Thring Of Uppingham: Victorian Educator - Hardcover

Richardson, Nigel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1908684054 ISBN 13: 9781908684059

Publisher: University of Buckingham Press, 2014

Synopsis

Edward Thring (1821-1887), who founded the Headmasters Conference of prominent schools in Britain in 1869, was the best-known headmaster of his generation. Formed by a nature-loving childhood in rural Somerset, survival in the notorious Long Chamber at Eton, a fellowship at King s College Cambridge and a harrowing curacy in the slums of Gloucester, he developed the conviction that education was God s work. This in turn led him to a passionate belief in the potential of every child. During 34 years from 1853 he transformed a small grammar school in Uppingham into a widely-celebrated boarding school with an international clientele. He battled against intransigent governors, growing debts and the encroachment of government control over every type of school. After facing potential disaster from a series of typhoid outbreaks he relocated his staff and pupils to Borth in mid-Wales for an entire year, returning only after securing radical improvements in Uppingham s drainage and water supply. Although dismissively labelled the enthusiast Mr Thring by the Cambridge philosopher Henry Sidgwick and King of Boys by other critics, his social conscience led to the founding of a mission in London s East End, the first venture of its type. Through two books, Education and School (1864) and The Theory and Practice of Teaching (1883) he provided a blueprint for high-quality boarding schools, a broad curriculum and child-centred teaching methods at all age-groups in primary and secondary education. Teachers, educationalists and former pupils from home and abroad beat a path to his door. Late in life he became deeply interested in educational opportunities for women. Despite his achievements Thring remained an establishment outsider, denied preferment by church, state and the academic world. His final years were marred by family sorrow and a bitter battle with his governors and the Charity Commission as, determined to remain his independence, he paid a high financial price for his principles. This is the first modern biography of this multi-faceted and emotionally complex man

About this title

Product Description:

Edward Thring features prominently in all the educational histories of his period, and is seen as the foremost figure in independent schools in the generation after the famous Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby. This book draws on new material and letters discovered in an archive. And archive it was assumed had perished in a fire; it shows just how ground-breaking his reforms really were; how sound or otherwise his methods of financing Uppingham were, and why he polarized people between passionate supporters and strong opponents. This biography also includes the bitter battle over who should be his literary executor.

Review:

Praise for Typhoid in Uppingham: This is a really lovely book that will appeal to the general reader as well as academics from a number of disciplines... Historians of education will be drawn to the thoughtful discussions concerning the organisation of the school, and the ethos, legacy and importance of its influential headmaster Reverend Edward Thring --Pamela Dale, History of Education Society

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Buckingham Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1908684054
• ISBN 13: 9781908684059
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400