The Full Story
In 1780, Robert Raikes was a newspaper editor in Gloucester. He looked at the children in his street, working 6 days a week in factories and fields, unable to read or write, and decided to teach them. On the only day they weren't working: Sunday.
He hired women to teach reading using the Bible as a textbook. The first school opened in a cottage kitchen. Within 7 years, by Raikes' own account, 250,000 children were attending. By 1831, 1.25 million children, around a quarter of the eligible child population, were in Sunday Schools.
Opposition came from parts of the church establishment, with the Bishop of Rochester among the critics and the Archbishop of Canterbury discouraging cooperation. Factory owners said teaching children to read would make them rebellious. Raikes kept going.
The government didn't make education compulsory until 1880, a full century after Raikes started teaching children himself. By then, his Sunday School movement had already taught millions of working-class children to read. He built the foundations of mass literacy in Britain, one Sunday at a time.
Why This Matters
Robert Raikes created the first system of mass education for working-class children, a century before the government acted. His Sunday Schools taught millions to read and laid the groundwork for universal education.
Key Facts
- ✓Robert Raikes born 1735, died 1811 (multiple sources including Britannica)
- ✓Newspaper publisher of The Gloucester Journal (Britannica, multiple sources)
- ✓First Sunday School July 1780 in Gloucester (Britannica, infed.org, some sources say 1781)
- ✓Held in home of Mrs Meredith in Sooty Alley (multiple historical sources)
- ⚠"Directly opposite the city prison", widely cited in sources about the location. Some sources are less specific about the exact proximity. Defensible.
- ✓Children worked 6 days a week, 10-12 hours (well-documented Industrial Revolution labour patterns)
- ✓250,000 children by 1787 (Raikes' own letter in Gentleman's Magazine, November 1787. Some secondary sources say 1785.)
- ✓1.25 million by 1831 (multiple academic sources consistently cite 1,250,000)
- ✓~25% of eligible child population by 1831 (children aged 5-15, not total population which was ~13 million)
- ✓Two-thirds of working-class children aged 5-15 by 1851 (academic sources)
- ✓5 million pupils, 550,000 teachers by 1880 (multiple sources)
- ⚠William Pitt's hostility to the schools is loosely attributed in secondary sources rather than documented in his own words; it is not asserted on this page
- ✓Bishop of Rochester's opposition (documented)
- ✓Archbishop of Canterbury discouraged cooperation (documented)
- ⚠Correction: the video quotes a bishop calling the schools 'agents of the devil'. That phrase is widely attributed to opponents of Sunday Schools but the exact source and speaker vary, so it is not asserted on this page; the documented opponents (the Bishop of Rochester, with the Archbishop of Canterbury discouraging cooperation) are named instead.
- ✓Factory owner opposition to educated workforce (well-documented)
- ✓Sunday Schools passed into working-class control by mid-1800s (academic sources)
- ✓Hannah More opened school in Cheddar October 1789 (multiple sources)
- ✓Hannah More connected to Wilberforce and Clapham Sect (well-documented)
- ✓Elementary Education Act 1870 (Forster Act) established school boards but did NOT make attendance compulsory, parliamentary records
- ✓Elementary Education Act 1880 (Mundella's Act) made attendance compulsory nationally, parliamentary records
- ✓100 years between first Sunday School (1780) and compulsory education (1880), dates confirmed
- ⚠"Some of them were six years old", child labour from very young ages is well-documented in the Industrial Revolution. Children as young as 4-5 worked in some industries. "Six" is conservative. Defensible.