Literacy in 18th Century England

[Andrew Tarr]

I am no expert, but we are talking here about the 1760s, and I'm not sure how many places could then offer the services you mention.  People may have been taught how to sign their name, but I can't think of many occasions when that might have been needed (at least by an 'adult'), so any attempt might have been rather less fluid than the examples above.  That's my suspicion, anyway.

I think many churches had little schools Andrew, almost certainly not 5 days a week, perhaps only 2 or 3 but there would likely be some kind of church led learning or perhaps charitable institution in towns or cities that ran schools.

I'm not denying the existence of those schools, just suggesting that after leaving school (probably at 12 or younger) those people would rarely need to sign anything unless they had to write in their profession.  I would expect more variety of writing style, as in these examples from my ancestors, who were mostly ordinary 'working class'.  Some signatures are not easy to confirm: one is Charlotte Fisher, which has been erroneously transcribed here and there.

[Viktoria]

Totally off the topic of this post, but one photograph of register entries has
Rev Jos Brooke .
Date 1805 .
There was a very well known
Cleric of that name at Manchester Cathedral that date.
Quite a fierce but down to earth man,mentioned at length in a book written about the time of Peterloo,” The Manchester Man, “.
There is a statue of him in Manchester Cathedral.
Not all churches were licensed for marriages or Christenings, so people would go to have babies Christened ,or adults married in The Cathedral ,which was.
He often refused to give babies their parents’ choice of name, !
I was very pleased and interested to see his name.
Viktoria.

[Andrew Tarr]

Thanks for your interesting post, Viktoria.  George Young was one of my ggg-grandfathers.  I may find time to seek out this statue, as we are only 30 miles from Manchester.  Of course you will know that in 1805 that church was only a Collegiate Church, it became a cathedral much later, and of course still looks like the parish church of a large town, just as Blackburn cathedral does.

The Manchester baptism registers for that time show what a production line there must have been, literally dozens or scores of infants being processed every Sunday.

[Viktoria]

Thankyou ,yes I was not sure when it became a Cathedral.
The chapter recounts the many Baptisms,and also “ Churchings “
A custom that has died out I think.

It is lovely inside and so near Humphrey Cheethams’ ( spellings vary) school.
Also what was the old Grammar School,( became Long Millgate Teacher’s Training College ,)there was  was rivalry between the two, part of the story.
That is now part of The College of Music.
Joshua Brooke lived on the bend of Long  Millgate .
There were small humble dwellings all round The Collegiate Church.
Cheetham’s boys were often in the choir .
My husband was asked to interview as he had a lovely treble voice as a small boy,there would have been a stiff exam .He was not a bit interested ,into football even in junior school .
Later when articled to accountancy he did the initial audit at Chethams,in the beautiful library ,I asked if  he had regrets re being a scholar—— not a moment’s ,lA long blue coat,pancake hat and yellow stockings, shoes with big buckles?
  !Not in Ancoats!!!
Viktoria.

[Andrew Tarr]

Thankyou ,yes I was not sure when it became a Cathedral.  Viktoria.

It was not till 1847.

[Gillg]

My gt-gt-gt-grandfather signed the register for both his weddings (1798 & 1811). His first wife Mary died and he married again to a woman called Mary, like his first wife - caused all kinds of problems when researching his wife and it took me a while to find out that there were two Marys.  His signature was identical on both register entries, but since he was an ag lab I don't know whether he would have been able to write anything else or even read. 

[andrewalston]

Similarity in handwriting is pretty much inevitable where the same person taught the parties involved.

The person teaching, especially in rural districts, may well have been Parish Clerk or even the clergyman. Many of those getting married in a period would have been of similar age, so would have learned from the same teacher.

A century later the marriage entry of my gg gm Ann Jones has Anne Swindley as a witness. Both myself and my mum came to the conclusion that the same person taught them to write, so similar were the letters in their given names. Both women came from a little village over 50 miles away.

[Andrew Tarr]

Similarity in handwriting is pretty much inevitable where the same person taught the parties involved.

Up to a point I think you are right, Andrew, but even rod-of-iron discipline, which was probably the norm at that time, cannot eliminate personal differences in writing.  And I suspect most children would learn to write on a slate rather than with pen and ink.  I wonder if left-handedness was suppressed in the 18th century as it certainly was later.  Even today some American handwriting looks somehow typical, and definitely not British.  But I still believe that even if many children learnt to write their names, the need for most of them to actually do that after leaving school (usually quite young) would mean that the skill would become rusty by the time they married.

Anyway, why stop at learning to write one's name ?

[Guy Etchells]

Handwriting or lack of handwriting proves very little, as I have mentioned in earlier posts much will depend on what the person is told or invited to do, for example when I was in senior school we were told to put or mark on a paper we had to sign before going to a cadet force camp in the holidays. well over 30% of the boy put a cross on the paper even though they all had good literacy skills. The problem was the officer was a stickler for the cadets to obey orders without question, so many did just that.
Another example is my sister Dianne a well educated and literate person, who married twice once in 1977 then again in 2001, the first time she signed her name the second time because of an earlier accident she no longer had the motor skills to sign her name and so a cross was put on the register by the Assistant Registrar who officiated at the wedding.
Cheers
Guy