Education

‘A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages'

Pride and Prejudice

Just like today, education played a prominent role in the childhoods of the Georgian gentry. However unlike today, a child’s education was determined by their gender, with boys and girls segregated and taught different subjects. Upper-class boys were sent to boarding school from the age of seven, to be taught discipline and resilience away from female influence. The historian Anthony Fletcher suggests that the more upper class a boy was, the more time he spent away from home. In contrast girls were often kept at home or sent to small boarding schools where they were taught the necessary social graces to marry well. This opens up a key question for us to explore; how did being educated differently influence relationships between brothers and sisters?



Harrow School in the 17th Century

From the families we have come across in our research, it seems that Harrow was a popular choice of public school for the Hampshire Gentry to send their sons to. The Temple family sent both their sons, Henry and William, to Harrow. This seems to have strengthened the relationship between the brothers; Henry often wrote home on behalf of both himself and William, reassuring his mother that ‘we are both well’ and sharing his brother’s news:

‘Willy is placed in the third form and is going to play a match at cricket tomorrow’
 

When Henry moved on from Harrow, William clearly missed his brother, leading their mother to write to Henry:

‘Willy is as charming as ever but he feels like a Dove without her mate not having you with him’
 

The correspondence between Melesina Trench and her son Charles shows a similar feeling towards Harrow. Melesina’s sons from her second marriage also attended the school which she describes to Charles as:

‘Your nursing mother, dear Harrow’
 

Before informing him of the details of the speech day she had attended there. She keeps Charles up to date with the academic achievements of his half-brothers, suggesting that Charles is genuinely interested. It appears that sharing the experience of being educated away from home and loyalty to their school created a bond between brothers.

So how did this impact on their relationship with their sisters?

The Temple family, with two sons and two daughters, provides us with a good example of how a gendered education impacted on their relationships. We are limited by a lack of evidence concerning Elizabeth and Frances since they remained mostly at home, and therefore had less need to write to their mother in the way that Henry and William did. However, we can draw conclusions from information in letters written between Henry and his mother.

Most strikingly, we learn that Henry corresponds with his sisters in Italian, French and Spanish. In fact, in one letter Henry expresses his surprise at how much of Frances’ letter (written in Spanish) he could understand, considering how little he had been taught and how long ago, suggesting that his sisters’ knowledge of languages was equal, if not superior, to their brothers’. However their mother, Mary Mee, spoke these languages too, asking for Henry to

‘now and then favour me with an Italian, French and Spanish letters to keep up my languages’
 

If their mother knew these languages, it was more likely she would want her daughters to learn them. Furthermore, the family had spent several years in Europe when the children were young, perhaps where the children began to learn such languages.

The Five 'Positions of Dancing' from Thomas
Wilson's Analysis of  Country Dancing (1811)
 

There is no mention of Elizabeth and Frances learning any other academic subjects, with only music and dancing being discussed. These would have been important social accomplishments for the girls to learn in order to marry well. Such social accomplishments were increasingly recognised as necessary for boys too, with Eton College offering lessons in French, drawing, dancing and fencing at an additional cost. Parents were prepared to pay for their children to learn such accomplishments; Henry Temple’s mother wrote telling him that his father thought he should take additional lessons in Italian, and he would be happy to pay. However for boys, such lessons were viewed as extras, alongside a classical curriculum which took up most of their time. A sample Eighteenth Century timetable from Eton College shows that boys spent approximately 21 hours a week on classics, compared to 3 hours on ‘extra subjects.’

It’s easy to imagine that this distinction between the education of boys and girls would damage relationships between brothers and sisters, with girls perhaps feeling second best or less capable than their brothers. However, this is what historians call a ‘present-centred’ view, trying to apply modern day feelings or preconceptions to past events. Instead we can understand that education in the Georgian period was vocational, it prepared the child for their adult life – which would be different for men and women. We must also remember that as members of the gentry, the Temple children would have received the best education possible, with money being no problem. Therefore just because Elizabeth and Frances Temple had not received the same type of education as their brothers did not mean they believed themselves to be badly educated.

It appears that education created a bond between siblings of the same sex, but it did not damage relationships with other siblings. As previously mentioned, letters between family members show that despite being separately educated siblings still thought of and wrote to one another and planned joint activities for the school holidays.

Our next post will explore how these relationships changed as education ended and siblings entered the adult world, with new demands being put on their relationships.

Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions!