Joseph Lancaster, 1778-1838

Joseph Lancaster opened his first monitorial school in the Borough Road, Southwark, London in 1798. This school incorporated the first teacher training college thus giving Lancaster a claim to be regardedas the founding father of modern education for all. Lancaster reasoned that if a qualified teacher instructed a small number of intelligent children in school (monitors) then these, in turn, might pass their knowledge on to a larger number of pupils and so a basic curriculum could be quickly and cheaply transmitted. His success was immediate and King George III became Lancaster's royal patron.

Lancasterian schools rapidly spread across The British Isles all of them using an identical daily manual prepared by Joseph Lancaster and his successors, The British & Foreign School Society founded in 1814. The United States welcomed the great innovation and in 1809, the Governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton, described it thus, Its tree of knowledge has flourished with uncommon vigour and beauty, its luxurious and wide-spread branches afford shelter to all who require it, its ambrosial fragrance fills the land and its head reaches the heavens.

This "tree of knowledge flourished" in Washington, New York, Annapolis, Lexington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and many other towns and cities. Schools opened in British America (Canada), South America, France, Spain, and in Africa and parts of Asia. William Allen 1770 - 1843, Quaker Educationalist, chemist and sometime treasurer off The B & FSS befriended Czar Alexander 1 of Russia and the first Lancasterian school opened in St.Petersburg in 1823.

In 1817 Lancaster went to the U.S.A. to live. Tragically, he died under a carriage in New York in 1838. His grave may be found in Brooklyn.