The Bishop of Lincoln’s Visitations

Detailed records of the provisions for education in the eighteenth century are relatively scarce, so it is fortunate that two almost complete sets of answers for the Visitations of Bedfordshire by the Bishop of Lincoln have survived. Question 3, which all incumbents were required to answer, asked about the existence of schools and schooling in each parish. The two Visitations were for the years 1717 and 1720 and, although the gap between them is only three years, it is just sufficient to show how easily changes could take place in some parishes. It will be noted that these changes included schools closing as well as new ones beginning.

From 1699 there had been positive moves, through the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, to encourage the establishment of charity schools, but the impact on Bedfordshire at the time of the Visitations seems to have been limited. Indeed, the overall picture of schooling which they reveal is far from reassuring. Over half of the parishes in the county had no facility for education at all, and in those that did it was almost always limited, with small numbers of pupils, and a narrow curriculum. School buildings were scarce and the very existence of educational provision was often precarious.

As the prime concern of the question about education was availability of sound (i.e. anglican) religious teaching, it is of some significance to note that there were three places where nonconformist ‘interference’ was already making itself felt. A Quaker schoolmaster at Barton, a Baptist at Hockcliffe, and the deep frustation of the incumbent at the strength of nonconformity in Eversholt are early pointers to the deep divisions that were to emerge between anglicans and nonconformists and which were to bring about bitter conflicts at every stage of the establishment of a national system of education.