ABSTRACT
The Society for Educating the Poor of Newfoundland, or the Newfoundland School Society — the name by which, despite subsequent changes of title, it was always known — was founded in London in 1823 to provide schools and teachers for the children of the island's fishermen. 1 It was the first organisation to be set up in Britain with the specific aim of educating the poor in one of Britain's colonial possessions. Originating with a group of merchants trading to Newfoundland, led by the Evangelical Samuel Codner, the Society rapidly gained the moral and material support of the British Government; not only did it receive relatively large grants of money ten years before such grants were made to educational bodies in Britain, but the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, appointed himself the society's first Vice-Patron and the Colonial Secretary, Lord Bathurst, and the Colonial Under-Secretary, Wilmot Horton, became office-holders.
