A Level History Unit 19: The Partition of Ireland 1900-25 the 1923/25 Education Act 1
Assembling the Machinery of Government in Northern Ireland: the Education Act of 1923-25 Overview and Rationale Unit Content and Subject Specifications This Unit is offered to support the teaching of History at A2 in relation to Assessment Unit 4 (A2:2): Historical Investigations and Interpretations, the Partition of Ireland 1900-25. It covers the setting up of the Ministry of Education in the new state of Northern Ireland, explains why the pre-partition national school system required reform, and details the system of education established by the Education Act of 1923 (the Londonderry Act). The Unit, therefore, covers material relevant to the third section of this module which deals with events in Ireland 1919-25, including the institutions that were set up in the new state of Northern Ireland and how the machinery of government was assembled. In examining opposition to the Act within Northern Ireland this Unit addresses the specification aim of considering the challenges faced by the Northern Ireland administration during the years 1923-25 in particular. The Unit covers the role of Lord Londonderry as Minister of Education; the report of the Lynn Committee and its recommendations; Lord Londonderry s vision for nondenominational, moral education for elementary school pupils. It discusses the campaign mounted by some Protestant clergy for Bible instruction in schools, and the campaign s success in exercising political influence on the Craig administration. Assessment Objectives The Unit has been designed to address Assessment Objective 2: As part of an historical enquiry, analyse and evaluate a range of appropriate source material with discrimination. Analyse and evaluate, in relation to the historical context, how aspects of the past have been interpreted and represented in different ways. The Unit presents students with extracts from contemporary documents, and with the evaluation of a leading historian of the Education Act. Education: The Londonderry Act and Religious Instruction in Schools The Education Act of 1923 was passed and then amended in 1925 within the wider context of the foundation of institutions that would service the administration of the new state of Northern Ireland, established in the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. The controversies generated by the provisions of the Education Act reveal differing attitudes to the new state held among sections of the Catholic and Protestant communities and of the clergy. Lord Londonderry At the outset Lord Londonderry, Minister of Education, cherished hopes of finding a way forward that would enable children of different denominations to be educated together. 2
Londonderry was Minister of Education in James Craig s government. He was a descendant of the Stewart family who had originally migrated to Ulster from Scotland and who owned the stately home Mount Stewart in Co Down. His plans for the reform of education indicate that he hoped to integrate Protestant and Catholic children in state funded schools. Therefore, he favoured a broad moral education for all rather than religious instruction on denominational lines. The Structure of Education in Northern Ireland in 1921 Northern Ireland inherited the national schools established throughout Ireland in the nineteenth century. Though school attendance had supposedly been made compulsory at national schools between the ages of six and fourteen in Ireland, in an Act of 1892, the compulsion applied only in urban, not in rural areas where children were often required for farm work. The Northern Ireland Ministry of Education This ministry was established in June 1921, but control of educational services was only officially transferred from Dublin on 1 February 1922. Catholic Teaching Staff in the new Northern Ireland State After responsibility for education in the north was formally transferred from Dublin in 1922 a period of non-cooperation with the Ulster government was resolved upon by some Catholic teachers, particularly in areas such as Omagh and Strabane near the border where Catholics were in a majority and did not wish to hand control of the schools to the Unionist administration. In the autumn of 1922, however, the schools agreed to recognise the Northern Ireland ministry of education. Proposals of the Lynn Committee The Lynn Committee, named after its chairman Robert Lynn MP, a Unionist, an Orangeman and editor of the Northern Whig newspaper was appointed to formulate proposals for education reform. It reported in June 1922 and its conclusions formed the basis of the restructured education system that emerged in the Education Act (NI) of 1923. There were no representatives of the Roman Catholic church on the Lynn committee as they had refused all of Londonderry s invitations to attend. Their corporate view was expressed as follows: in view of pending changes in Irish education, we wish to reassert the great fundamental principle that the only satisfactory system of education for Catholics is one wherein Catholic children are taught in Catholic schools by Catholic teachers under Catholic auspices. 1 The Londonderry Education Act of 1923 The Act proposed that Primary education - public elementary schools would be free and compulsory Religious Instruction would not be compulsory but voluntary, and given outside normal teaching hours 1 Akenson, p. 52, cites Times Ed. Supp, 29 October 1921 and 5 November 1921. 3
The Education Act of 1923 and Religious Instruction 2 The Act stated that schools were to provide an education both literary and moral, based upon instruction in the reading and writing of the English language and in arithmetic. Religious Instruction was no longer part of the required curriculum. This drew fierce criticism from the Protestant churches. The controversy concerning this matter brought the government into conflict with its natural supporters among the Protestant clergy. The United Education Committee of the Protestant Churches This committee was formed to oppose the 1923 education act. It included representatives of the Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist churches, and had the support of the Orange Order. Its aim was to put pressure on James Craig, the Northern Ireland prime minister to overrule Lord Londonderry, his education minister, with regard to the act s provision for religious instruction in schools. Reverend William Corkey Corkey had been convenor of the Presbyterian general assembly s board of education since 1917, and reported to the assembly every year. D. H. Akenson describes him thus: A man of great organising ability, Corkey was also a man of passion. He was capable of immense bitterness and of vicious invective a zealot in matters of religious education. in educational matters, the Henry Cooke of the twentieth century. 3 Corkey was soon at the head of the campaign to resist the education act s approach to religious instruction and the appointment of teachers, and initially he had the support of the leading clergy in the three main Protestant churches - the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church. Corkey and his supporters were able to use the impending general election to put further pressure on James Craig. The time was sensitive, as Craig was also waiting for the report of the boundary commission and wished to hold a general election having given the pledge that not an inch of Northern Ireland s territory would be abandoned. It was not a time at which he wished to be at odds with influential Unionist supporters such as Corkey and his Committee. The UECPC Campaign Intensifies The Committee organised a mass meeting on 5 March 1925 and distributed a leaflet titled Protestants Awake criticising the Education Act. It warned: 1. That the Education Authority is forbidden to provide Religious Instruction (Clause 26). 2. That the Committee appointing teachers is expressly forbidden to pay any regard to the religious views of any applicant (Clause 66). 2 Sourced in the Introduction to the Education Archive, PRONI, especially p. 13. See http://www.proni.gov.uk/introduction education_archive-2.pdf 3 Akenson. p. 75. 4
3. That therefore, the door is thrown open for a Bolshevist 4 or an Atheist or a Roman Catholic to become a teacher in a Protestant school. Craig clearly saw the level of support from the Protestant clergy as a threat to his electoral hopes. On the following day he invited the campaign organisers for a consultation, after which it was announced that the Education Act would be amended. The Compromise An amending act was passed on 13 March 1925. It deleted the clause prohibiting religious instruction in Class I, transferred and provided schools. William Corkey s Account of Events: Corkey produced a booklet which includes his personal account of the course of events in the Protestants clergy s challenge to the Londonderry Act. The booklet is titled Episode in the History of Protestant Ulster 1923-47: Story of the struggle of the Protestant community to maintain Bible Instruction in their schools. 5 It offers some useful insights into the course of the UECPC campaign, and into the thinking of its supporters on the issue of Bible instruction in schools. Corkey advances many arguments to support Bible teaching, including: The important effects of the study of Scripture: Scripture should have a place in the school curriculum because of the recognised worth of such study in the formation of character and because of the inspiration it gives to those who are struggling for the cause of freedom and for social progress. 6 Bible reading is part of Ulster s heritage, brought from Scotland by plantation settlers: Here Corkey refers to the tradition within Presbyterianism of teaching young people to read so that they can study the Bible for themselves. He traces this to the Scottish Protestant Reformation leader John Knox (1514-72) who believed this personal study of the Bible was vital so that people should have the liberty to think for themselves in religious matters. Corkey asserts that The Scottish planters who came to Ulster in 1600 and in later years brought with them the principles of an educated democracy Wherever a Scottish settlement was founded in Ulster a school was always built alongside the church. 7 Corkey also argued that Protestants opposed Home Rule in order to safeguard their schools. 8 4 A communist revolution had taken place in Russia at the end of WW1, and fear of the spread of Communism was very strong throughout Europe in the 1920s. 5 Printed, Belfast: Dorman and Sons, 1959. 6 Ibid., p. 10. 7 Ibid., pp. 13-14 8 Ibid., p. 20. 5
Evaluation of the UECPC Campaign In discussing the settlement of the controversy over the Education Act in July 1925, D. H. Akenson commented: Perhaps most important for future developments in the educational sphere, the course of the campaign against the Londonderry Act revealed clearly the political strength and sophistication of the Protestant clergy. 9 9 Akenson, p. 88. 6