Kay-Shuttleworth, Sir James Phillips

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Kay-Shuttleworth, Sir James Phillips (1804–77). Administrator and founder of the English education system. Educated at Edinburgh University, he studied medicine and graduated as a doctor in 1827. Working in Manchester, Kay (Shuttleworth was added after his marriage) quickly became aware of the suffering of the poor and interested himself in sanitary and educational reform. He was appointed assistant Poor Law commissioner in 1835 in the eastern counties and London area, writing valuable reports on the training of pauper children. Kay-Shuttleworth's opportunity to develop national education came in 1839 when he was appointed secretary to the Committee of the Privy Council. For the next ten years, until his health broke down, he worked with great zeal to establish a public system of elementary education, supervised by a national body of inspectors. He was responsible for the first training college for teachers at Battersea in 1840, with students from Norwood Pauper School.

Peter Gordon

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