| AdminHistory | The first regular connection with what the BFSS called the "North American Colonies" was established with Nova Scotia when the Lancasterian system was introduced into a school in Halifax in 1813. This was the result of the work of Captain Walter Bromley who had been an officer in the Peninsular War and later became an agent for the BFSS. In 1815 he founded the Royal Acadian Institution which received a small grant from the Legislature and books and school materials from the BFSS in London. By 1818 the school was said to have educated 1035 children. [Annual Report 1818 p59]. The Royal Acadian Institution received substantial assistance from Earl Dalhousie, the Governor of the Colony, who made it a grant of buildings and land to serve as a Model Schools for the training of Lancasterian teachers. [AR 1819 p69]. Plans were made to extend the British system into smaller towns and villages in Nova Scotia. By 1823 however the Society was struggling to support its schools in Nova Scotia and had resorted to charging fees. [AR 1823 pp110-121].
Bromley returned to England in 1824 and very little is heard of the Royal Acadian Institution in subsequent reports. The last reference is in 1846 and refers to a grant of school materials made by the BFSS. [AR 1846 p26].
In May 1814 as a result of the efforts of Rev Thaddeus Cagood, a missionary, the second Lancasterian School in Canada was opened at Quebec. In 1823 Thomas Hutchings arrived there from Borough Road, to take charge of a school there with a view to introducing the system throughout the province of Upper Canada. [AR 1823 p122].
In 1823 an auxiliary society was formed, The British and Canadian School Society, which reported good relations with the Catholic priests in Montreal. The BCSS was transferred to the Protestant Board of Education in 1866. Such societies bore the burden of elementary education until the North American Act of 1867 gave control of educational administration to the Provincial Government.
[McGarry thesis 1966, abridged PJC Nov 2011] |