Dudley McLean | The Anglican Church and 150 years of education

Prior to Emancipation in 1834, education for the enslaved underwent two forms of development. The first, based on the need to communicate with the different ethnic groups from Africa, involved the missionaries, especially of the Moravian Church as early as 1754, who concentrated on teaching basic English language. Such education was endorsed by the plantation owners who were worried that the slaves were plotting against them in an unknown language. It was, therefore, an unfortunate necessity to force Africans to speak English exclusively.

Secondly, education among Africans in Jamaica began at least 64 years before efforts were made to educate poor white children in England. Influenced by the successes of the Church’s work among Africans, a meeting of the National Society for the Promotion of Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church met for the first time in 1811 with concerns about the fate of the millions of poor people, children in particular, who were forced to live in slums and work for little money in factories, mills, and mines within newly industrialised Britain. Their work was further supplemented with the introduction of ragged schools developed by John Pounds, a Portsmouth shoemaker. In 1818, Pounds began teaching poor children without charging fees.

DIOCESES OF JAMAICA AND BARBADOS

When the dioceses of Jamaica and Barbados were established in 1824, Rev Dr Christopher Lipscomb (Jamaica) and Rev Dr William Hart Coleridge (Barbados) were both consecrated bishops on St James’ day, July 25, 1824, and arrived in their diocese by naval transport about the same time. Bishop Coleridge arrived in Barbados on January 29, 1825, while Bishop Lipscomb arrived on February 13, 1825, in Jamaica. Both prelates had education as part of their mandates for the dioceses. During Lipscomb’s episcopacy, the Church of England’s missionary societies made available “the sum of £171,777 …. for the erection of churches and schools and the maintenance of clergymen, schoolmasters and catechists.” The expenditure was spread over many years, the last payment being made in 1850.

In 1835, in response to a circular from the Home Government that was sent to all religious organisations in Jamaica, Bishop Lipscomb reported that “there were 142 schools, where instruction was given to 8,500 scholars … .” (J.B. Ellis). In 1839, the appointment of a general clerical inspector of elementary (Church) schools marked the growth of education, which made such an officer necessary. On the April 4, 1843, Dr Lipscomb died after nearly 19 years of service to the diocese and was buried in the churchyard of St Andrew Parish Church.

Morrison & Milner (1995) expressed a view that once slavery was abolished in 1834, the British saw education as an important way to integrate ex-slaves into the colonial economy and to ensure a peaceful lower class, while Herbert Gayle expressed the view that “after Emancipation, the planters ensured that males were not educated to guarantee plantation cheap labour. This is why Jamaica has 15 all-girl schools and only seven for boys” (Jamaica Observer, November 22, 2020). Such views are conjectures that contradict Jamaica’s history of education. With regard to the former, education as a way for integration into the society was foreseen prior to Emancipation in the mandates of the bishops, and it became the exclusive prerogative of the churches at Emancipation, excluding the influences of planters, as funding came from missionary societies while Mr Gayle has overlooked the fact that education, especially at the secondary level was not a universal right for Africans or poor English white children until the 1870s. It was under the leadership of Archbishop Nuttall, with the establishment of the Deaconess Order, that education for girls led to the introduction of the largest number of female single-sex schools.

1870 AND STATE PARTNERSHIP

The year 1870 heralded a new relationship between the State and the Church, with the disestablishment of the Church of England in Jamaica and the passage of the Elementary (Primary) Education Act in England. In Jamaica, the new governor of Crown Colony government, Sir Peter John Grant, invested the savings from the salaries once used in paying Anglican clergy to build additional primary schools to supplement those under the control of the Anglican Church.

A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCTION

The current buzz words are “decolonising education.” However, the first radical shift in opposing the European philosophical concept of education that had dominated Western educational thought and practice for centuries, and that was intended to maintain the gulf between the privileged and lower class, was by Enos Nuttall (1842-1916), who came to Jamaica in 1862 as a Wesleyan lay missionary and joined the Church of England and was ordained a priest in 1866. He was appointed curate of the St George’s Church on East Street in Kingston. As bishop (1880), he was responsible for directing the affairs of the Church of England in Jamaica. Nuttall was elected Primate of the West Indies in 1893, and in 1897, the position was renamed Archbishop, making him the first Archbishop of the West Indies. He believed that “every individual, regardless of his/her race or social status has a right to education” (Allen, B.M. 2007). The Anglican Church, through its bishop, by expressing the aforementioned views on education, was opposing established Western educational tradition and was challenging the perceived interest of planters and the upper classes in Jamaica (Allen, B.M. 2006).

The concept of education as a universal right in Britain and its colonies was only a decade old when Nuttall demonstrated a significant shift under his leadership by ensuring that all primary/elementary schools deliver such a high standard of education that upon graduating, any student, regardless of race or creed, having satisfied the local examinations requirements, could apply and attend the Mico or Shortwood Teachers’ College or an overseas institution like the University of London. This was the most significant development in Jamaica’s education a system at a time when secondary schools were still few in numbers and inaccessible by the majority. In expressing the idea of education for all, Nuttall displayed remarkable courage as Western societies, during his time, were committed to the idea of exclusive education for different classes within society. For Archbishop Nuttall, education was viewed as the modern path of progress for all races (Nuttall 1897).

In this 150th year of disestablishment, and with a coronavirus pandemic that has revealed an unstable, underfunded education that evolved in a post-independence educational apartheid system, it is time for a new inclusive philosophy of education that affirms African identity, respects the way people of African descent learn, and most importantly, embraces digital platforms to ensure that all have access to education, including radical removal of oppressive structures (financial) that impede access to tertiary education for the people of Jamaica.

Dudley McLean is executive director of Asociación de Debate Xaymaca (AdebateX), which convenes debating in Spanish for high schools. He is a graduate of Codrington College, UWI, (Cave Hill). Send feedback to dm15094@gmail.com.