Sunday School

A Sunday school is an institution designed to teach people, usually children, about Christianity, named such because most Christian churches meet on Sunday.

Sunday schools were first set up in the 1780s to provide education to working children on their one day off from the factory. It was proposed by Robert Raikes, editor of the Gloucester Journal in an article in his Journal and supported by many clergymen. It aimed to teach the youngsters reading, writing and cyphering and a knowledge of the Bible. It was a full 90 years in 1870 before children could attend schools during the week.

In 1785 it was reported that 250,000 children were attending Sunday School- there were 5000 in Manchester alone. By 1895, the 'Society for the Establishment and Promotion of Sunday Schools' had distributed 91,915 spelling books, 24,232 Testaments and 5,360 Bibles. The Sunday School movement was cross-denominational, and through subscription built large buildings that could host public lectures as well as classrooms. In the early days, adults would attend the same classes as the infants, as each were instructed in basic reading. In some towns the Methodists withdrea from the Large Sunday School and built their own, and the Anglicans set up their own 'National' schools that would act as Sunday Schools and day schools. These schools were the precursors to a national system of education, and the churches dominance in primary school provision till the present day.

The role of the Sunday Schools changed with the Education Act 1870, in the 1920 the promoted sports, and it was common for teams to compete in a Sunday School League. They were social centres hosting amateur dramatics and concert parties. By the 1960s, the term Sunday School could refer to the building and not to any education classes, and by the 1970s even largest Sunday School at Stockport had been demolished. From then Sunday School became the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.