Literacy in London versus the north

[karen8]

Although the major part of my family research has been in the midlands and the north, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, West Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire, I have more recently been researching family in London. 

What strikes me is that most of the northern research tells me that my working class ancestors in the 19th Century were illiterate and signed the marriage registers with a 'mark'.  In London, although I found family who were obviously extremely poor and living in areas renowned for poverty, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell etc, most seemed to be able to at least sign the marriage registers.  Although this not prove they were fully literate, I find the difference striking. 

Does anyone know why this would be the case?  I wondered whether it was because of a greater prevalence of charities in the capital?

[stanmapstone]

There have been numerous threads on RootsChat about literacy. Surveys of adult literacy in the early part of Victoria's reign suggest that, for example, 79 per cent of the Northumberland and Durham miners could read, and about half of them could write. Eighty seven per cent of children in the Norfolk and Suffolk workhouse in 1838 could read and write. Thanks to the growth in freelance schooling, all privately financed, literacy levels had risen to about 92 per cent by 1870 and Forster's Education Act
"The Victorians" by A.N. Wilson ISBN 0-09-945186-7.

See Literacy, by Edward Higgs http://www.rootschat.com/links/03ix/ which discusses the signing of marriage registers

Stan

[karen8]

Sorry about that - I should have checked before posting!  The figures quoted do correlate though with my findings.  In West Yorkshire in 1839 only 55% were signing the registers and as that includes all social classes, I guess it would be lower in poorer areas and higher in more affluent areas.  In Middlesex (which includes areas such as Shoreditch), the proportion signing is 74%, a huge difference.  It still doesn't explain the reason for this massive difference and I wonder whether the fact that in the Northern mill towns, the children were employed in the mills and had little time for education whereas in the capital, did a greater proportion end up in workhouses thus receiving at least an elementary education?

[stanmapstone]

In an 1834 Report on the figures in returns made by factories to the Factory Commission, concerning the education of the employees, it was found that in England 85% could read and 43% could write, in Scotland the figures were 95% could read and 53% could write.
However the report concluded:
"It will be gratifying to the friends of education to find from authentic documents that so large a proportion of the working classes in the towns and populous districts is able to read, although we are unable to venture to hope for so favourable an account from the small villages and rural districts of England."
The figures from the 1851 Education Census show that the total for England & Wales was 44,836 Day Schools with 2,180,592 Scholars (31/03/1851), and 2,837 Sunday Schools with 2,369,089 Scholars (30/03/1851).
There were also 1,545 Evening Schools for Adults with 39,783 Scholars (29/03/1851).
Stan

[hurworth]

I think that sometimes the people who signed with a mark could sign their name.  Perhaps the minister assumed they couldn't so wrote their names for them and asked them to put a mark next to it.

One couple that I am related to signed the marriage register with a mark in 1841.  I assumed they were illiterate until I saw his signature on his will.  It wasn't a clumsy signature at all, and i don't think he'd learned to sign his name after his marriage.

[stanmapstone]

If you want to know more see "Factory children and compulsory education: The short-time system in the textile areas of northwest England 1833–64"

The early legislation was limited in scope and was easy to evade. From the date of the first effective measure, the Factory Act of 1833 [1], part time schooling as a condition of juvenile employment was (with later minor exceptions [2]) confined to the textile industries for a period of over thirty years. Not until 1864 when it extended to potting [3] and three years later to all non-textile factories and workshops [4], was there any real endeavour to cover children in other trades. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10408347308001101

Stan

[Rena]

I think that sometimes the people who signed with a mark could sign their name.  Perhaps the minister assumed they couldn't so wrote their names for them and asked them to put a mark next to it.

One couple that I am related to signed the marriage register with a mark in 1841.  I assumed they were illiterate until I saw his signature on his will.  It wasn't a clumsy signature at all, and i don't think he'd learned to sign his name after his marriage.

I started work in the 1950s and it was noticeable that men who worked with their hands had trouble bending their fingers to hold the pen in order to sign their names.

[Rena]

Years ago I found a little online gem in an 1810 Parochial Census that a local vicar had taken in order to assess who amongst his parishioners of a total of 296 people in 62 households could read.  It doesn't state if any of them could write. Here's an example (Shearings are my ancestors)

Norfolk, East Tuddenham:

Benjamin Blythe household: one adult; one child. 
Has one Testament wishes to exchange her prayer book for one of a larger print.

John Shearing household; three adults; two children; One bible and Testaments

[Maiden Stone]

I started work in the 1950s and it was noticeable that men who worked with their hands had trouble bending their fingers to hold the pen in order to sign their names.

Injuries to fingers and hands were common in textile mills.
I was surprised about one great-grandmother not signing marriage register in 1892. She worked in a cotton mill.  I assume she'd attended school when a child. Her father was a mill overlooker. Her GF & GGF were styled "gentleman" in 1830s but family fortunes declined since. Parish register from her GF's village/small town in Lancashire showed a high percentage of people signing marriage register late 18th-early 19thC. The town had a school.  An illegal Catholic school was rumoured to exist.
 
Writing with pen & ink is a different skill to being able to read, spell and write.  I'd been literate for 4 years before starting to learn to use pen and ink. Several years of practice, sore, inky fingers, broken nibs, scrawly writing on pages covered in blots and changes of style of pen followed.
An 1820's account of education at a church-run school in Preston, Lancashire reported that the pupils wrote neatly on slates but when given pen and paper, made a dreadful mess. The school later opened a senior department and charged a penny extra per week towards cost of paper and books.