Although the phrase ‘Sunday school’ now tends to be greeted with condescension, when Robert Raikes created the first modern Sunday schools it was a revolutionary answer to a desperate social need.
Raikes was born in 1735 in Gloucester. His father was editor on the Gloucester Journal, a local paper with a wide circulation. Raikes took over his father’s newspaper business in his twenties and, a shrewd and conscientious manager, saw it prosper. He was a regular attender of services at Gloucester Cathedral and knew the great eighteenth-century evangelists John and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield. He married Anne Trigge in 1767 and they had ten children.
The late eighteenth century was a time of great social instability in Britain. The Agricultural Revolution and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution had resulted in thousands moving into the cities for work. The results included poverty and violence, something reflected in the shockingly overcrowded and unhygienic prisons. Raikes, a courageous man with a social conscience and a friend of prison reformer John Howard, was a regular prison visitor. As editor he used his newspaper for ‘crusading journalism’, highlighting injustices and appealing for food, clothing and financial help for prisoners.
As he struggled with the problem of prisons, Raikes concluded that the best response was to stop people being imprisoned and that here education was the key. At this time upper-class children were taught at home by tutors, middle-class children might go to a local grammar school but there was nothing for the children of the poor. In fact, it was common for such children to work up to thirteen hours a day, six days a week and on Sunday, their only free day, they often simply ran wild.
Raikes decided to try to remedy this education gap and in 1780, with the support of the local vicar Revd Thomas Stock, started a Sunday school. Concerned to share the gospel and give people the ability to read the Bible, Raikes also had writing and mathematics taught. His Sunday schools started at ten in the morning and, with a lunch break and a church service, continued until five o’clock. Raikes brought his considerable business and organisational skills to bear on his Sunday schools: he had a roll call and kept attendance records. Deeply involved personally, he used his own funds to support schools, pay for teachers when needed, and even gave shoes and clothing to children who needed them.
Surprising as it may seem, Raikes’ desire to educate the poor was not universally popular. Some people felt that education might encourage the ‘lower class’ to be discontent and ‘think above their station’, a process that might lead to a shortage of servants or revolution. Some churches were unhappy, feeling that Sunday schools might undermine religious education at home and that they were a violation of the Sabbath. To counter such negative views, Raikes wisely used his paper to promote his schools. He also received open support from influential people such as John Wesley and the pioneer economist Adam Smith. Another factor was the realisation that the Industrial Revolution was increasingly demanding a workforce who could read and do calculations.
The Sunday school movement grew with astonishing rapidity. By 1788 there were 300,000 children attending local Sunday schools. Raikes died in 1811 at the age of seventy-four; twenty years later, a quarter of all children in England attended a Sunday school. They had an enormous impact and the values they taught shaped the Victorian era. They led the way in education, and the gradual abolition of child labour meant children could be educated during the week. Eventually, in 1870 universal elementary education was introduced. Sunday schools, however, remained a major and very influential part of British society until well into the late twentieth century.
There is much to admire in what Robert Raikes did.
Consider Raikes’ perception. The problems of late-eighteenth-century Britain were widely known but also widely overlooked. Raikes had the wisdom of seeing social problems with a deep, thoughtful and spiritual insight. Sadly, there’s no shortage of problems today that could use a similar godly wisdom and insight.
Consider, too, Raikes’ sense of purpose. Having identified the problem he didn’t just lament it or publish angry editorials about it. He set about doing something and, in the way in which he founded his Sunday schools, we can see a powerful and energetic determination that would not easily be deterred. Raikes knew what he wanted to achieve and he made it happen. Oh, for similar purposeful action for God’s kingdom today!
Finally, consider something that might be easily overlooked: Raikes’ practicality. Without, it seems, drama or crises, Raikes organised his pattern of Sunday school teaching in a way that worked. He managed well and wisely, made friends, presented facts and used publicity – all to good effect. Raikes pioneered a programme and a pattern that other people were able to replicate and build on. It’s all too easy to neglect the practical ability to organise that Raikes had. Sadly, the reality is that so many good and godly schemes sink because of a lack of practical and preserving insight. The ability to organise and manage is a God-given gift: use it for Christ’s kingdom.
Today’s world has different needs to those that troubled Raikes: I don’t think our churches need to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. Nevertheless, I think it’s clear that the need for the faithful teaching of God’s word – the Bible – has never been more urgent. Now may be the time to revisit the vision that Raikes had and see what we, in our time, can do with it.
J.John
Reverend Canon
