ABSTRACT
Selected Cuttings relating to the Certified Industrial Schools at Ardwick Green and Barnes’ Home, Manchester, 1876–1902. Originally private institutions funded by subscription, industrial schools came under the remit of the Privy Council for Education in 1857 after the Industrial Schools Bill, introduced to parliament by the Conservative politician Sir Charles Adderley. The 1866 Amendment Act raised the age of children detained in industrial schools to sixteen. An 1891 Act severed any rights of the parent over a child in an industrial school to prevent parents claiming children on their departure from the school. This provision was based on the supposition that parents’ prime interest in offspring was their exploitation for financial gain. According to the social historian Marianne Moore, industrial schools were one of the first ‘child protection’ agencies, although historians have generally perceived the institutions as geared towards the social control of working-class subjects.
