public school life in victorian england

[shadings]

I need some help with public school life in England in 1800s. More specifically, in 1860s. The best online resource I've found for this so far is Daily Life in Victorian England by Sally Mitchell, but there's still only a few pages on public schools

Comments

[chickenfeet2003]

I'm the same age as Stephen Fry and I went to a similar school. I don't think you can use that as a model for the 1860s. It would take far too long to list all the changes. Tom Brown's Schooldays would be closer but even that is set in the 1830s at the beginning of a period of major change.

Also, it's really hard to generalize about the details of life at a public school. Each one is different in important ways. Eton, for example, has (and had) a tutorial system and individual rooms. That's not typical. Other schools had their idiosyncracies too.

[shadings]

So if I just made up a public school, modelling it on bits and pieces from everything I've read and making up other things as I went along, it would be all right? I suppose I'm still most curious about what subjects they studied though, aside from Latin and Greek. That's the one thing which matters the most in this fic, I think.

[chickenfeet2003]

That might work. I'm trying to think of a near contemporary school novel that might help you but I'm coming up blank.

Subjects besides Classics... mathematics, english, history, divinity/RE for sure. Not sure how much science or modern languages there might have been.

[shadings]

Okay, thanks a lot!

[mr_mitts]

1) I was always under the impression foreign languages such as German and French were often learned at home, under a governess or from one's parents (who, in that era, were frequently multilingual). I should imagine, however, that some schools taught modern languages as a matter of course.

2) "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo," said Wellington of cricket - so I doubt many boys were allowed to ignore physical fitness. Even if they were exempt from specific classes, I don't imagine they'd be able to ignore the regular bouts of rugby-football and cricket put on by other pupils.

4) Yes, most particularly older spinsters.

[shadings]

Thanks for the information! That's quite helpful.

Would you suppose that they learnt things such as Maths and Science at home, too? Do you happen to know whether it would be common for a public school boy to also have a governess, perhaps just during the holidays?

[thelilyqueen]

IIRC, most boys of that class would be taught by a male tutor - often a clergyman - until they went away to Eton/Harrow/wherever. That early education would be less regimented and largely up to the tutor if any and the parents, though I'm guessing the boys'd be expected to know how to read, do elementary mathematics, and such. If the tutor or whoever is responsible for the boy's education is of a scientific turn, or the boy shows an interest the parents are willing to indulge, he might learn while still at home and keep it up as well as he can later.

In fact, some have argued that upper-class women in the era you're talking about had the potential for better educational outcomes than similarly statused men, in part because of the heavy Greek and Latin emphasis in the 'classical' education upper-class boys got. A girl with willing parents (though, granted, those were rare) was freer to pursue other subjects and study one-on-one with an expert.

[shadings]

Oh, thanks a lot! My main characters should both be really interested in science (I'm writing a Sherlock Holmes AU story, actually, so one's gonna grow up to be a doctor and the other a detective; they've gotta be interested in science!), which is why the fact that public schools don't teach science is giving me a lot of trouble. So I guess I'll make up some backstory along the way about how their background at home has led them to develop an interest in science. Do you think that there would have been libraries at school where one could find science texts to peruse for their own interest?

[laughinggas13]

Going back a little earlier than Moab, there's PG Wodehouse's Mike & Psmith, which is set at two different public schools, Wrykyn and Sedleigh (both fictional, I believe, but Wodehouse went to public school at the end of the 19th century - 1880s, I think - so should be accurate). They're set... my memory is failing me a bit on this one, but definitely pre-WW1.

[shadings]

Oh, awesome! I might check that out if I have time, thanks. (:

[dorianegray]

Look at the work of F. W. Farrar as well; "Eric, or Little by Little" was first published in 1858 and "St Winifred's, or The World of School" was 1865. Both are available on Project Gutenberg.

[shadings]

Oh, they're available on Project Gutenberg? That's great! I'll go check them out later, thanks. :D

[thekumquat]

Re forms - there wasn't much correlation to age, until the 1980s even (as Stephen Fry mentions, but school stories often discuss age). But on the whole you'd enter and be put into a certain form and move up (not necessarily to the next form) once a year, or stay in the same one if you were rather dim/lazy. Exams would be in the summer but probably be tests frequently

[shadings]

Thanks for all the info!

Argh, the fact that forms have no correlation to age is immensely confusing! I go to an all girls boarding school right now, so I'm so used to thinking forms and age have a direct relationship in my head.

Hmm, but would younger boys be scared of older boys according to age, rather than boys in the lower forms being scared of those in the higher ones?

What sort of context would the word 'Shell' be used in?

I'm kinda annoyed that they didn't really do science, since I was going to have exploding chemistry labs and everything in my story, but I guess I'll just have to make do with something less exciting. Oooh, clubs! What sorts of clubs would there have been? Mainly sports clubs, I'm assuming? Would they have had things like chess clubs in the 1860s?

[thekumquat]

Forms have a good correlation to age, just not like state schools today (fwiw my class of 1992 had an age range from just turned 17 to a week under 21, thanks to leftovers of a policy of starting young mixing with foreign students who start school at 7 or 8!)

So in say a Year 10 equivalent where all the kids would be 14-15 now, then probably 2/3 would be 14-15, and half the others 16 or even 17-year-old duffers/people who'd been sickly (very common thanks to polio, TB etc) and the other 1/6 13, possibly even 12, who'd done exceptionally well in the entry exams.

I imagine younger boys would be mostly scared of ones in higher years particularly the prefects, head of house, etc (look up 'fagging' for starters - the prefects would be able to punish junior boys too) - but if you were a small lad I'm sure a large boy a couple years older in your year could be scary (but they wouldn't have the authority to be scary

[shadings]

Oooh, good. So the forms/age thing is not too confusing, I guess.

Photography leading to chemical accidents? That's AWESOME beyond belief! I'll definitely look into that; it will be so much fun to write, yay!

Thank you so much for all that information! It's incredible helpful.

[corvideye]

You might look at the boarding school part in "Of Human Bondage" by Maugham... set a bit later (Victorian?) but might be interesting.