Social Control or Protection of the Child? the Debates On the Industrial Schools Acts 1857—1894

Abstract

Industrial schools were the first state-funded institutions for the protection of children. The debates surrounding their establishment and enlargement illuminate a unique relationship between the state, the family, and the child. From the 1850s and 1860s when the state first began to grapple with the notion of intervening in family privacy, to the 1870s and 1880s when the concept and boundaries of childhood were affirmed, the protection of children from want and neglect was the motivation behind the institutions. Industrial schools were the state's solution to the care of children until fin-de-siècle England saw their popularity wane. Twentieth-century child policy has subsequently promoted family, rather than child, protection.