Teacher Training 1870 or social history?

[Newt]

Can anyone offer their opinions or knowledge on this scenario...

I have ancestors who were living in London and in 1871 census the Father was working as a stableman (also a groom earlier in life) in the Royal Mews and the rest of his family lived elsewhere.

Of his family one in particular took an unusual route through life

He is Frederick George Turner aged 15 and a pupil teacher?

His father died in 1873 and yet in 1875-6 Frederick attended Winchester and became a headteacher in Devon in 1877.

Of his 4 siblings one became a journey man starting as a potman and ending as a house painter.
Another became a drapers apprentice becoming a shop-owner
another was a solicitors clerk and the final one i think became a maid.

My question(s)...

1) What did a 15 year old do as a pupil teacher?
2) Why did he wait 4 years until attending college?
3) Who paid for it? (quite big family, no father's income).
4) Why him?  why was his younger brother left to his own devices in London.
5) And finally, overall, what would be the aspirations of parents being a groom and domestic servant for their children in Victorian London.

Your thoughts and links would be appreciated.

Neal 

[jennifer c]

Hi the thing that strikes me is that he is very young at 21 to become a head teacher.
Did he have any connection with Devon or the school through other family?
Does Winchester have an archive where you would be able to find out if he had a sponsor or who paid his fees, were their scholarships?
Who was he a pupil teacher with, did they die and leave him some money?
Did he marry for money around this time?

Just a few thoughts to get the ball rolling.

Jennifer

[Newt]

Good points Jennifer,

Too young? although it was only a CE village primary school (@60 on roll).

Not sure about connections in Devon (yet to find out where the family originally came from), although interestingly his brother moved to Torquay later to open  his shop (maybe on his brother's recommendation?)

I will make enquiries to Winchester.

What is a pupil teacher? (you make it sound like he would be 'shadowing' a real teacher - and a family friend at that?)

And finally, no, he did not marry into money.  He got married after he became headteacher.

Thanks,

Neal

[suzard]

A pupil tacher is a monitor.
Usually a pupil who has grasped enough knowledge of the 3 R's to help other pupils understand the subject.

Occasionally a pupil teacher was paid a few pounds a year for a period of 3 years to work alongside a certified teacher and then had the possibility of going on to become a certified teacher.

There would be charities to assist with school fees - sometimes the teacher would help with fees if they thought the child was "gifted"-sometimes family members helped.

My great grandmother, her sister and brother and 2 cousins all went to boarding school -sponsered by grandparents and an unmarried aunt -and the grandparents were only railway workers.

[Gadget]

There is some pretty good information about education at that time, including a link to Winchester and it's alumni here:

http://www.victorianweb.org/history/education/index.html


Gadget

[trish251]

In Australia, until the 20th Century becoming a pupil teacher was the main way to train to become a teacher. My grandmother did a 1 year college course in 1911 and I believe this was close to the first time such training was available.

It was also very common here, for "1 teacher schools" to exist - thus young and inexperienced teachers could well be called "head teacher".

Given this comment (from our State library)
Though a number of highly qualified teachers were imported from Britain in the 1880s, the pupil-teacher system was the main method of recruiting and training teachers. Not until 1914, when a teacher training college was established in Brisbane, was it possible to upgrade the standard of teacher preparation beyond the level of the pupil-teacher system, which was phased out between 1923 to 1935

There were no doubt other training methods available in England, much earlier than in Australia.

If you google pupil-teacher system you will get many explanations.

1. Your 15 year old was learning to become a teacher - some opponents of the pupil teacher system imply that the "pupils" learned bad habits from bad teachers! He may have eventually received financial asistance to attend the college because of his teacher experience.

2. Saving up and/or waiting for financial assistance

3. see 1 and 2

4. Perhaps he was more academic than his siblings. May have been interested in teaching - got on well with his school master - obviously wanted an alternative to being in service

5. I would think the aspirations of the family would be similar to those we have today for our own children.

One of my favorite ancestor families (father born c. 1788) - the father was a jack of all trades/carpenter journeyman - one of his sons became a builder, the grandson became an architect - so in this line - they stayed in the same trade, but moved up the social scale of employment. The other children went in very different directions but most appear to have lived lives where their employment was socially and financially an improvement on their father's options.  My view is the parents must have encouraged them and been thrilled that their children did so well.