In the 1870s it was abundantly clear that the statutory system in practice was diverging significantly from the original conception of the Scottish reformers. The pre-statutory system had been based on the success of day industrial schools, first in Aberdeen and then in other Scottish towns. However as the statutory system had evolved the predominance of industrial schools containing a mix of boys and girls and both day pupils attending on a voluntary basis and pupils under court order, whether residential inmates or lodged out, had been eclipsed. By the 1870s most Scottish industrial schools were single sex residential boarding establishments where the majority were detained under court order. 107
As the schools were residential there was no perceived necessity to locate schools near children’s families and the system expanded to include a new form of industrial school, industrial training ships for boys sent under court warrant: the Mars on the Tay and the Cumberland on the Clyde. The Edinburgh Industrial Schools Complaints Books record very many cases of boys being sent to Mars from the early 1870s onwards.108 The frequency of committals from Edinburgh certainly lends weight to the view expressed by the Inspector’s Report that admissions to Mars were ‘much too rapid.’109 He had a similar comment to make about Cumberland training ship. 110
107 See Twelfth Report, 1868, p.18. See too Ralston (1988), 51.
108 In many of these cases petitions were presented by parents alleging that children were beyond control, that they were keeping bad company such as the company of thieves and that the parents were concerned about them falling into crime. A typical case is that of John McQueen Cameron on 28th July 1874. The petitioner was John’s mother who said that he was unruly, that he was not attending school and that he was in danger of falling into crime. The magistrate considered the petition, examined the mother and also made inquiry into statements of another woman said to be ‘interested in John Cameron’s welfare.’ The magistrate made an order under section 16 of the Industrial Schools Act 1866 sending John to Mars until the age of sixteen.
109 Page 121 of Thirteenth Report in 1870.
110 See too the Reformatory and Refuge Journal Report on the unorthodox methods employed by the Cumberland to enlist new recruits: ‘Meantime in Glasgow it is understood that the training ship Cumberland, lying in the Clyde, has agents at the law courts ready to seize on every boy they can get and this accounts for the empty state of the Glasgow reformatory. This conduct is certainly not of a kind to be encouraged or
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The Inspector’s Reports of the early 1870s were the last written by Sydney Turner. They make interesting reading. As one of the most significant figures in the English reformatory movement and Chaplain of Red Hill he had devoted many years to overseeing the development of the statutory system. In these final Reports he was clearly keen to offer his evaluation of how the system had evolved and to suggest improvements for the future. With the retiral of Sydney Turner in 1876 and the death of Mary Carpenter the following year there was a definite sense of handing the baton on and trying to ensure that the legacy of reform was left in good order. 111
The Report of 1875 is particularly interesting in its review of the development of the system over the years. Commenting on the UK system as a whole Turner noted that in the period since 1864 the number of reformatory schools had not increased and the number detained in them had not increased significantly, from four thousand three hundred in 1864 to five thousand in 1874. This contrasted with the expansion of industrial schools over the same period, both in terms of number and size. He noted that in 1861 when ‘the first effective Industrial Schools Act was passed for England’ there were thirty eight schools, mainly in Scotland, containing four hundred and eighty eight children, while at the end of 1874 there were one hundred and four schools throughout the UK with eleven thousand four hundred children. He attributed this increase to the schools being used ‘as asylums for children who should naturally have been placed under the care of parish authorities or as a means of relief and charitable assistance for those whom the poverty or carelessness of their parents left without adequate protection or support.’112 He added that ‘so long, indeed, as children can be freely sent at any age under fourteen for six or seven or more years detention in these schools as being orphans or ‘without proper guardianship’, that is practically because their parents are too poor or too indifferent to maintain and control them properly, new schools will be required and existing schools will be pressed to enlarge their accommodation to an almost unlimited extent.’113 In his view the schools had achieved a great deal in reducing juvenile crime and juvenile vagrancy but they had been overused and should have been reserved for ‘the vagrant, the vicious and the half criminal.’114 This attitude was far less approved. The boys only who wish to become sailors, it humbly seems to me, should be taken to such ships.’Volume 1872-1875, page 383.
111 Mary Carpenter died in 1877, at the age of seventy. Watson died in 1887, at the age of ninety one.
112 Eighteenth Report, 1875, page 4.
113 ibid, page 4.
114 ibid.,page 4. In relation to reformatories he considered that the ‘old idea’ that boys sent to reformatories were ‘in any real sense a criminal or especially vicious or depraved’ was far from being accurate: most boys in
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inclusive than that of the original Scottish reformers: when they had established the first industrial schools they were happy to embrace all genuinely destitute children although of course their vision was centred on the idea of the day industrial school, not residential institutions.
By the mid 1870s the original reformers were ready to attempt to reclaim their central vision of the day industrial school. Watson recorded in his autobiography that he attended a conference in Edinburgh of managers of industrial and reformatory schools in May 1875 where he spoke on a subject close to his heart, that of the importance of ‘powers of parents to custody of their own children.’115 He also noted that he discussed with Baroness Burdett Coutts the issue of day industrial schools:
‘She entirely agreed with my view on day industrial feeding schools as it was impossible by the Certified Board and lodging schools to undertake the class of children for whom the industrial school was originally intended.’116
Spurred on by such support Watson engaged enthusiastically in a campaign to introduce day industrial schools to Glasgow. Despite his advanced age he put in a valiant effort in writing to newspapers, publishing papers and supporting campaigners. He also rallied support for a parallel campaign in England run by the elderly but still indomitable reformer, Mary Carpenter.117 Glasgow responded to the call for reform by recourse to local legislation, as it had in the 1840s when the Houses of Refuge were set up. In 1878 local legislation was used to provide a statutory basis for day industrial schools much like the original schools set up in Aberdeen, Glasgow and other Scottish towns in the 1840s, a significant development for the city and one which set Glasgow apart from other Scottish cities in some respects.118 This was another successful appeal to the Glasgow ethic of local civic responsibility and
reformatories were there for ‘trifling offences, more the result of circumstances than depraved intention’. In more than half the cases the boys had no previous conviction and were sent to remove them from bad influences likely to lead them ‘into criminal habits’ (page 14).
115By this he meant that children should be able to remain at home with their parents rather than being sent to residential establishments.
116 Watson, W., My Life, Volume 4. Baroness Angela Burdett Coutts was an extremely wealthy English philanthropist.
117 In England this campaign had a successful outcome resulting in an amendment to the Elementary Education Act 1876 (39 & 40 Vict., cap.79) to make provision for day industrial schools. This was a final triumph for Mary Carpenter.
118 Glasgow Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Repression Act 1878 (41 &42 Vict., cap. cxxi). Under s.30 of the Act of 1878 certified day feeding schools were introduced in Glasgow.
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accountability. It took a further fifteen years for Scotland to implement national legislation providing for day industrial schools.119