Upper Worth Valley Schools in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

There are a good number of government enquiries which provide a window through which to view local life and times in Yorkshire during the nineteenth century. Volumes 9 and 18 of the General Reports by the Assistant Commissioners to the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1868 contain reports on the Haworth Free Grammar School and Harehill Free School, Oldfield, two miles west of Haworth. Mr (later Sir) J. G. Fitch, a distinguished Inspector of Schools, visited both schools and wrote detailed reports on them. Fitch had examined all the endowed grammar schools in Yorkshire, West Riding, during the previous three years, finding that five of the original 65 had closed and of those remaining, only 29 attempted to give instruction in Latin. Most of these free grammar schools had many fewer pupils than they could accommodate. Only Sheffield, Doncaster, St. Peter's York and Hipperholme were full at an earlier inspection in 1836 and numbers had generally fallen since then. There were 3,350 places in West Riding schools but only 1,836 pupils were registered and 1,667 present on the inspection days in the 1860s.1 Of the 29 schools still teaching Latin, only 13.5% of the pupils could read a simple passage aloud. Keighley Free Grammar School had only 24 pupils, but room for one hundred. No Greek or Latin was being taught and only two pupils had any understanding of English grammar. Fitch commented that the general organization and instruction within these grammar schools were those of average National (elementary) schools and they were filled, for the most part, with the same class of children. 2 Good Grammar schools are very rare in West Yorkshire, and only 9% of the children of the middle and upper classes avail themselves in any way of these endowments. Many of the schools, like Haworth, were for both girls and boys. Fitch said these mixed schools were common in the North: They are less objected to by parents than such schools in the South of England. Girls gain in mental achievement and boys in refinement by common association in the same class. Considering various causes of the decline in the endowed schools, the Inspector looked at their buildings, income and trustees. He found