The historical context of literacy

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The historical context of literacy

• Professor David Vincent
• PVC Strategy, Planning External Affairs

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European male literacy1800 - 1914
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European female literacy 1800 - 1914
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Annual percentage males females unable to sign
at marriage 1839 -1912 (EW)
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Number of books published in the UK

• 1828 842
• 2005 206,000

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Occupational literacy of grooms 1839 - 1914
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Literacy by generation 1859 - 1914
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Literacy by age 1839 - 1914
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Thomas Cooper, shoemaker

• Historical reading, or the grammar of some
  language, or translation, was my first employment
  on week-day mornings, whether I rose at three or
  four, until seven oclock, when I sat down to the
  stall. A book or a periodical in my hand while I
  breakfasted, gave me another half-hours reading,
  I had another half-hour, and sometimes an hours
  reading or study of language, at from one to two
  oclock, the time of dinner usually eating my
  food with a spoon, after I had cut in pieces, and
  having my eyes on a book all the time. I sat at
  work till eight, and sometimes nine, at night
  and then, either read, or walked about our little
  room and committed Hamlet to memory, or the
  rhymes of some modern poet, until compelled to go
  to bed from sheer exhaustion

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John Sykes Slawit in the Sixties

• There was a billposter who could neither read or
  write, neither did he give a straw for those who
  could. At one place he had posted a bill the
  wrong way up, and when a bystander asked him how
  the folks were to read the bill, he walked away
  swearing that they could do as they liked, they
  could stand on their heads if they wanted to