Imogen Lee

Goldsmiths, University of London, History, Alumna

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My thesis provides the first comprehensive examination of how children’s abilities were ‘classified’ and managed in London, following the creation of school places under the 1870 Elementary Education Act. It explores how new schools (known as Board Schools), shaped and were shaped by the diverse social, physical and mental capabilities of London’s children. I argue it was only through administering the 1870 Education Act across such a diverse city that a right to schooling was shown to be not enough, children needed a right to learn. Yet learning was not uniform and different authorities could not agree on how and what children needed for successful learning. The idea of the Board School and its students would become increasingly pluralistic.

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Articles by Imogen Lee

"Ragged Schools" (Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians, British Library, 2013)

Ragged Schools provided free education for children too poor to receive it elsewhere. Imogen Lee ... more

"Angry Young Hope" (History Workshop Journal, April 2011)

A short photo-essay documenting the use of protest placards during the anti-cut demonstrations of... more

"Negotiating Responsibility: Ideas of protecting and disciplining the child in London schools 1908 and 1918" (Crimes and Misdemeanours, SOLON Journal, 2010)

This article aims to contextualise notions of state care and responsibility as set out by the Lon... more This article aims to contextualise notions of state care and responsibility as set out by the London County Council in their suggested amendments to the 1908 Children’s Bill. It discusses the relationships and environments which surrounded London schools, children and parents and how these may have influenced national debate. The research focuses on three schools in Woolwich, a peripheral London borough that ranged from an industrial heartland to a middle-class suburb. I argue that particularly amongst working class families and those with children deemed ‘defected,’ teachers had to negotiate where a parent’s authority and care for a child stopped and the school’s began.

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Conference Papers by Imogen Lee

"‘Love of study and of the school’. Ideas of love and happiness in London’s schools 1870-1904," Rethinking the History of Childhood: Narratives, Sources, Deabtes, Centre for the Study of Play and Recreation (Greenwich), January 2012

In 1874 the School Board for London's Chief Architect, E.R. Robson, argued that ‘If real educatio... more In 1874 the School Board for London's Chief Architect, E.R. Robson, argued that ‘If real educational influence is to be exerted, the children must first be made happy.’ Robson was involved in designing over 500 elementary schools in London, his book School Architecture, show cased some of the first Board schools to be built in London, but while Robson claimed that London’s schools, both in their instruction and buildings were planned with a continual eye on promoting ‘a love of study and of the school,’ could love and happiness, be planned, how did such ideas work in practice?

'A Neighbourhood of this Sort.' How Southwark Shaped Ideas of Child and School: Orange Street Elementary 1870-1904 (Metropolitan History Seminar, IHR, 2012)

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Desks: mementoes and the reconstruction of histories

Written for the "Pleasures of History" symposium in celebration of the historian Sally Alexander,... more Written for the "Pleasures of History" symposium in celebration of the historian Sally Alexander, this paper examined the object of the desk as a public display of private histories. Through a combination of memoir and the history of education the paper explored how personal histories are constructed and reconstructed through material culture and academic research.

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Event Managment by Imogen Lee

Goldsmiths Christmas History Lecture: Department of History Christmas Lecture: Professor Howard Caygill - Kafka and the ‘World of Insurance’

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An Education

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Papers by Imogen Lee

"'Sometimes it was necessary, for the sake of the class, to exclude a hopeless case.' London's elementary schools and the origins of 'classification' 1870-1904," (British History Seminar, IHR, May 2012 )

This paper traces the structure and management of elementary schooling in order to understand how... more This paper traces the structure and management of elementary schooling in order to understand how children’s academic differences began to be identified or, as it was known, classified, in London’s elementary schools and how they inturn were managed under the SBL. It examines the role of Government funding, the HMIs who administered it and what they understood to be a school’s responsibility. And it reveals how the circumstances of individual schools and its children could affect teachers and in turn force the SBL and the Education Department to reconsider how teaching and students should be judged.