BRITISH LANCASTRIAN SCHOOLS OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY KYTHERA

Abstract

The island of Kythera (Cerigo) has many well-preserved structures dating from the British protectorate (1815–64): the most striking of these are several stone-built school buildings constructed in 1825–6. Education in these schools was based on a British system, informed by evangelical religious principles that had gained popularity in England in the late eighteenth century, and known as the Lancastrian system after its founder, Joseph Lancaster. Using unpublished archival sources in both Britain and Kythera, this article focuses primarily on the colonial educational system on Cerigo, as embodied in the school buildings. The Cerigo schools are set in the context of socio-political events and ideas in the early nineteenth century: the phenomenon of the Lancastrian school movement, the impact of Protestant missions in the Mediterranean and the colonial initiative of public education in the Ionian Islands. The relationship between the British (officials and missionaries) and the islanders in the establishment and the initial operation of the schools is illustrated by a detailed discussion of teachers, schoolbooks, the number of schools and students, and data regarding the construction of the school buildings. The manifestation of that relationship is shown in the physical form of the British-built school buildings and their placement in the landscape. While the creation of the Cerigo schools may be viewed as a microcosm of British colonial and missionary involvement in the Ionian Islands, it can be demonstrated that subsequent changes in the function of the schools in the Colonial period reflected an increasing alignment with the ideologies of the developing nation-state of Greece.