Project overview
This monograph roots the inter-relationship of gender, class and national identity within the multi-national context of the British state. A rich body of both primary and secondary literature is deployed both to place England within the British context, and to examine the class-based nature of the domestic ideal. Linda Colley's Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 {1992} posited an over-arching British identity superimposed on to older identities, both regional and national, by the start of the Victorian period. The introduction to the monograph addresses issues around national identities, including attitudes towards 'British-ness'. Even where the union with England was largely accepted, education was seen as integral to preserving national distinctiveness, and tensions over English presumptions (or perceived indifference) were evident in both Scotland and Wales. In Ireland, the British state sought to intervene in education as early as the 1830s, though it failed to overcome denominational rivalries over control of education, which was present throughout the UK. The Catholic Church opted to keep its schools outside of the {different) structures established by the 1870 Elementary Education Act {for England and Wales) and the Education {Scotland) Act of 1872, while in Ireland it eventually withdrew its support from the National board of Education, set up in 1831. Thus, the role of religion in the schooling of girls is a major theme in this research. This research also emphasises the importance of specific contexts and cultures for shaping definitions of gender. Both the ideology of women's place and what was taught to girls in schools are examined through a comparative national framework, and also within regional and local contexts. Focusing on the interaction of gender and nationality with social class in education allows the identification of variations, alterations and contestations in nineteenth-century concepts of women's role. Organisation of the research is chronological as well as thematic, to show both continuity and change. One chapter provides an overview of female education throughout the UK to the mid-nineteenth century, setting the context for another chapter concerning midcentury debates about the condition of education in general and female education in particular. Close attention is paid to discourses on gender assumptions and concerns about the perceived gaps between the ideal and reality, reflected in parliamentary debates and enquiries into education, and the reporting of these in pamphlets, journals and newspapers. Two further chapters consider separately working-class and middle-class girls' schooling from the 1870s, while a third will focus on the schoolmistresses and female members of school boards.