Board Schools were a critical step on public education. They were the first state run schools in England. They began with Education Act of 1870 which authorized the creaion of local school boards. The Act gave the local boards the authority to raise funds for schools from local rates (taxes) which we think meant realestate taxes. The local boads had the authority to build and operate non-denominational schools when existing voluntary (primarily denominational) schools were inadequate to meet community needs. The local boards also had the alternative of subsidising existing denominational schools. And the boards has the autority of pay the fees of indigent children, but were not required to do so. The local school boards were also given the authority to pass a municipal by-law making school attendance compulsory for children between 5–13 years of age. The 1870 law did not require any religious education beyond basic Bible reading. We believe the school here is the Knowle Board School in Sprinfield, Dudley, Staffordshire. (There is also a historic Knowle School in Bristol so we are not positive.) It was one of thousands of primary schools opened across Britain as aesult of the ground-breaking 1870 Education Act. The schools were not free, although fees were very low. The Knowle School was one of the schools built by the Rowley Regis School Board and opened February 12th, 1877. There were 32 pupils on that first day. They were under the care of Miss Edith Davison. Probably fee requirements limited attendance. The local iron works were expanding and both clay and coal mines brought families to Rowley Regis and their children needed an education. The first head mistriss, Edith Davison, wrote in her school log book, "from February 26th – March 2nd eleven admittances, order improved, still the children are in a wild state, owing to some of them never having been to school before." Finally in 1880 as a result of further legislation the local boards assumed the full cost of educationand made attendance compulsory for children through age 10 years. We see the younger boys here in 1898 (figure 1). Note the class is all boys. We suspect the school was coed, but the boys and girls were in separate classes. We notice quite a range of outfits.
Over time the school evolved into an infants (meaning prirmary) school.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1880s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
[The 1960s]
[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]