Fighting the Tide: Church Schools in South Buckinghamshire, 1902–44

Abstract

In 1902 elementary school provision in Oxford diocese – England's largest – reflected the national picture: 72 per cent were church schools, with total rolls of 54 per cent of school-age children. The bitterly contested 1902 Education Act apparently protected the future of church schools, but in practice its provisions severely undermined them, particularly in growing areas of the country. By 1929, Oxford's assistant bishop reported the schools’ situation as ‘critical’. This article examines the impact on the church schools of one rural deanery in South Buckinghamshire, between the 1902 and 1944 Education Acts. Several schools found themselves under threat of closure, while rapid population increase and a rising school leaving age more than quadrupled the number of school-age children in the area. Closer working with the local education authority and other denominations was one option to optimize scarce resources and protect the Church of England's influence on religious education in day schools: but many churchmen fought to keep church schools open at all costs. This strategy met with limited success: by 1939 the proportion of children in church schools had decreased to 10 per cent, with potential consequences for how religion was taught to the other 90 per cent of children.