Educating the labouring poor in nineteenth-century Suffolk

This article demonstrates the utility of a new source, prison registers, for the history of literacy and education in nineteenth-century England. It focuses on two sets of prison registers from the two county gaols in Suffolk, located at Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds, which contain personal information on 16,690 individuals over the period 1840 to 1878. First, the article examines the context in which personal information about prisoners was recorded and tests the data against benchmarks from other sources to prove its reliability. Second, the article employs two methods, statistical analysis and digital mapping, to study in depth the rich data on prisoners’ literacy and schooling. Finally, the article shows how the results of this analysis significantly revise our understanding of the prevalence of schooling among the labouring poor, the use of different types of schools, the role of the partially literate in the drive towards mass literacy, and the importance of life-long learning.

本研究论证了监狱登记册（prison registers）这一新型史料在19世纪英格兰识字史与教育史研究中的应用价值。本研究聚焦萨福克郡伊普斯威奇与贝里圣埃德蒙兹两处郡立监狱留存的两套监狱登记册，这批史料涵盖1840年至1878年间共计16690名囚犯的个人信息。首先，本研究梳理了囚犯个人信息的记录语境，并通过与其他史料的基准数据比对，验证了该数据集的可靠性。其次，本研究采用统计分析与数字制图两种方法，对囚犯识字情况与受教育经历的丰富数据展开深度研究。最后，本研究展示了本次分析的结论如何显著修正了学界既有认知，包括劳动贫民群体的受教育普及情况、各类学校的使用场景、半识字群体在大众识字运动中的作用，以及终身学习的重要性等方面。