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The Cultural Origins of PopularLiteracy in England 1500‐1850Thomas LaqueurPublished online: 03 Aug 2006.
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Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1976
The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy inEngland 1500-1850
THOMAS LAQUEUR
For all its maypoles and rough music, its bear baitings and St. Monday drunks, its ancientfeasts and more ancient folkways, the popular culture of seventeenth and eighteenthcentury England was fundamentally literate and thus inexorably bound to the processesand culture of a society beyond the village community. Perhaps as many as 60 per centof men in the larger towns of the South and at least 30 per cent in the country as a wholecould read by the middle of the seventeenth century.1 By 1754 c. 60 per cent of men inEngland and c. 40 per cent of women could sign the marriage register; there is evidencethat a yet higher proportion were probably able to read. Even in the most illiterate coun-try, 46 per cent of men and 28 per cent of women could sign their names.2
When John Bunyan married, he relates that he and his wife were "as poor as poor mightbe (not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both)", yet shebrought with her two books, The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and The Practice ofPiety. In the early eighteenth century when Stephen Duck working as a farm labourer inWiltshire began to recover what little he had learned in school, he used a small libraryincluding Milton, The Spectator, Seneca, and an English dictionary, which a friend hadbrought home with him from his days of service in London. Hundreds of thousands ofcopies of Tom Paine were bought by the common people in the 1790's; millions of copiesof the Bible had been purchased over two and a half centuries.3
How and why did this literate culture come into being; for what reasons did ordinarymean and women learn to read, and to a lesser extent to write? No single factor con-sidered in itself can explain why. Neither economic necessity imposed by commercial orindustrial developments nor schools founded by the higher orders to convert, control, orin some way mould the working classes can explain how literacy became so widespread.The adoption and use of a technology, like writing, by large numbers of people is notexplicable by institutional or material forces alone. Specific motivations to learn to readand write must instead be seen in terms of the structure of meaning that defined popularculture from the sixteenth century onward. People did not become literate for this or thatparticular reason but because they were increasingly touched in all areas of their lives bythe power of communication which only the written word makes possible. There was,therefore, a motivation to learn to read and write; these skills allowed men and womento function more effectively in a variety of social contexts. This explains why, in theabsence of externally provided schools, indigenously supported settings were responsiblefor the creation and transmission of popular literacy. Thus, over several centuries, theliterate popular culture of England largely made itself.4
For pre-industrial society, common sense as well as historical and anthropological evi-dence suggest that a complex money economy and rational mercantile activity over greatdistances are possible without the use of the printed word. The Indians of Panajachel,
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forty-five miles west of Guatemala City, for example, have sufficient access to relevantinformation to grow crops for sale in far-flung markets and are able to engage in a varietyof economic transactions apparently without the aid of the written or printed word.Hausacattle raisers inNigeria have evolvedtrade chains, hundreds of miles long, made up ofdozens of traders who pass on animals and money. The first man in the line is assured ofreceiving his due once the cattle reach the end of the route, not by written contracts,but because of traditional bonds of trust created through a series of face-to-facerelationships.5
Similarly there was no economic necessity for all but a tiny minority of the work-forceto be able to read or write in pre-industrial England and few additional imperatives beforethe late nineteenth century. Most of the tasks in seventeenth, eighteenth, or even nine-teenth century society could be mastered and carried on by illiterates. Anyone who hasever acquired skills in carpentry or bricklaying or plastering or any of a dozen tradesassociated with the construction industry can attest to the fact that it is far more fruitfulto work for a time with a skilled craftsperson than to pursue a how-to-do-it book in one'sstudy and then attempt to apply its instructions to the actual task. The same is surelytrue for making shoes, working metal over a forge, manufacturing wheels, weaving cloth,plaiting straw, cultivating legumes, or husbanding cattle. While the ability to read andwrite might prove useful in preparing invoices or ordering material, we know that manypre-industrial artisans did in fact function without such skills. In Oxford Archdeaconryand Gloucester Diocese, 25 per cent of artisans and tradesmen who married by licence,probably the more elevated of their class, could not sign their names. Between 1754 and1784 almost a fourth of leather and metal workers, about a third of transport and clothingworkers, and over a half of those in mining and construction were illiterate. Somethingmore pervasive than the requirements of their work must therefore have motivated thosewho did learn to read and write.6
Moreover, industrialization probably did not increase the proportion of clerical,professional, or technical jobs for which literacy was essential. While detailed study ofthis question for England is difficult because the first occupational census was not madeuntil 1841, it has been shown that during the industrial revolution in Massachusetts thepercentage of such jobs declined at least until 1870.7
Just as economic necessity cannot explain why people learned to read or write, so theavailability of state or philanthropically provided schools does not explain how theylearned. By concentrating on publicly financed schools historians have mistakenly soughtto discover the sources of literacy by elucidating the motivations of the political leaders,clergymen, or philanthropists who furthered formal education. It is more profitable in-stead to concentrate on the popular interest in literacy which spawned a highly varied andelaborate network of informal schools and other means of learning to read and write.
Schooling was not compulsory in England until 1876. Moreover, the state had almostnothing to do with the creation of a society which by that date was over 75 per centliterate; and, conversely, the absence of state involvement did not seriously affectthe growth of literacy. Historians have argued that the higher literacy rates in Scotland ascompared to England are explicable in terms of government commitment to education.But, in fact, only 31 per cent of Scottish children were in the tax-supported parochialschools in 1818. Moreover, by 1839, the literacy rates in Cumberland, Westmoreland,and Northumberland, where there was no government commitment to education werealmost as high as those in Scotland. The relevant variable in explaining the high literacyof Scotland and the borders is not, therefore, government involvement. Rather, govern-ment financing and the myriad of private and semi-public forms of education which to-gether produced so high a proportion of literate citizens in Scotland were products of the
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same cultural constellation which worked to encourage education without the instrumentof state schools in counties south of the Tweed.8
In any case, there were no government funds committed to elementary education inEngland until 1833. Of course England had a number of schools financed through endow-ments and private charities but both their influence and their claim to be considered asindependently existing institutions have been exaggerated. Of these, grammar schools arethe most conspicuous but they taught only Latin grammar; we do not know how manyof them supported 'petty' or English schools in which children were prepared for moreadvanced study. The remaining were ordinary endowed and charity subscription schools.By I 8 I 8 , however, there were only 4,167 of the former schools which together enrolledscarcely a quarter of all students. Furthermore, few of these schools could exist indepen-dently of parental support. In 1818 the average yearly revenue per endowed school intwelve counties was less than £35; in 26 counties it was less than £50. Since these sumsinclude funds to clothe and apprentice scholars as well as to maintain school buildings theaverage amount left to the teacher could seldom provide an adequate living.9
This must have been the situation for much of the eighteenth century. The averageyearly revenue per endowed school in early eighteenth century Oxfordshire was only£13 2s; one half the masters received £10 or less from these funds.10 The same is true forthe diocese of York, with an average yearly revenue in 1743 of £10 2s 3d; half theteachers received £6 or less.11 As a result most so-called endowment schools were not in-dependently existing institutions but were dependent on community support for theirexistence.
The charity subscription schools, despite the atypical London showcases, were simi-larly modest. Their more usual form was a subscription of a few pounds to pay for severalchildren in a school supported primarily by the private market.12 All schools receivingany support from outside sources accommodated a modest 20-30 per cent of the totalnumber enrolled in the middle of the eighteenth century; only 40 per cent by 1833.13 Atbest, therefore, the petty schools attached to grammar schools and the schools supportedin whole or in part by endowments or subscriptions were only part of the reason forEngland's high literacy rate.
Instead, evidence suggests that literacy was transmitted in much the same way as weretraditional occupational skills. Most children learned to read and perhaps to write fromtheir parents or from neighbours, unlicensed and untrained, in settings which we todayand indeed nineteenth century observers would have hesitated to call schools.
The historical record for all of this is murky. For the late seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies the most systematic evidence is from responses to questionnaires circulated bybishops to churchwardens or clergymen. This material is, however, seriously flawed sinceinformation was sought only about endowed and charity, i.e. 'public' schools and notabout private schools or schoolteachers. Any mention of the latter category in the returnsis thus entirely gratuitous. Indeed, the 1738 Diocese of Oxford returns make almost nomention of schools outside the purview of the questionnaire except for occasional remarksby a parish priest that there were "a few poor children taught to read, which I pay formyself", or that offertory money was being used to bribe children who had left schoolwith twopence/month so that they would come and practice Bible reading in the chancelon Sunday evenings. In the diocese of York clergymen were more willing to come for-ward with unsolicited information so that private schools are mentioned in 162 out of 745parishes.14
From this fragmentary evidence we can catch revealing glimpses into the social contextof elementary education in the early eighteenth century. In Bilton, New Ainstey, a parishwith 123 families and no endowed or charity school, we learn of "two poor, honest, sober,
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and well meaning persons, who teach children to read, and instruct them in ye Churchcatechism"; in Bainton, Harthill, there was no school but there were "[t]wo poor women[who] teach a few children to read". Similarly, in Bubwith, Harthill, there was no schoolof the kind being queried. "But ye Parishrs. have or hire a School Master Monthly orQuarterly to teach their children to read, & to come duly to church."
Each such response is itself a small window into an educational world very differentfrom that of the nineteenth century. "No," replied the rector of Scawton, "yet Parentstake care to teach them at Home or to send them to some school in the Neighbourhood,and sometimes I undertake to instruct them for a Month or two in the Year, to read andwrite." "There is sometimes here a prive [sic] or petty school taught by a Weaver",reports the curate of Goathland, Rydall; "But, my Lord, we have a poor woman yt.teaches a few Children", answered the curate of Kayingham, Holderness, a parish offifty-two families. While examples could be multiplied, there is still no way of knowingprecisely how many weavers, old women or parents taught children in this fashion. It islikely however that both in the diocese of York and elsewhere there must have been many.15
Additional evidence for the existence of private schoolteachers is available fromchurchwardens' presentments. These, like the visitation returns, probably understatetheir numbers because while wardens were asked to note any unlicensed, as well as alllicensed, schoolteachers, in fact, reporting was lax even in the early seventeenth century.After the Restoration the unlicensed master or mistress increasingly escaped notice alongwith the fornicator, drunk, and blasphemer. Still, occasional vignettes emerge; ananonymous teacher comes momentarily into view. There was apparently no school inCropredy and a small grammar school only for the hamlet of Borton in the same parish.Yet in 1686-87, f° r reasons that seem to have been only marginally related to the supposedtransgression of being unlicensed, one man in Cropredy and two men and a woman inthe tiny hamlet of Borton were presented. The first, William Cleuer, not only taught with-out a licence in 1686 but, perhaps more importantly, he married without banns or licenceand moreover failed to pay the clerk his fee. We also learn of Geo Hunt, lately a school-master in Great Borton, only because he was presented on 19 Jan. 1686/87 f° r gettingCatherine Hawtin "of ye same parish single-woman with child". Finally, in the next set ofpresentments in May 1688, one George Butler and the wife of Thomas Knock arecharged, it appears by Geo Hunt, teacher, fornicator and churchwarden, with being un-licensed teachers. Suddenly four teachers in a tiny parish emerge from anonymity andimmediately disappear again.16
A man was presented as an unlicensed teacher in Nethorp of Banbury parish in 1714undoubtedly because his real crime was being a Presbyterian who failed to bring hisscholars to church. There were other extraneous reasons to report unlicensed teachers.The curate of Kings Sutton in 1619 presented Jane Toms of his town and pointed outdisingenuously that she competed with his attempts to gain students "for the betterencreas of his poore living". Indeed, the problem had been developing for some months.The churchwardens in June replied to the 29th article regarding unlicensed teachers,"We have no man, only women which will cause our minister to give up teaching ourchildren, their teaching being a hindrance to him that his pay is not worth halfe his labouredesiring to inhibit all women in the parish . . .".17 We will never know how many suchmen and women there were in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who escapednotice because they were not engaged in fornication, or did not fail to pay clerk's fees, orwere not in competition with the minister, clerk, or churchwarden for clientele. Butevidence from ecclesiastical records which have only begun to be tapped suggests anextensive educational infrastructure below that of charity and endowed schools.18
But the importance of schools of any sort must not be exaggerated. Popular literacy
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owed less to institutions than to the cultural basis of everday life. The educationalexperiences of the eighteenth century poor, insofar as they can be reconstructed, make itclear that an elementary education was an integral part of bringing up the child withinthe family. In wide strata of the lower ranks of society, teaching children, at the veryleast, to read was imperative. Large numbers, therefore, became literate because theirparents, relatives, or friends of their parents were literate; reading and writing were skillssufficiently valued by the community for them to be passed on through a variety ofchannels as part of the cultural heritage of the past.19
Those whose autobiographies provide the primary source for patterns of learning toread or write were, of course, highly unusual. Only a tiny proportion of men and pre-sumably an even smaller number of women progressed up the ladder of autodidacticeducation from the Bible, through The Pilgrim's Progress, the Book of Martyrs, andParadise Lost to the whole range of English literature. Nevertheless, there is no reason tobelieve that the patterns of their early education should not have been shared by thousandsin similar circumstances who used the ability to read for no greater end than scanningnotices and ballad sheets on alehouse walls, checking to see that debt bonds had beenproperly drawn or looking over a settlement certificate.
Four points emerge from the study of the educational experiences of the poor. Learningto read and write was not a distinct activity undertaken during a compact period in one'slife but part of a process which might go from early childhood well into adulthood.Smatterings of these skills might be acquired as the opportunity and the necessity aroseso that the process was organically related to the rest of life. Teaching literacy was a taskdivided between parents, relatives, friends, local old men and women who kept small andhighly informal schools and occasionally by masters in endowed or charity schools.Finally, there were ample opportunities to use literary skills whether for work, for reli-gious edification or for leisure. The last of these points will be considered further in ourmore general discussion of the culture of literacy.
The story of James Lackington, the well known and prosperous Methodist bookseller,is in many ways paradigmatic. He was born in Wellington Somerset in 1746. His fatherwas a journeyman shoemaker much given to drink while his mother provided the focusof family life for James and his younger brothers and sisters. When he was seven or sohe was sent to an old woman to learn to read; he remained in her school for two or threeyears. It is clear from his account that this school was extremely informal; as the bestpupil he recalls how the old ladies would come by to marvel at his memorized recitationsof entire chapters of the Bible. In any case poverty and the necessity of taking care ofyounger children took him from school and during the next six years he sold pies for abaker and worked with his father at making shoes. At fourteen-and-a-half he was appren-ticed to an Anabaptist shoemaker in Taunton. Religious debates in his new master'sfamily, growing out of the conversion of one of the sons to Methodism, created in James"a desire for knowledge, that I might know who was right and who was wrong". But, ashe points out, "to my great mortification I could not read. I knew most of my letters, and afew easy words, and I set about learning with all my might". The means for doing so werereadily at hand. He took some lessons from his mistress and then with the three halfpenceallowed him each week by his mother he paid his master's youngest son to teach him tospell one hour each week, a task undertaken in the dark since they were not allowedcandles after going upstairs.20
Other cases may be cited more briefly. William Hutton, the antiquarian, was five whenhe was first sent to school where he learned little but to hate all books except those withpictures. In 1730 when he was seven he began work in a silk mill. Six years later he com-menced by fortuitous circumstances what might be termed his education; an "agreeable
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old woman" named Gell came to lodge with his family. "She had been a schoolmistress.She made entertaining remarks and promised us lads we should be the better for hercoming; nor did she disappoint us,"21 The great John Bunyan learned to read and writein a school but promptly forgot what he had learned; he regained his skills through somecombination of less formal means later in his life.22 Thomas Holcroft, the dramatist,whose family was impoverished, was taught to read by his father; the great breakthroughcame, he reports, when "the idea one day suddenly seized me of catching all the sounds Ihad been taught from the arrangement of the letters".23
Even for children from relatively prosperous middling households periods of schoolingwere interspersed with other forms of education. William Hone, radical journalist, wasthe son of a law clerk who moved to London in 1783. His father owned one book, theBible, from which, Hone reported, he "taught me the alphabet and reading". AlthoughHone's parents had taught him to read "tolerably well", he was sent to a school kept bya Dame Bettridge and then in his seventh year to a more advanced boys' school. Withinthree months, however, he developed smallpox and had to withdraw. Moreover, hisparents moved away from the neighbourhood of that school and his father began againto teach him to write and coached him in Biblical studies at home. After four years heagain went to school but almost immediately got into a quarrel with another boy, and whenthe schoolmaster sided with his antagonist, Hone's father removed him from school.24
Clearly few children of the poor had such resolute and well-trained fathers and few sonshad the intellectual energy to educate themselves through secondhand copies of theclassics. The point is simply that even under rather favourable circumstances like Hone's,education was acquired from a number of places.
It is, of course, extremely risky to generalize from the experiences of artisans' childrento those of the labouring agricultural masses. But even here personal accounts describehow a fundamentally literate culture promoted the transmission of basic skills in readingand writing between generations. Take, for example, the poet John Clare, born 1793 ina Northamptonshire village on the border of the Lincolnshire fens. Both his parents, hedeclared, were illiterate to the last degree; but, in fact, he tells us a few lines later that hisfather could read a little in the Bible and testament and furthermore delighted in thevarious chapbooks and ballad sheets which were hawked about for a penny apiece.Despite, or perhaps because of her own want of education, Clare's mother sought to makehim at least a passable scholar. "[S]he said she experienced enough in her own case toavoid bringing up her children in ignorance." Every year until he was 11 or 12 John wasspared from farm work to go to school for at least three or so months, at first with an oldwoman in the village and then with a master more distant from it. He would practice hiswriting at home each day during the long absences from school as his parents watchedwith "triumphant anxiety".25
The diary of the early eighteenth century 'Poet from the Barn' Stephen Duck, alsogives us a glimpse of the informal educational mechanisms at work even in the fields ofWiltshire. After being away from school for some time Duck attempted to regain hisability to do arithmetic; he saved a little from his wages as a day labourer and bought anold textbook. There were hundreds of thousands of copies of such works in circulation.Much of the rest of his self-reeducation was carried on with the help of a friend who, afterworking in London, brought back to the hinterland not only a taste for knowledge but asmall select library.26
All of the above documents the way in which men and women in pre-industrial Englandbecame literate. The question remains, why? Occasionally, specific reasons for literacyemerge; but most often we must piece together a kaleidoscopic picture of what motivatedthem from an examination of the religious, economic, political, and ordinary social or
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recreational use of literacy. To the extent that literacy was part of the structure of popularculture, it was a skill required not for any one special task or reason but in order to par-ticipate fully in that culture.
Few seventeenth or eighteenth century Englishmen tell us directly why reading orwriting was important to them; but some do, and they undoubtedly speak for others.James Fretwell, a Yorkshire yeoman farmer of the early eighteenth century, was one ofgrowing numbers intrigued by the history of their families. He saw the written word asa link between generations and indeed as the only means by which the present could re-main linked to the past, the community with the larger world beyond it.
"The knowledge of letters is certainly one of the greatest blessings that Godever bestowed on mortals; their uses [sic] are innumerable. . . . By this meansour predecessors have transmitted to us their various exploits and transactions,and we hand them down, together with our own to future generations. Thusalso we have accounts of what is done in the remotest parts of the world; andthey again the same from us."
Addressing his children, he explains that he has written a history of his ancestors so thatthey may know "through whose loynes they have descended" and to encourage them to"annex an account of such things worthy of note as shall happen to you, in the day ofyour pilgrimage".27
Roger Lowe, a seventeenth century mercer's apprentice who acted as amanuensis formany of his neighbours, was far less self-conscious about his literary abilities but the day-to-day use of writing in the village of Ashton in Makerfield, Lanes, emerges clearly fromhis diary.
"30 Thursday [April 1663]. I was sent for to Whitleige Greene this night to oneWilliam Marsh, who lay sicke and had seaverall times sent for me to write hiswill, which I did."11 Monday [April 1664] Thomas Naylor sent for me to make a bond betweenehime and Mr. Byrome. I did;"25 Lord's Day [October 1663] Ann Barrow came to Ashton and gave me aletter to answer for her into Yorkeshire to Richard Naylor."28
Even for those multitudes who did not write family histories, who did not perceive theover-arching historical significance of print, or who did not record their daily activities,literacy nevertheless had a deep cultural significance. In particular, the culture wasgrounded in a religion that legally, theologically, and emotionally was committed to theprinciple of democratic access to scripture. Neither legal barriers to education, nor lin-guistic hindrances, nor the necessity of learned interpreters, nor, with temporary excep-tions, statutory restrictions barred universal access to the Bible. "Every man or woman, ofwhatsoever estate or condition, [shall] be free to put son or daughter to learn letters atany school which pleases them within the realm", declared the otherwise restrictiveStatute of Artificers (7 Henry IV, c. 17), which by extension sanctioned the informalacquisition of literacy. A royal proclamation of 6 May 1541 complained that a previousinjunction to place a "Bible containing the Old and New Testament in the English tongue,to be fixed and set up openly in every of the said parish churches" was being ignored.And, it repeated the order so that "every of the King's majesty's loving subjects" mightread in the scriptures.29 Despite temporary retreats from this position during the uncertaindecades of the 1540s and 50s the fundamental commitment to make the Bible widelyavailable remained alive and was definitively reasserted by Elizabeth early in her reign.She enjoined the clergy of each parish to provide an English Bible and the Paraphrases
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of Erasmus in English in a place where "their parishioners may most commodiously re-sort unto the same. . . . " Moreover, she ordered that they "shall discourage no man fromthe reading of any part of the Bible either in Latin or in English, but shall rather exhortevery person to read the same with great humility and reverence as the very lively wordof God and the special food of man's souls.. . ."30
The impact of wide popular access to the Bible and religious writings on the politicaland social history of England and on the development of popular culture is immeasurableand need scarcely be rehearsed again. The depth, pervasiveness, and antiquity of a religioustradition which has popular literacy so near its core is everywhere apparent. For example,William Maiden tells us in a well known passage that immediately after Henry VIII'sproclamation, "divers poor men in the town of Chelmsford in the county of Essex . . .brought the New Testament of Jesus Christ, and on Sundays did sit reading in [the]lower end of the Church, and many would flock about them to hear the reading".31 A1538 Declaration urged reading the scriptures but warned the unlearned from engagingin Biblical exegesis "in your open Tavernes or Alehowses", an admonition no doubthonoured more in the breach.32 We know furthermore that the number of Bibles and otherreligious literature published grew steadily from the sixteenth century. Over two hundrededitions of the Holy Scriptures were produced between 1521 and 1600, 480 between1601 and 1700; there had been over a thousand separate editions by 1800.33 Althoughinformation on the size of each edition is not available, the fact that Bibles and school-books were exempt from the 1,500 copy limit (raised to 3,000 in 1635) set by the Stationer'sCompany, suggests that printing runs of the Holy Scriptures probably frequently ex-ceeded this level. By a conservative estimate, well over 500,000 copies of the Bible, ex-cluding editions of the Psalms or individual books, had been printed by the start of theeighteenth century.34
Moreover, these Bibles were not beyond the reach of the common man. Despitemonopoly prices octavo whole Bibles sold for as little as 4s wholesale in 1641, while some12,000 contraband Bibles printed in Holland sold at a price regarded by a critic of highEnglish book prices as "very reasonable".35 After a 1724 Act regulating the publishing ofBibles, duodecima copies of entire scriptures were sold wholesale for as little as 2s andoctavos for 3s. By the middle of the century New Testaments could be had for is whole-sale.36 Moreover, the number of even cheaper secondhand copies must have been sub-stantial. A Bible and a prayer book were appraised at 4s in one 1620 inventory; "otherbooks" plus a Bible and prayer book were listed for 3s in 1622; and two wheels, two Bibles,and assorted junk were valued altogether at 5s in 1669. In short, the relatively low cost ofBibles made possible widespread religious literacy.37
In addition to the Bible, a prodigious number of catechisms, sermons, tracts, anddevotional works circulated widely from the late sixteenth century onward. At least60,000 copies of various catechisms were printed between 1580 and 1640.38 There is noinformation on the total number of sermons or devotional tracts printed but it is strikingthat the first items produced as printing presses became available in many provincialcentres were of this nature. The first known work issuing from Wotton-under-Edge,Gloucestershire, was 'A Portion of the Psalms selected from the Rev. James Merrick'snew version for the Use of the Church of Wandsworth.' 'A Book of Psalmody, containingsome easy instructions for young beginners' was the first item from a press founded ca.1715 in Great Milton.39 Since printers worked for a profit, there must have been amarket for such literature.
Next to the Bible, no work has influenced Englishmen and women's consciousness sodeeply as Pilgrim's Progress. Between 1678 and 1792 there were some 160 editions, exclud-ing pirated editions, extracts, and rewritings. While we do not know the size of each
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edition, a suit by Bunyan's publisher against his printer charged that the latter had printeddouble the 10,000 copies he had been ordered to produce without paying anything. Themarket in Pilgrim's Progress was sufficiently strong to warrant printings in sixteen pro-vincial centres during the eighteenth century. More to the point, prior to the printing ofan octavo edition in 1728 for a more educated audience, the book was issued in chapbookform, sold by itinerant peddlers for one shilling, and was clearly intended for a humbleaudience.40
Not only was there an abundance of religious literature in seventeenth and eighteenthcentury England, but qualitative evidence indicates that men and women even of themost modest circumstances commonly owned these books. Mr. Joshua Richardson, wholost his cure in Myddle for refusing to sign the declaration in the Act of Conformity,bequeathed "a certain number of Bibles, and of those bookes of Mr. Baxter entitled, 'Acall to the Unconverted' to bee given to certaine poore people in the parishe . . . whichlegacy was faithfully performed". Adam Eyre, a Yorkshire yeoman and captain in theparliamentary army, had a small library of religious and other books which he lent out tofriends from whom he in turn borrowed various works. A Manchester wigmaker muchgiven to drink owned a small library of religious books and read still more widely indevotional literature. Roger Lowe, a mercer's apprentice, borrowed, among other books,Edwards Gee's A Treatise on Prayer from one friend, a book of Psalms in metre from an-other, the Book of Martyrs from a third.41
Inventories of deceased men and women document that even the poorest owned booksand especially Bibles. Joan Barrie of Crediton, Devon, left an estate of £10 5s 8d in1648 including a Bible worth 5s; Lawrence Wyndeet, cordwainer of Ashburton, ownedtwo books worth 6s and only £13 10s of other worldly goods when he died in 1590.A wheelwright in 1619, living in a two-room cottage in Studham, Bed., with £1 is 4din goods, owned a Bible which along with all the furniture in his main room was valuedat 30s; John Mayer of Sandy, Bed., left property worth but £15 7s including a Bibleand miscellaneous items worth 13s 4d. Even two of the fifteen paupers who entered thepoor house in Martham, Norfolk between 1746 and 1772 had several books amongsttheir few dishes and rags.42
It is difficult to assess how typical these cases are. A systematic survey of three sets ofinventories dating from 1531 to 1749 yields the results shown in Table I (see p. 264).
Fourteen to 22 per cent of all estates contained books of some sort; Bibles are specifiedin 29 to 52 per cent of these cases. There is no way to know what titles were included inthe general category 'some books', but it is likely a large number were scripture or devo-tional literature.
The rich, not surprisingly, were more likely to own books or Bibles than the poor butinventories underestimate, probably quite drastically, the number of bookowners in eachcategory. There are three reasons for this. First, these lists and appraisals of a deceased'sproperty were not prepared by professional notaries, as was the case on the continent,but by two to four reputable albeit untrained and often only marginally literate membersof the community. This is why the forms of inventories even from the same locality varyenormously. Some contain an item-by-item list with values for each item; others aresynoptic as "items in hall, £3 4s". There is no consistent coverage over time or evenbetween persons dying during the same year. Furthermore, since books were often notof high value, even the most detailed and scrupulously prepared inventories might wellhave included them as 'miscellaneous'. A Bible listed with a mustard quern, a small formand a few old shirts in one inventory suggests that in another it might have been sub-sumed simply under the category, "old clothes and other items—10s". Catechisms, tracts,
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Of estates with books3
No. and % in which Biblesare specified
No.
2312
17
%
4652
29
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Place
Chronologicallimits
Total no. ofestates
Average size andvalue of all estates
No. and % of allestateswith books
Average size ofestates with books
No. of estates£0-50
No. of estates withbooks £0-50
bas % of a
No. of estates£51-150
No. of estates withbooks £51-150
d as % of c
No. of estates£151-300
No. of estates withbooks £151-300
fas % of e
No. of estates>£30O
No. of estates withbooks >£30O
h as % of g
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The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England, 1500-1850 265
chapbooks, almanacs, broadsides and ballad-sheets cost only a few pence when new;tattered old copies would be beneath the notice of the appraisors.
Finally, there are cases of persons whom we know owned books which were not men-tioned as part of the inventory of their possessions. There were, for example, none listedin the inventory of Roger Lowe whose literary activities we have already discussed.44 Inshort, qualitative evidence suggests that religious and other books were widely distri-buted; quantitative evidence, though seriously flawed, supports the view that substantialnumbers of even the very poor owned Bibles or other literature.
The fact that an ability to read was not essential for participating in the occupationaltasks of the society does not mean there were none but religious reasons for being literate.While few economic tasks in themselves required literacy until the late nineteenth centuryand while literacy was in fact exceptionally high in the economically backward bordercounties, the ability to read and to a lesser extent to write was clearly functional in a widerange of economic activities.45 The point is, the economic demand for literacy was medi-ated through cultural norms and was not an absolute necessity for most people's work.
Inventories again are a suggestive source. They tell us not only how extensively eventhe poorest countryman or woman was tied into an economy which extended far beyondthe village or region, but also how extensively they were tied into a credit system basedon written documents. Table II indicates the degree to which specialties, bonds orother bills of indebtedness were distributed (see p. 266).4S
Over 28 per cent of inventories in Essex, 42 per cent in Bedfordshire and 55 per centin Devonshire mention some kind of promissory note. Of course, many of these docu-ments were undoubtedly early versions of our modern 'standard form contracts' and eventhose which were not were often written by someone else. Clergymen quite often wrotewills, apprenticeship agreements and other legal documents for their parishioners; moreliterate neighbours acted in a similar capacity.47 There was of course no necessity foreither the holder of the bond or the debtor to be able to read it. Yet both were enmeshedin a relationship denned by a printed record. Just as modern Iranian peasants disclaimpurely economic motives for learning to read stressing instead the importance of literacyin avoiding fraud and in generally making one's way, so Englishmen and women of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries used literacy simply to participate comfortably inan economic structure increasingly based on written documents.48
For centuries the rights of freeholders and copyholders had, for example, been affirmedby manor rolls and even the customary rights of tenants at will were preserved in writtenrecords. Accounts had to be rendered. Apprentices were bound to masters by writtenformulae; property was passed on through written wills and even the inventories we havebeen studying were written not by notaries but by quite humble members of the com-munity. Literacy aided promotion even among the lowest non-commissioned ranks of thearmy.49 In large enterprises like Crowley's ironworks, rules of conduct, working pro-cedures and and forms of contracts were codified in print. The volume of mail in eight-eenth century England was prodigious although it is impossible to discern how much ofit was for business purposes, how much purely personal, and how much in that twilightzone of an immigrant to the city writing a country cousin of economic opportunities.50
The printed word was pervasive in agriculture as well. The number of almanacsprinted in the seventeenth century approached two million.51 Treatises and articles in theperiodical press on scientific farming proliferated. Notices warning against cattle diseasesor giving other sorts of farming news were printed by the thousands on provincialpresses.52 In summary, while few tasks required either reading or writing, literacy was partof the cultural context of economic life.
The same might be said about politics. While the ruling class constituted only a small
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Table II. Debts, bonds, and specialties by size of estate in three sets of inventories
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The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England, 1500-1850 267
fraction of the adult population and while the poor were increasingly excluded fromformal participation in electoral politics, the printed or written word nevertheless boundordinary men and women to the political processes of the community and the nation.In the broadest context they, as well as the rich, were members of a nation state thatfunctioned through an elaborate administrative machinery predicated on literacy. Theoffice of Printer to the Crown was created during the late fifteenth century to facilitatethe widespread dissemination of orders, proclamations or other official pronouncements;when Charles I proceeded against the Scots and afterwards against the parliamentaryarmies, his printing press followed him.53
Propertyless Englishmen or women of the late seventeenth century who sought totravel in search of work needed a certificate subscribed by two justices of the peace statingthat they had a settlement in their home parish; without it, other parishes, afraid of addi-tions to the poor rates, might not permit them to rest. After 1691 no one could receiverelief whose name was not written in a parish poor book; and after 1697, paupers wererequired to wear as a badge the letter T \ The poor, of course, did not have to read theircertificates or sign their names but they too were enmeshed in a system grounded inliteracy.54
Popular political protest also developed a dialogue predicated on literacy. When oneMr. Oliver Cromwell of Cheshunt Hall received an anonymous threatening letter, forexample, he had a broadsheet printed because he felt it necessary "in his own justification,to state . . . [that] [t]he first idea of the inclosure, whatever may be said to the contrary,certainly came from the Rev. Mr. Martin, the Impropiator of the great tithes . . . ."55
This does not, of course, mean that the majority of those participating in popular strugglescould write or read. Nevertheless, the printed word formed the bond of political com-munication between disparate segments of the community. Even eighteen poor mensigned or put their mark to an agreement with the Chapel wardens and overseers ofWheatley, Oxon, promising not to riot in the future over the mowing of the town meadow.The town fathers of Nottingham had printed over one hundred handbills forbidding riot-ing at the elections of 1747. When a Hallaton, Leic, reform-prone clergyman of the lateeighteenth century tried to divert charitable funds from providing "two hare pies, aquantity of ale and two dozen penny loaves" to be scrambled for on Easter Monday to amore worthy and dignified purpose, slogans were chalked on his door, walls and churchreading, "No pie, no parson, and no job for the glazier." Writing, in other words, wassymbolically as well as substantially part of popular protest.56
The written word also touched the common people in less easily classified ways.Ballads and tales of the folk culture were very early recorded in print and sold back tothe people; the oral tradition came to be transmitted through the written word. Threethousand and eighty-one separate ballad titles were entered with the stationers' companybetween 1557 and 1709, the great bulk being registered before 1675.57 Even the illiteratepoor, Nicholas Bond, the Norfolk puritan, complained, bought ballad sheets at fairs,brought them home and posted them on the walls of their cottages. Those who couldn'tread had literate visitors teach them the words.58 The poet John Clare's father must havebeen typical of many mid-eighteenth century countrymen. Semi-literate, "he was veryfond of the superstitious ballad tales that are hawked about the street for a penny, suchas old Nixon's Prophesies . . . he was likewise fond of Ballads, and . . . [would] boast ofit over his horn of ale, with his merry companions, that he could sing or recite above ahundred."59
Of course, the very existence of a market in chapbooks and ballads attests to theirpopularity. They were in their essence wares for the people. Printed in London during thelate sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and afterwards also in various provincial centres,
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268 Oxford Review of Education
these ephemera were distributed by itinerant pedlars or chapmen, traders denned bythe cheapness of their wares.60 A chapman was "a paultrie Pedlar, who in a long packeor maund, which he carries for the most part open, and hanging from his neck before him,hath Almanacks, Bookes of News, or other trifling wares to sell".61 John Cheap, a fictionalinstance of such a trader, got his name by "selling his twenty needles for a penny, andtwa [sic] leather laces for a farthing".62 In any case, a pedlar would set up at a fair, singor recite a few verses from one of his products and then sell copies as fast as ever hecould hand them out.
The ballads would be about all the usual topics—unrequited love, strange and miracu-lous occurrences, religion, contemporary politics, folk heroes, and so on. Accounts ofexecutions were among the most popular topics of broadsheets and indeed the Ordinaryof Newgate did a thriving business out of his privileged access to condemned men andwomen whose life stories he would record and sell at their hangings and after. Favouredprisoners might even negotiate for approval rights over the account of their last words.From London, it should be noted, these accounts made their way into the country.Chapbooks themselves were usually single sheets of cheap paper folded to make a 24-page,i2mo. booklet. They, too, dealt with a range of subjects—history, folk tales, prophecy,retellings of classical myths, tales of crimes and criminals, and so on. The Conquest ofFrance with the Life and Glorious Actions of Edward the Black Prince, The History of WatTyler and Jack Straw, The Mad Pranks of Tom Tram, Nixon's Cheshire Prophecy, TitusAndronicus are some typical titles.63 In these printed materials folk culture and nationalhistory co-existed; through literacy they became increasingly linked.
People learned to read and write from at least the sixteenth century onward becausethese skills allowed participation in a whole range of religious, economic, political, andcultural activities which would otherwise have been far less accessible. The question ofhow literacy was causally related to economic growth in England is thus far more complexthan has often been suggested. The answers must not be restricted to a debate overwhether new industrial occupations or the acquisition of traditional skills between 1750and 1850 depended on more widespread literacy and educational progress. Rather, theproblem is one of explicating the relationship of literacy to the non-economic foundationsof the industrial revolution. How important, for example, was it to the development ofdemand patterns for new products, to the shift of population from agriculture to moreproductive sectors of the economy, to the invention and diffusion of new technology, tothe creation of a politically and bureaucratically integrated nation state within which neweconomic forms could flourish, to the evolution of ideological structures conducive toindustrialism, and so on.64
The precise linkages between literacy and its impact beyond the individual are difficultto disentangle both conceptually and empirically. But it is important to note that the reasonsmost often given for literacy programmes in underdeveloped countries are in terms ofthese externalities. National and bureaucratic integration, a basic network for informationdispersal, and a unifying language which much of Asia and Africa must create, all existedin England centuries before industralization.65
Furthermore, the psychological transformations with which literacy is associated werealready widespread in seventeenth century England if not earlier. Urban as well as ruralproducers were integrated into a larger money economy, were willing to work for gain,were geographically mobile, and were open to technical innovation in agriculture, manu-facturing and in the organization of work.66 Insofar as literacy helps create a social andpsychological environment hospitable to economic development, this was accomplishedwell before the insignificant percentile point changes in literacy rates of the late eighteenthcentury.
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The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England, 1500-1850 269
While substantial empirical work remains to be done on the converse relationship, theimpact of the industrial revolution on literacy, some tentative conclusions are possible.For those industrial areas in which literacy rates dropped during the early industrialrevolution, it is clear that the decline had begun by the 1750s, well before the con-sequences of rapid economic change could have been felt. Precisely when the downwardtrend was reversed remains controversial, but no one disputes that it occurred at a timewhen the most deleterious effects of the factory system were still being felt.67
The industrial revolution undoubtedly spurred the development of a widespread systemof publicly supported schools which were in size and organization far nearer to our con-ception of a school than were their eighteenth century namesakes. It is doubtful that thesenew schools had a significant impact on literacy until the 1850s or even later; the greatcontribution of publicly funded education did not come until the 1870s. Although thecausal links between schooling and literacy are not clear, there is evidence to suggest thatthey were as tenuous for the first half of the nineteenth century as they had been hitherto.Female literacy, for example, improved at a roughly constant yearly rate between 1750and 1850 and showed no sudden spurt in response to new schooling opportunities. Maleliteracy, which had remained constant for the second half of the eighteenth century, beganto increase slowly around 1810 but by no means at a faster rate than it had during partsof the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Indeed, the rate of growth in maleliteracy, from less than 30 per cent in 1640 to 60 per cent in 1754, was considerably greaterthan the rate between 1754 and 1850 when 30 per cent of bridegrooms were still unableto sign their names. On the macroscopic level, therefore, educational innovation seems tohave no dramatic impact.68
Nor did children attend school for longer periods of time during the industrial revo-lution; by the late 1840s'two years' attendance at a school was still all that could beexpected. Indeed for the first half of the nineteenth century children continued to becomeliterate in the informal settings described earlier. A bit of schooling was supplemented byself-help and instruction from parents and friends. Even the more structured nineteenthcentury Sunday schools and the improvement societies must be viewed as essentiallycommunity resources. Schooling came to make a difference when that part of the popula-tion, ca. 65 per cent to 75 per cent, who could become literate through traditional culturalprocesses had become so. It was for the residual 25 per cent or so who could not learn todecode the written word more or less on their own that schools and even particular readingtechniques were most relevant.69 These are the people reflected in the data on the veryrapid decline in illiteracy during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. But the impactof the industrial revolution on basic literacy was probably quite small.
The industrial revolution did change the context of popular culture. It opened newavenues of economic, political and social action for the working classes. Consequently,perceptions both of the nature of literacy in the past and of its cultural role in the presentaltered drastically. On the one hand, working class radicals disparaged the extent ofpopular literacy prior to the industrial revolution; on the other they defined a new role forreading as the paradigmatic case of 'rational recreation' and linked it with a wide rangeof socially desirable and politically functional traits.
James Watson, for example, active in the struggle for a free press and for the charter,spoke of his youth as a time when the "government was in the hands of the clergy andaristocracy, the people ignorant and debased". Samuel Bamford, the parliamentary re-former, extolls Lord Brougham for leading "popular education from the dark and narrowcrib where he found it, like a young colt stradled, and cruely bitted by ignorance, forsuperstition to ride". And Francis Place, in one of his frequent reflections on the improve-ment of social mores during his lifetime, discusses the "ignorance, the grossness, the
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270 Oxford Review of Education
obscenity", of even the middling classes. The very standards of literacy changed; JohnClare could term his father illiterate while in the same paragraph telling us that he readbibles and broadsheets.70
Thus the meaning of literacy, indeed its whole cultural context, had changed. By thelate eighteenth century, reading among the most articulate elements of the working classwas no longer just another leisure activity, or a means for functioning more effectively ineveryday life. It came to be associated with the process of individual self-improvementthat was an integral part of radical political and social change; it was part of the workingclass's rise to political power and its defence against oppression. Instead of the eighteenthcentury characters like the drunken wigmaker with his religious books or the widely readAshton apprentice who entertained primarily in alehouses, we meet far soberer, far moreself-consciously political men like Thomas Cooper or William Lovett. For them educa-tion was part of political struggle and reading was part of being a rational man who couldexploit fully the opportunities of an industrial society.
For working class radicals, as for Jane Austen's heroines, reading became the touch-stone of 'rational recreation'. Thus, William Howitt discusses reading as part of "thepleasures of a higher order, and more akin to genuine happiness". The common peoplehe predicts will "find pleasure in books—boundless, unimagined, inexhaustible, in-expressible pleasures". "No entertainment is so cheap as reading nor any pleasure solasting", noted a Chartist publication. Education accustoms "the individual to seek hispleasure from things which afford it of the highest and most enduring description",noted a Chartist speaker in 1839. Drunkenness and gambling were seen by the editor ofthe Black Dwarf as the natural enemies of newspaper reading and rational discussion.Reading and education in short came to be associated by working class radicals with awhole new constellation of cultural values.71
More generally, the long tradition of popular literacy made its impact felt on thedevelopment of the nineteenth century working class in three ways. First, the radicaltradition from the London Corresponding Society through the Chartists and well afterwas deeply indebted to the religious and secular culture described earlier. Radicalpolitics was predicated on widespread literacy and it is symbolically fitting that its earlieststruggles involved the right to have a free press. But second, while nineteenth centuryworking class politics was thus linked to the past, the new cultural meaning of literacymarked a discontinuity. It drove a wedge through the working class. It came, for the firsttime, to be a mark distinguishing the respectable from the non-respectable poor, thewashed from the unwashed. It served to sharpen a division which was far less clear inthe eighteenth century.
Finally, both before and after the industrial revolution the widespread and deeplyrooted culture of literacy which we have been describing was a powerful agency of cul-tural hegemony. The traditions of the local community and those of the larger societyoutside it were not as far apart as in societies with restricted literacy. All Englishmenwere part of an enlightened Protestant nation facing benighted Papists across the channel;the rich and the poor shared the forms of thought imposed by print and were equallyvulnerable to new psychological pressures. Similarly, leadership of the nineteenth centuryworking class became powerfully attached to bourgeois forms of reason and reasonable-ness; they fundamentally accepted bourgeois definitions of improvement and of theparameters of political action.
Both the causes and the consequences of popular literacy are pervasive, complex andtightly intertwined with other strands of the past. Thus, a coherent social history ofliteracy is possible only within a broad, wholistic conception of its cultural context.
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NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. See L. Stone, "Literacy and Education in England, 1640-1900", Past and Present,42, 1968. These figures are at best rough estimates based on the scattered evidenceof Protestation Returns. Throughout this paper literacy rates will refer to the propor-tion of the population who could sign their names; studies of English literacy for theperiod after 1754 usually count the proportions of grooms and brides who signedmarriage registers required by Lord Hardwick's Act of 1753. There is considerableevidence that the ability to sign one's name during the period being discussed reflectsan ability to read reasonably well. It over-estimates the number of people who couldwrite fluently and underestimates the proportion who could read just a little. SeeR. S. Schofield, "The Measurement of Literacy in Pre-Industrial England" in JackGoody, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge 1968). Confidence in thisinterpretation is bolstered by French evidence. See F. Furet and W. Sachs, "LaCroissance de l'alphabetisation en France xviiie-xixe siècle", Annales: Economie,Sociétés, Civilisation 29 : 3 Mais-Juin 1974, and the summary of this research inHistorical Methods Newsletter, vol. 7, no. 3, 1974, pp. 145-147.
2. SCHOFIELD, R. S., "Dimensions of Illiteracy, 1750-1850" in Explorations in EconomicHistory, 10 : 4, 1973, pp. 444 and 447.
3. Grace Abounding, paragraph 15; J. Spence, "An Account of the Author" prefaced toPoems on Several Occasions by Stephen Duck (1736), pp. xii-xiii.
4. My ideas on the meaning of literacy in society owe a great deal to Jack Goody,"Introduction", "Restricted Literacy in Northern Ghana", and with Ian Watt,"The Consequences of Literacy" in Goody, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies.
5. Sol Tax, Penny Capitalism: A Guatemalan Indian Economy, Smithsonian Institution,Institute of Social Anthropology, Publication no. 16 (Washington, 1953); see AbnerCohen, "The Social Organization of Credit in a West African Cattle Market",Africa, vol. 35, Jan. 1965, pp. 8-9 and also "Politics of the Kola Trade", Africa,vol. 36, Jan. 1966, pp. 18-19.
6. Stone, "Literacy . . .", p. 106; Schofield, "Dimensions . . . " , p. 450.7. See Alexander J. Field, "Educational Reform and Manufacturing Development in
Mid-Nineteenth Century Massachusetts", unpublished dissertation, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, 1974, Chapter 8.
8. See A General Table, showing the State of Education in Scotland 1820, xii. Anadditional six per cent of children attended private endowed schools. Literacy ratescalculated from Registrar General, Second Annual Report 1840 [263], xvii.
9. General Table, showing the state of education in England, 1820 (151), xii, 341.10. Calculated from H. A. Lloyd Jukes (ed.) Articles of Enquiry Addressed to the Clergy
of the Diocese of Oxford at the Primary Visitation of Dr. Thomas Secker, 1738, Oxford-shire Record Society, vol. 38, 1957. In this and the following calculation only thoseendowments are considered which are specified in the returns as being for the supportof the schoolmaster. There were 36 of these in the Diocese of Oxford. (In four casesthere were no relevant answers; 118 parishes reported no schools; 2 reported privateschools; 29 reported endowed or charity schools but not the amount allocated for theteachers.) Since the purpose of this exercise is to suggest that even endowments pro-vided only partial support for a majority of teachers, bequests to clothe or apprenticeas well as to educate a specified number of children are not considered here. Theaverage and median figures are distorted slightly downward by my choosing not toput a value on the house or garden provided for teachers in a few cases (4 in Yorkdiocese, 3 in Oxford); only the salary as given was used in the calculation.
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11. Calculated from S. A. Ollard and P. C. Walker (eds.) Archbishop Herring's VisitationReturns, 1743, Yorkshire Archeological Society, Record Series, vol. 71, 1928; vol. 72,1929; vol. 75, 1929; vol. 77, 1930. (In 77 cases there were no relevant answers; 392parishes reported no schools; 162 reported private schools; 114 reported endowed orcharity schools but not the amount allocated for the teacher/s.) 175 endowments areconsidered as specified in note 10.
12. See Joan Simon, "Was There a Charity School Movement?" in Brian Simon, ed.,Education in Leicestershire: A Regional Study (Leicester, 1968).
13. See T. Laqueur, "Working-Class Demand and the Growth of English ElementaryEducation" in Schooling and Society, Lawrence Stone, ed. (Johns Hopkins Press,Baltimore, 1976), Chaper 8, esp. note 2.
14. The relevant queries for the diocese of Oxford in 1738 were: "Is there any FreeSchool, Hospital or Almshouse in your parish?" "Is there any voluntary CharitySchool in your Parish? How many boys and girls?" For York in 1743 the questionsregarding education ask "Is there any public or Charity School, endow'd, or other-wise maintain'd in your parish? What number of Children are taught in it? Is therein your Parish, any Almshouse, Hospital, or other Charitable Endowment?" Perhapsmore information was forthcoming in this diocese because some incumbents inter-preted 'public' to mean open to anyone even if taught by a teacher supported entirelyby fees. See Archbishop Herring's Returns . . ., vol. 1, no. 59.
15. Archbishop Herring's Returns . . ., vol. 1, no. 68, no. 89, 91, vol. 3, no. 68, vol. 2, no.10, 120.
16. PEYTON, S. A. (ed.) The Churchwardens' Presentments in the Oxfordshire Peculiars ofDorchester, Thame, and Banbury, Oxfordshire Record Society Series, vol. 10, 1928,pp. 257-258.
17. Ibid., pp. 224, 297.18. See, for example, M. Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 183-191. Dr. Spufford'sevidence for the general availability of schooling in large parts of Cambridgeshire isdrawn almost entirely from teaching licences recorded in diocesan records or fromcollege entrance books. She is aware, however, of the limitations of these sources;see pp. 188-189.
19. The same may well be the case in parts of the underdeveloped world today. In WestPakistan, for example, one out of two women who were literate became so withoutformal education; 370,000 out of 2,138,000 literates of both sexes over 25 had neverbeen to school. The percentage of the population able to become literate informally isthought to be a function of the density of those with some formal education but thishypothesis might be restated to make the possibility of becoming literate informallya function simply of the density of literates. For the original hypothesis and somesupporting data see Hendrik Thomas, "Literacy without Formal Education: A CaseStudy in Pakistan", Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 22, no. 3, April1974, pp. 490-495.
20. Memoirs of the Forty-Five First Years of the Life of James Lackington, Bookseller,Written by Himself (London, 1830), p. 56 and pp. 32-57, passim.
21. The Life of William Hutton ... to which is subjoined The History of His Family, writtenby Himself (London, 1816), p. 22 and pp. 1-24, passim.
22. SHARROCK, ROGER, John Bunyan (London, New York, 1968), p. 11.23. COLBY, E., ed., The Life of Thomas Holcroft written by Himself (1st ed., 1816, new
ed., London, 1925), p. 9.
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The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England, 1500-1850 273
24. HACKWOOD, F. W., William Hone: His Life and Times (London, 1912), pp. 24-25,22-41, passim.
25. BLUNDEN, E. (ed.) Sketches in the Life of John Clare written by Himself (London,1931), pp. 46-49.
26. Duck, Poems ..., pp. xii-xiii.27. A Family History Begun by James Fretwell, in Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Publications of the Surtees Society, vol. 65,1877, pp. 165-166.
28. SACHSE, W. (ed.) The Diary of Roger Lowe of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire1663-74 (New Haven, 1938).
29. HUGHES, P. L. & LARKIN, J. (eds.) Tudor Royal Proclamations (New Haven, London,1964), vol. 1, pp. 296-298.
30. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 119.31. Quoted in J. W. Adamson, "The Extent of Literacy in England in the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries: Notes and Conjectures", The Library, vol. X, no. 2, Sept.1929, p. 170.
32. Cotton MS. Cleopatra E.v.f. 344 transcribed in the Catalogue of the British MuseumBible Exhibition 1911, p. 61.
33. Computed from T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule, Historical Catalogue of the PrintedEditions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign School Society(London, 1903-1911), vol. 1.
34. Regarding the size of printing runs see H. S. Bennett, English Books and Printers1603-1640 (1970), p. 227. If the average size for Bibles was 1,000 between the earlysixteenth century and 1700 some 686,000 copies would have been produced.
35. SPARKE, MICHAEL, Scintilla (1641), reprinted in E. Arber, Transcript of the Registersof the Stationers' Company (1877), vol. iv, pp. 35-38.
36. Darlow, Historical Catalogue . . ., vol. 1, p. 264.37. STEER, FRANCIS W. (ed.) Farm and Cottage Inventories of Mid-Essex 1635-1749,
Essex Record Office Publications no. 8 (Colchester, 1950), no. 59; M. Cash, ed.,Devon Inventories of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Devon & CornwallRecord Society, New Series, vol. 11 (Torquay, 1966), nos. 49 and 53.
38. Bennett, English Books . . . , p. 105.39. ALLNUTT, W. H., "English Provincial Presses", Bibliographica, Vol. II, 1896, pp.
298-299 and passim 276-308; see also by the same author, "Notes on the Introductionof Printing-Presses into the Smaller Towns of England and Wales, after 1750 to theend of the Eighteenth Century" in The Library, New Series 2, 1901, pp. 242-259.
40. HARRISON, F. M., "Nathaniel Ponder: The Publisher of the Pilgrims Progress", TheLibrary, New Series, vol. 15, no. 3, 1934, pp. 272-274, and "Editions'of the Pilgrim'sProgress", The Library, New Series, vol. 22, no. 1, 1941, pp. 73-75.
41. GOUGH, RICHARD, History of Myddle (1700), Centaur Press edition, 1968) with anintroduction by W. G. Hoskins, p. 29; Adam Eyre, A dyurnall, or Catalogue of allmy Actions and Expenses from the 1st of January, 1646[7], Surtees Society, vol. 65,1875, passim, or, for example, pp. 7, 23, 35; Edmund Harold, "Diary of a ManchesterWig Maker" in Collections Relating to Manchester and its Neighbourhood, ChethamSociety Publications, vol. 68, 1866, pp. 172-208; Lowe, Diary . . ., pp. 54, 101, 99.
42. Devon Inventories . . ., no. 165, no. 14; F. G. Emmison, "Jacobean HouseholdInventories", Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Society, vol. 20, 1938, pp.1-143, nos. 105 and 4; B. Cornford, "Inventories of the Poor", Norfolk Archaeology,Vol. xxxv, Part 1, 1970, pp. 118-125.
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274 Oxford Review of Education
43. Compiled from the collections of inventories, ibid, and Inventories of Mid-Essex;four inventories from Essex were not used either because no valuation was given orbecause two inventories represented the same collection of goods, once on the deathof the husband and again on the death of his widow.
44. See Lowe, Diary . . ., pp. 133-134; for similar cases see Spufford, Contrasting Com-munities . . ., p. 211.
45. See Schofield, "Dimensions ...", p. 444 or Registrar General Second Annual Report1840 [263] xvii; this is the earliest, given the present state of research, for whichmeaningful intercounty comparisons can be made.
46. See note 43. The great majority of debts noted were those owed to the deceased butthose owed by him or her have also been counted. The precise nature of these obliga-tions is difficult to determine but for our purposes it makes no difference whetherthey represent business debts, mortgages, or bonds; see Bedfordshire Inventories, pp.41-42; Inventories of Mid-Essex . . ., p. 64; Devon Inventories . . ., pp. xiii-xxiv.
47. See, for example, Lowe, Diary ..., pp. 58, 81, 87, 88; The Diary of Benjamin Rogers,Rector of Carlton 1720-71, ed., C. D. Linnell, Publications of the Bedfordshire His-torical Record Society, vol. xxx, 1950. See, for example, pp. 8, 15, 43.
48. Unpublished UNICEF study reported in H. M. Phillips, Literacy and Development(UNESCO, Paris, 1970), pp. 11-12.
49. NEUBURG, VICTOR, Popular Education in Eighteenth Century England (London, 1971),pp. 33-34, 104-106.
50. KAY, F. G., Royal Mail (London, 1951), no precise figures on number of letters sentare available but the volume of mail is clear from the expansion of routes, the successof private mail carriers, and the value of franked and non-franked letters and news-papers. See pp. 9-61; see also K. Ellis, The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century(London, 1958), pp. 38-46.
51. BOSANQUET, E. F. "English Seventeenth-Century Almanacks", The Library, FourthSeries, vol. x, no. 4, 1930, p. 365.
52. CLARKE, W. J., Early Nottinghamshire Printers and Printing (Nottingham, 1953), p. 5.53. BENNETT, H. S., English Books and Readers, 1475-1557, p. 38; 1558-1603 (1965-70),
pp. 64-65. Colin Clair, A History of Printing in Britain (New York, 1966), p. 151.54. NICHOLLS, JOHN, History of the English Poor Law, vol. I (1854), pp. 298-299, 341-367.55. See E. P. Thompson, "The Crime of Anonymity" in Douglas Hay et al., Albion's
Fatal Tree, Appendix I, pp. 313-314; the broadsheet reply is headed "Mr. Cromwellof Cheshnut Hall" and dated March 5th, 1799, and may be found in the BodleianLibrary, Gough Herts 1.
56. HASSALL, W. O., ed., Wheatley Records 956-1956, Oxfordshire Record Society, Vol.37, 1956, p. 83; Clarke, Nottingham Printers . . . , p. 5; C. J. Billson, ed., CountyFolklore, vol. I, pt. 3, "Leicestershire and Rutland" (Folklore Society, 1895), pp.79-80.
57. ROLLINS, H. E., "An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries (1557-1709) in theRegisters of the Company of Stationers of London", Studies in Philology, vol. 21,Jan. 1924, no. 1, pp. 1-324.
58. BOUND, NICHOLAS, The Doctrine of the Sabbath (1595), pp. 241-242. I owe this refer-ence and the one to Adam Eyre, above, to Dr. Keith Wrightson of the University ofSt. Andrews, who has been extremely generous in sharing his knowledge of 16thand 17th century popular culture.
59. Clare, Sketches, p. 46.
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60. There is no general study of chapbooks. See V. E. Neuburg, Chapbooks, A Guide toReference Material (2nd ed., London, 1972); Leslie Shepard, The History of StreetLiterature (Newton Abbot, 1962), esp. Chapters 2-4.
61. See Cotgrave—A dictionaire of the French and English Tongues (London, 1611), citedin Clarke, Early Nottingham Printers ..., p. 55.
62. GRAHAM, DOUGAL, John Cheap, the Chapman, quoted in Shepard, p. 92.63. Neuburg, Chapbooks ..., pp. 6-7, classifies the subjects of this literature. A fuller
idea of its scope is available from printed collections of which John Ashton, Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century (1882, Kelley reprint, New York, 1970), CharlesHindley, ed., The Old Book Collector's Miscellany (London, 1872), vol. 1-3 and V.Neuburg, ed., The Penny Histories (Oxford, 1968) are easily aacessible and represen-tative. For material on execution accounts I am indebted to Dr. Peter Linebaugh ofthe University of Rochester who was so kind as to send me a mimeographed copy ofhis as yet unpublished paper, "The Ordinary of Newgate and His Account".
64. See R. M. Hartwell, "Two Services: Education and Law" in his The IndustrialRevolution and Economic Growth (London, 1971) for the best discussion of the re-lationship between literacy and development along the lines being criticized here.For a more recent statement see Schofield, "Dimensions ...", pp. 452-453.
65. This emerges clearly from reports on literacy programmes. See, for example, M.Viscusi, Literacy for Working: Functional Literacy in Tanzania (UNESCO, 1970),pp. 10-11, or Bernard Dumont, Functional Literacy in Mali: Training for Develop-ment, pp. 15-16, 61-63.
66. For discussion of the psychological effects of literacy see A. Schuman, A. Inkeles, andD. Smith, "Some Social Psychological Effects and Noneffects of Literacy in a NewNation", Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 16, no. 1, 1967.
67. See Michael Sanderson, "Literacy and Social Mobility in the Industrial Revolutionin England", Past and Present, no. 56 (August 1972), pp. 75-104 and my critique ofit along with Sanderson's rejoinder in Past and Present, no. 64, Aug. 1974, pp.96-112.
68. For rates see Schofield, "Dimensions . . . " , pp. 442, 445, and Stone, "Literacy . . . " ,p. 101. It is of course true that because of a doubling of population the absolutenumber of literate people grew considerably during the period 1750-1850 despiterelatively little increase in the rate of literacy. The counterfactual, whether thiswould have happened had new kinds of schools not been founded, remains open.
69. See Jeanne S. Chall, Learning to Read: The Great Debate (McGraw Hill, New York,1967).
70. LINTON, WILLIAM J., James Watson, A Memoir (1880, Kelley Reprint, New York,1971), p. 16; The Autobiography of Samual Bamford: Passages in the Life of a Radical(1844, Cass Reprint, London, 1967), p. 12; The Autobiography of Francis Place,Mary Thale (ed.) (Cambridge, 1972).
71. HOWITT, WILLIAM, The Rural Life of England (1838), p. 526; Chartist Circular (17Oct. 1840), 227; Northern Star (7 Oct. 1838), 7; Black Dwarf, vol. 4, 1820,pp. 139-142; Clare, Sketches ..., p. 46.
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