Table Of ContentEducation, Travel and the “Civilisation” of the Victorian
Working Classes
This page intentionally left blank
Education, Travel and
the “Civilisation” of the
Victorian Working Classes
Michele M. Strong
Associate Professor, University of South Alabama
© Michele M. Strong 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-33807-5
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-46393-0 ISBN 978-1-137-33808-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137338082
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
Contents
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: Grand Tours and Workers’ Tours:
Rethinking Victorian Travel and Education 1
1 “A True Agent of Civilisation”: Travel and
the “Educational Idea,” 1841–1861 17
2 Turning the Educational Idea on Its Head: The Lib–Lab
Alliance and the Organization of the Working Men’s 1867
Exhibition Tours 42
3 “The Lessons of Paris”: The 1867 Working Men’s
Exhibition Tours and the Artisan Imagination 59
4 “High Attainments”: The Artisan Exhibition Tours and
the Campaign for Technical Education, 1867–1889 98
5 Class Trips and the Meaning of British Citizenship: The Regent
Street Polytechnic at Home and Abroad, 1871–1903 133
Conclusion: Goody, Gordon, and Shilpa Shetty “Poppadom”:
The Politics of Study Abroad from the New Liberalism to
New Labour 161
Notes 167
References 219
Index 235
v
List of Figures
1 Cook’s excursionists at the Gare du Nord, Paris, 1861 93
2 Cook’s excursionists on the Champs Elysees, Paris, 1861 93
3 “A Sudden Opening for a Young Man” 94
4 “Visit of the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union to
the Alexandra Palace” 94
5 “Deputation to France (1867)” 95
6 “Mr. Hogg at Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1886, with some
Institute Members Who Had Settled There” 96
7 “Programme: The Polytechnic Co-operative and
Educational Holiday Tours (1897)” 97
vi
Acknowledgements
Like many of the workers’ travels described in this book, my first trip abroad
was made as an “educational tour.” I would like to begin this acknowledge-
ment by conveying my gratitude to the people and institutions that made
research in the United Kingdom possible. Research and writing for this pro-
ject was funded by grants from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and the University of South Alabama in Mobile. I am also grateful to
the History Department at Trinity University, San Antonio, which helped
fund research in 2004, when I was a visiting Assistant Professor. Many cura-
tors, archivists, and librarians (and civilians, too) helped guide me through
the archives. Kevin Smyth, General Secretary of the Working Men’s Club
and Institute Union, kindly brought me up to date on the WMCIU’s his-
tory and made sources available to me even while the club headquarters
underwent reconstruction. Gordon Fox introduced me to the Working
Men’s College and carefully selected interesting documents from its archive
to help with my project. Paul Smith graciously welcomed me to the Thomas
Cook archive – summer after summer – while Joy Hooper and Jill Lomer
directed my attention to its many treasures. Their friendship in subsequent
years has been the best treasure of all. I am also grateful for the expert
help and warm friendship of Susan Bennett, former curator of the Royal
Society of Arts archive and currently Honorable Secretary of the William
Shipley Group for RSA History; and, Brenda Weedon, former archivist at the
University of Westminster archive. Brenda Weedon’s successor, Elaine Penn,
has been enormously helpful in tying up loose ends for which I am grateful.
Thanks are also owed to the intellectual generosity of Piers Brendon, former
Keeper of the Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge. It would have been
madness to write this book without consulting him first or his book on
“the great man,” Thomas Cook. Back in the USA, Tommy Nixon at Davis
Library (UNC-CH) helped me launch the project at a time when sources
about British, working-class travelers were difficult to imagine, much less
find. Kathy Jones and members of the ILL staff at the University of South
Alabama Library have helped me conclude the project with quick and expert
responses to every book request.
Much of my work has been shaped in conversation with scholars and
friends. At UNC-CH, I could not have hoped for a better advisor than Lloyd
Kramer. His spirit of intellectual adventure guides me still. Discussions with
James Hevia, Jeanne Moskal, Donald Reid, Jay Smith, Richard Soloway, and
Susan Thorne sharpened my analysis. David Anderson, Chris Endy, Mariola
Espinosa, Cora Granata, Doina Harsanyi, Brandon Hunziker, Leah Potter,
Bianca Premo, David Sartorius, and Susan Thuesen also offered important
vii
viii Acknowledgements
insights at various stages of my early thinking and writing. At the University
of South Alabama, my work has benefited greatly from a department that
both values and supports new scholarship. I owe a special debt of gratitude
to the Chair, Clarence Mohr, and to my colleagues Frye Galliard, Mara
Kozelsky, and Rebecca Williams for their encouragement, comments on
an early chapter draft, and advice about the publishing process. Chapter 5
came into being as conference papers on imperial networks at the Southern
Conference of British Studies and at the American Historical Association.
I want to thank Alan Lester and Philippa Levine for their insights and
encouragement. In many conversations over the years, Douglas Bristol also
contributed to my thinking about networks, class, and power, for which
I am grateful. Alice Ritscherle and Jeffrey Harris generously read the entire
manuscript in its early and late stages (respectively) and offered astute com-
ments, editorial turns of phrase, and laughs. I am eternally grateful. All
errors, needless to say, are my own.
My appreciation extends to the people and institutions involved directly
with the publication of this book. De Gruyter Saur granted permission
to reproduce my chapter, “‘Clothing Britain’s Legions’ with ‘Intellectual
Weapons’ and ‘Sound Science’: The Artisan Exhibition Tours and the Rise of
Modern Educational Travel, 1867–1889,” edited by Franz Bosbach and John
Davis, in Die Weltausstellung von 1851 und ihre Folgen/The Great Exhibition and
its Legacy, Prince Albert Studies, 20 (Munich: K.G. Saur, 2002; Reprint, Berlin:
De Gruter Saur, 2012), which comprises portions of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4
of this book. Cambridge University Press and the Journal of British Studies,
granted permission to reprint my article, “Class Trips and the Meaning
of British Citizenship: Travel, Educational Reform, and the Regent Street
Polytechnic at Home and Abroad, 1871–1903,” in Chapter 5 of this book.
I want to thank the anonymous readers and, especially, editors Elizabeth
Elbourne and Brian Lewis at JBS, for their enormously helpful comments
and suggestions. Many thanks also go to Clare Mence, Commissioning
Editor, for supporting this project and to Alec McAulay, for his patience
and valuable expertise. I also wish to convey my deep appreciation to the
anonymous readers of the sample chapters and the completed manuscript.
I dedicate this book with love and respect to my sister, Dominique, whose
own educational tour is about to commence. Bon voyage!
Introduction: Grand Tours
and Workers’ Tours: Rethinking
Victorian Travel and Education
Grand Tours and Workers’ Tours: Rethinking Victorian Travel
and Education
Sifting through his morning correspondence, Peter Le Neve Foster would
have paused at a rough envelope postmarked 5 November 1878, the return
address, “Peckham House Lunatic Asylum, London,” scrawled in the cor-
ner. It was a letter from Alexander Kay, an unfortunate Scottish joiner with
whom he had corresponded since the 1867 “Artisan Tours” of the Paris
Exhibition. Foster had neglected to respond to Kay’s September post. Yet
here was another letter to pester and perhaps sadden him with the musings
of a man who had lost his mind, his capacity for self-government, and his
freedom.
Foster, the Secretary of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts,
Commerce, and Manufacturers (SA), had been a key organizer of the 1867
Artisan Tours, in which 84 skilled craftsmen (including Kay) had reported on
the Paris Exhibition. A quasi-governmental institution, the SA was dedicated
to the progress of British industry through national programs such as adult
education classes. The SA thus viewed the artisan tours as important peda-
gogical innovations to improve workers’ education, their livelihoods, and
the prosperity of the nation. The SA also anticipated that the tours would
improve relations between the middle-class organizers and the artisans,
many of whom would win the franchise in the forthcoming 1867 Reform
Act. Kay, however, writing from a lunatic asylum a full decade later, had
come to a far different conclusion about the educational utility of the tours,
and questioned the intentions of the organizers.
Although Kay began his letter congenially enough, saluting Foster as “My
dear friend of 1867,” he quickly descended into an odd rant. “I have not
received a reply to my September letter,” Kay remonstrated, “but you are well
aware that it is very undesirable to lose old friends. As in fact there seems
[sic] to be plenty of sharks. But as the Whaler fleet this year have demon-
strated the scarcity of whales, we must not be anxious to throw the Jonahs
1
