ABSTRACT
One of the most interesting aspects of the English infant school movement is the preponderance of Swedenborgians among the first infant teachers. In addition to Buchanan and Wilderspin, the most important was David Goyder, a former printer, and brother of the minister at St. George's Fields Temple; a considerable but neglected figure in the early infant school movement, Goyder became superintendent of the third English infant school opened at Bristol in 1821. James Slade, a former brazier from Reading, and a member of St. George's Fields' congregation in Wilderspin's time, went to Bristol as master of Temple Infant School in 1825. William Carter, who began life as a Rutlandshire labourer, also found his way to St. George's Fields, where he was baptised a Swedenborgian in 1816 at the age of 23, taught in the Sunday school there and later took over an infant school in Chelmsford. These teachers retained close links with each other throughout the 1820s and all had their children baptised at St. George's Fields, despite their residence elsewhere. 1 J. Chalklen, who taught in London, was another New Churchman 2 and C.F. Lewis, first master of Alstone Infant School and later Wilderspin's agent, was at least exceedingly sympathetic to the doctrines of the sect.3
