Benjamin Lucraft - Education For All

Education For All

After the passing of the 1867 Reform Act the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe, remarked that the government would now "have to educate our masters". As a result of this view the government passed the 1870 Education Act. The act was drafted by William Edward Forster and stated:

• The country would be divided into about 2500 school districts.
• School Boards were to be elected by ratepayers in each district.
• The School Boards were to examine the provision of elementary education in their district, provided then by Voluntary Societies, and if there were not enough school places they could build and maintain schools out of the rates.
• The school Boards could make their own by-laws which would allow them to charge fees or, if they wanted, to let children in free.

Boards provided an education for the five to ten age group. In some areas school boards pioneered new educational ideas. For example the London School Board introduced separate classrooms for each age group, a central hall for whole-school activities and specialist rooms for practical activities. In Bradford Fred Jowett and Margaret McMillan pioneered the idea of free school meals for working-class children and, in Brighton, Catherine Ricketts developed the idea of increasing attendance rates by hiring women to visit mothers in their homes to explain the benefits of education.

The 1870 Education Act allowed women to vote for the School Boards and women were also granted the right to be candidates to serve on the School Boards. Several feminists saw this as an opportunity to show they were capable of public administration. In 1870 four women, Flora Stevenson, Lydia Becker, Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson were elected to local School Boards. Elizabeth Garrett, a popular local doctor, obtained more votes in Marylebone than any other candidate in the country.

On 1 December 1870 Lucraft was the only one of nine working men's candidates to be elected to the London School Board and he continued to be elected every three years until he retired in 1890, at which date he was the longest serving member. London Democrats held a celebration for Lucraft's election on 2 January 1871 at the Hole in the Wall in Hatton Garden with "feasting, speech-making, and other joyous observances".

Lucraft was never an outstanding figure on the board, but he pursued useful aims of a moderately radical kind. He opposed the office of paid chairman, opposed the use of the cane, always argued for free education, was vigorous against military drill in Board schools and was chairman of the committee which investigated and reported on the historical misappropriation of charitable funds and establishments — originally intended for the education of the children of the poor, but which had been taken over for the children of the wealthy. Dulwich College was one of a number of examples Lucraft quoted when the "City Parochial Charities" report came out in 1879. He was early in demanding compulsory education for all and the removal of all fees.