Baptists and the Charity School Movement

Abstract

"A feature of English education in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the charity school. Through the charity schools large numbers of children, for whom no other means of education existed, received some form of instruction.l In the early stages of the movement there was some degree of co-operation between the Church of England and Nonconformity but this tended to disappear after 1715 and Nonconformists began to establish schools of their own in reaction against the growing hostility of the established Church.2 Such schools were not necessarily founded by a denominational body: frequendy they were controlled by voluntary societies as joint-stock companies based on subscriptions from interested individuals."