The news from 1874

It might feel as if the issue of school attendance is rarely out of the news these days. It was much the same in 1874 during the journey towards universal education.
 
The year 1874 fell between two important pieces of legislation, the Elementary Education Acts of 1870 and 1880. The 1870 Act paved the way for the education of all children, but despite giving school boards the power to make their own bylaws, stopped short of directing them to enforce attendance.
 
James Stansfeld MP had been involved with the 1870 Act as part of William Gladstone’s administration. On 9 October 1874 many newspapers reported on his speech at the Working Men's College:
 
“It should be nothing less than this, a universal compulsory system of education, and having obtained that they ought to look forward gradually – he would prefer to say rapidly – to raising the standard of universal education far above the conception of those now most interested in the subject.”
 
Those born in 1874 would have been among the first children compelled to go to school, as it was not until the Elementary Education Act 1880 that attendance became compulsory for all children from the ages of five to ten.