assistant secretary, Bourne still handled a vast amount of correspondence in person,
much of it concerning matters of detail which would nowadays be passed over to clerical assistants
or managed by telephone. Hardly anything from major questions of Society policy down to the investigation of trivial matters of student discipline was too unimportant for Bourne to deal with, whilst he
also kept up a heavy correspondence with former students seeking posts and schools seeking teachers.
Virtually nothing, moreover, was regarded as too trivial to be preserved amongst the bundles of papers
instead of finding its way into the wastepaper basket or the fire. Bourne, indeed, was unpopular with
the students who regarded him as autocratic and sanctimonious and his relationship with the teaching
staff of the colleges was scarcely more cordial.s But the modern researcher into the Society's history
has good reason to be grateful for his methodical care and thoroughness. No future secretary was again
to hold so much authority nor leave such a voluminous collection of papers behind him.
The Early Records of the Society
These go back to 1808 when a committee of trustees, including Joseph Fox, William Corston and
William Allen, was formed to rescue Joseph Lancaster from his debts and put his training institution
and school on a more economic and efficient footing. This committee became the basis of the Royal
Lancasterian Institution whose title was changed into the British and Foreign School Society after
Lancaster's final withdrawal from its affairs in 1814. Probably the most important of these early
records are four volumes of the Society's early minute books, covering the years 1802-1812 and
1829-1830, which survived the air-raid in 1941 and were transferred to Borough Road with the Society's
post-war records. To these can be added two other early minute books for 1812-1813 and 1815-1816
which had probably been at Borough Road since 1890. These early records also include a bound
volume of Lancaster's original letters between 1810-1812, most of them written to Allen or other
leading members of the Society during Lancaster's publicity tours.6 Other early records include a short
diary kept by Allen in 1808 when the trustees were formed, letters by Fox, Wilberforce and Place and
various financial documents mainly dealing with Lancaster's debts as well as the printed reports of the
Finance Committee of the Royal Lancasterian Institution. 7 The early work of the training institution
is represented by letters of application from young people wishing to come to Southwark, some of
them supported by eminent sponsors including Allen and Corston. The collection also includes
reports on the progress of early British schools made by the Society's officers such as Ann Springman,
superintendent of the women's training department. The foreign and overseas work of the Society in
these early years is represented by a number of letters from former students in South America and the
West Indies as well as interesting letters from the government of the negro republic of Haiti and the
Lancasterian Society of Paris.8 There is also a small collection of leaflets publicising Lancaster's various

educational pamphlets and schools, mostly printed at his short-lasting Borough Road press. Salmon
bequeathed to Borough Road College an album of Lancasteriana including original letters and engravings
of prominent early supporters of Lancaster's system, such as the Duke of Kent and Henry Brougham.
Altogether this section, although relatively small, contains some of the most interesting and valuable
records in the Borough Road collection.
The Records of the Society 1830-18S0

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(a)

Applications for Admission to the Society's Colleges

This collection includes many hundreds of applications from young men and women seeking
admission to the Borough Road training institution. The most numerous and interesting cover the
years 1830-1850 before students were admitted to training via the pupil-teacher and Queen's scholarship system. Each application is accompanied by letters of recommendation from local ministers,
former employers or school committees which have already engaged the applicant as an untrained
teacher and are sponsoring his or her entry to Borough Road. Some of the applications are from
people of very humble origin, others from those who have fallen on evil days or failed in another
occupation. Some of the women's applications are accompanied by small specimens of needlework.
Many applicants have already had experience as monitors or as Sunday school teachers. These letters
are of much interest for the evidence they provide of the social background and literacy standards of
elementary teachers of the period. A few of the applicants later achieved eminence in public life, such
as Isaac Pitman, the founder of the well-known shorthand system. Many applications also exist for the
period after the introduction of the pupil-teacher system, but is is the early letters which are of particular interest.9
(b)

Applications by Former Students for Assistance in Obtaining Posts

Many of these are from former students of the Society's colleges who have already obtained an
appointment and wish to apply for a new one. The letters, which mainly date from Bourne's period of
office, throw light on the position of elementary teachers in the years after 1870. They provide evidence
of the delicate relations of many teachers with school managers and often betray a fear of revealing to
a present employer that a more lucrative position was being sought. They also illustrate the difficulties
which could confront an undenominationally trained teacher working in a school with an Anglican
clergyman amongst its managers. Some copies of Bourne's letters are also available and show, in spite
of his reputation, a sympathetic appreciation of the dilemmas of former students. A collection of
college testimonials on official forms also exist for the years around 1890.
(c)

Correspondence with Local Schools and Committees

This another large collection reaching its greatest extent during Bourne's secretaryship. Common
topics include requests for teachers, assistance in obtaining grants, applications for Society manuals
and equipment. There is an interesting series of reports, dating mainly from the eighteen-forties, on
local committees and schools by the Society's own officers acting as inspectors such as Captain Fabian
and James Cornwell, later to be appointed first principal at Borough Road College. The collection includes handbills advertising British schools in various parts of the country as well as one or two early
school log books.
(d)

Correspondence with Overseas Schools and Committees

After 1830 the Society's schools existed mainly in the West Indies (especially Jamaica), India
and a few other parts of the colonial empire where Methodist missionaries were active, such as Sierra
Leone. Letters, tracts and local newspapers have survived, throwing light on missionary activity and
colonial problems in general, as well as the difficulties of the schools. Both Dunn and Bourne had
worked in the Caribbean area in their early years and were familiar with colonial conditions. There

is also some correspondence with supporters of the British system in southern Europe, including Italy,
Spain, Greece and the Ionian Islands.10
(e)

Correspondence with Members of the Committee and other Prominent Supporters

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A collection of letters of Dunn's period of office concerns a controversy with the Congregationalists and Unitarians on the question of State grants and government inspection of the Society's training
institution and schools, leading to the secession of some supporters from the Society in 1847. There are
several tracts by Dunn on the grant question and an interesting letter by John Crossley, for many years
master of the model school, extolling the Society's principles of religious freedom. Correspondence
between Bourne and leading members of the central committee on teaching staff appointments has
survived and also collections of letters from prominent supporters acknowledging invitations to the
opening of Darlington in 1872 and the move of Borough Road to Isleworth in 1890. Little evidence
has been found in the papers throwing light on the circumstances which led to the founding of the
Society's women's colleges, though some information can be obtained from other sources, such as the
Annual Reports
(f)

Correspondence with Central Government and its Agents

There is surprisingly little correspondence with the Committee-of-Council and Education Department over grants-in-aid and the inspection of British schools. No copies of inspectors' reports of the
Society's schools and colleges have been discovered amongst the papers. There is, however, a collection
of documents concerning Science and Art Department grants, as well as contemporary examination
papers both for South Kensington grants and the Teachers Certificate. There are also large numbers
of tracts and leaflets, official and otherwise, on the major educational and religious questions of the day.
(g)

General College Matters including Staff Appointments

There is a large correspondence of Bourne's period of office dealing with staff appointments
and dismissals at the Society's colleges, with the Stockwell Kindergarten, the early years at Darlington
College and the transfer of Borough Road from Southwark to Isleworth. A particularly interesting
correspondence concerns the appointment of P. A. Barnett as principal of Borough Road in 1889 the first appointment of a college principal from outside the existing members of staff. 1: Few papers
dealing with the college curriculum or teaching method have come to light, though there are a number
of books on contemporary pedagogy in the Salmon collection, whilst college timetables of the period
are published in the Society's Annual Reports.
(h)

College Discipline and Student Life

These papers mainly cover the Bourne period and include lengthy correspondence on quite
trivial matters, such as student damgge to locked dormitory doors at Borough Road and the rustication
of individual students for minor instances of misbehaviour. There are several abject or indignant letters
of explanation and apology from miscreant students and their parents which help to explain Bourne's
unpopularity. An angry correspondence concerns a decision to prohibit week-end passes for resident
women students living in London at Stockwell College - a good example of Victorian petty restrictiveness. There are also letters concerning an incident at the Borough Road model school in 1868 when a
teacher struck a pupil. Very little else has been found about the Southwark model school in this collection.
(i)

General Administration and Finance

There are a large number of papers, mainly of Bourne's period, dealing with financial matters,
commercial contracts and invoices from local suppliers. There are also letters dealing with college
buildings and equipment, as well as architect's plans of all the Society's colleges. Particular problems

include the after effects of a fire at Borough Road in 1872'and the heating problems of the new Isleworth site. An interesting collection of commercial handbills and advertisements throw light on retail
trade in the later Victorian period.
The Post-War Records of the Society

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This large but mainly unsorted collection, handed over to the Borough Road archives in 1979,
contains the papers of secretaries Knowles and Robb and deals with every aspect of the Society's
affairs. It includes correspondence with the Department of Education and Science and the Charity
Commission, as well as with the governors and principals of the Society's three remaining colleges.
There are letters concerning staffing, including the appointment of college principals, building developments, financial matters, legal matters, college plans for expansion and finally proposals for closure.
There are copies of the academic board minutes and other reports from all three Society colleges. One
interesting collection of papers consists of an informal correspondence between secretary Robb and
successive chairmen of the Society during the 1960s.
The Records of Borough Road College since 1890

The loss of the Society's own records after about 1890 cannot, unfortunately, be made good by
those of its oldest college as the papers of Borough Road and most of its principals have also not
survived. There is, however, a large collection covering the years of Principal Hamilton (1932-1961)
including copies of his letters to various members of the college committee, to the Ministry of Education
and other official bodies, as well as letters to Hamilton himself from a large variety of correspondents,
many of them former students. Thre records of this period also include the minutes of the college
governing committee, the reports of University of London visitations and many documents dealing with
the Second World War emergency plans and building developments both before and after the war. The
Borough Road archives also include the complete minutes of the Academic Board, established in 1951,
the Academic Council and their sub-committees and registers of all students entering the college during
the past eighty years. There is, also, a nearly complete set of the student magazine, B's Hum, 1889-1963,
as well as college prospectuses, student sketch books, records of social events, sporting trophies and
medals. The series of framed year group photographs goes back to 1870, whilst the sporting reputation
of Borough Road is illustrated by a fine collection of team photographs and informal snapshots covering,
in particular, the first thirty years of the present century. There is a large album of photographs of the
college building dating from 1904 and only discovered about ten years ago in an attic. Other records
include the minute books of the London O.B's Club dating from the beginning of the century as well
as correspondence dealing with the erection of a war memorial to student, casualties in the First World
War. There is a handbook published in 1935, listing every student attending the college between
1869-1932, whilst lists in the Annual Report of 1877 and Educational Record of 1880 enable the
register of names to be traced back to 1810, though the early columns are far from complete. The
archive centre also contains a collection of published memoirs by or about former students of the
college, such as P. B. Ballard's Things I Cannot Forget and F. H. Spencer's An Inspector's Testament.
Recent documents tracing the stages of the merger with Maria Grey College and Chiswick Polytechnic
in 1976 have been carefully preserved.
The Salmon Collection of Printed Books

This fine collection mainly of early 19th century books was gathered together by David Salmon
and left to Borough Road College after his death. It includes original copies of almost all the books and
pamphlets of Joseph Lancaster (with rare first and second editions of his Improvements in Education),
several editions of Andrew Bell's Instruction for Conducting Schools, a large collection of the works
of Sarah Trimmer and many of the contemporary pamphlets brought out by supporters and opponents

of the respective monitorial systems of Lancaster and Bell. There are several early copies of the Society's
Manual of the British System as well as Dunn's Manual or Principles of Teaching and various text books
produced by members of the Borough Road staff for use in the Society's schools and training colleges.
There are also sets of William Allen's Philanthropist and the early Minutes of the Committee of Council
on Education. The collection includes a copy of Joseph Hamel's L'Enseignement Mutuel (1818) containing lively engravings illustrating the various techniques of monitorial education. Finally there are several
copies of Salmon's own Joseph Lancaster (1904) and bound editions of his many articles on Lancaster
and his contemporaries in the Educational Record.12

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G. F. Bartle,
West London Institute of
Higher Education

1.

Members of the Society's Archives Committee included the secretary of the Society, Mr. Oswald Bell, the
Principals of Saffron Walden and Darlington Colleges, Miss G. P. Collins and Mr. J. A. Huitson and the present
author. Miss Collins and the present author also served on a History of Education Society working party which
drew up and distributed a questionnaire to all Colleges of Education in the country asking for information on
the extent and location of their records.

2.

A history of Darlington College, Our Present Opportunities by O. M. Stanton, was published in 1966. Both
Darlington and Saffron Walden colleges contributed financially to the new archive centre at Borough Road.

3.

West London Institute also possesses the records of the former Maria Grey College of Education, though these
are preserved separately from the B.F.S.S. records.

4.

A preliminary survey of the papers of W. A. Robb, recently deposited at Borough Road, shows, however, the
extent to which even a mid-twentieth century secretary could control the Society's affairs.

5.

For Bourne's relationship with the students, see G. F. Bartle, A History of Borough Road College, Isleworth,
(1976), p. 39.

6.

These letters, like the four fire-charred minute books, not only survived the blitz but fortunately escaped
damage in a flood at the Kingston offices which soaked some of the Society's records shortly before their
removal to Borough Road. These Lancaster letters are described in one of Salmon's articles in the
Educational Record.

7.

For a survey of these early financial records, see G. F. Bartle, The Early Finances of the British and Foreign
School Society, 1808-1830', Hist. Ed. Soc. Bulletin No. 22 (1978).

8.

A copy book written by a negro slave child at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1826, was the subject of a letter from the
Jamaican Government a few years ago.

9.

Fora detailed account of the applications for admission during the period 1830-1850, see G. F. Bartle, 'Early
Applications for Admission to Borough Road Normal College', Hist. Ed. Soc. Bulletin No. 14 (1974) and
'Early Applications by Women Candidates to the Borough Road Normal College', ibid., No. 18 (1976).

10.

The most detailed information about the Society's overseas activities is still to be found in a series of articles
by 'W' in the Educational Record, xvii (1906-1909). There is a bound volume of these amongst the Salmon
Collection.

11.

For Barnett's appointment as principal and other staff appointments at Borough Road, see G. F. Bartle,
'Staffing Policy at a Victorian Training College', Hist. Ed. Soc. Occasional Publication No. 2 (1976).

12.

Enquiries about the various records mentioned in this article should be referred either to Miss G. P. Collins
or to the present author at West London Institute of Higher Education (B.F.S.S. Archive Centre), Borough
Road, Isleworth, Middlesex.