Belton is a village in north-west Leicestershire, near Shepshed and 6 miles west of Loughborough. The parish includes the previously extra-parochial liberty of Grace Dieu.
Daily schools for poorer families in 1818 (population in 1811, 554)
Belton returned ‘None’. It was commented that ‘The poor would be happy to have better means of educating their children’.
Daily schools in 1833 (population in 1831, 735)
There was one daily school with a total of 26 students (14 males, 12 females). This education was paid for by their parents.
Daily schools connected to the Anglican Church in 1846-7
There was one ‘Sunday and Day’ school with a total of 76 males and 75 females and one paid mistress. The Mistress was paid £23 10 shillings and the total cost of maintaining the school was £43. It was commented that ‘A Night School, under a master, for the sake of those children who are at work during the day, would be extremely useful’.
Sunday schools
In 1818
There were two Sunday Schools in total. One was in the established church for twenty children, and another at the Baptist Chapel for thirty children.
In 1833
There were three Sunday Schools in 1833: one attached to the parish church, which had 54 females, which was supported by an annual donation of £6 6s. from Edward Dawson Esq; another in connection with the General Baptists with 42 males and 13 females and finally one in connection with the Methodists for 50 males which began in 1821. The latter two were supported by subscription.
Anglican Sunday school in 1846-7
There were 42 males and 20 females who attended the ‘Sunday and Day’ school, also 31 males and 53 females attended only the Sunday school.
In 1851 (population 719, plus 32 in Grace Dieu)
Over the three months to 30 March 1851, the Parish Church Sunday School had an average of 108 Sunday scholars in the morning and 120 in the evening and the Baptist Chapel had an average of 34 Sunday Scholars each Sunday. The Wesleyan Chapel did not have a Sunday School. St Mary’s Roman Catholic Chapel in Grace Dieu manor had an average of 60 Sunday Scholars in the morning and 60 in the afternoon.
Return to A History of Leicestershire Schools: A-Z
Sources
- Education of the Poor Digest, Parl. Papers 1819 (224)
- Education Enquiry, Parl. Papers 1835 (62)
- National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, Result of the Returns to the General Inquiry made by the National Society, into the state and progress of schools for the education of the poor … during the years 1846-7, throughout England and Wales ( London, 1849).
- 1851 Ecclesiastical census