Clara Grant was a remarkable teacher who worked in the East End of London in the early twentieth century and was known as ‘The Angel of Bow’. The area was marked on the Map of London Poverty created by Charles Booth as ‘very poor’. Most of the men were unskilled, casual labourers and were frequently unemployed (Grant, 1905). The children visibly suffered from malnutrition.
Inspired by the work of the German pedagogue Friedrich Froebel (1782 – 1852), she believed that schools should address all of a child’s needs, and by extension the needs of the family and the community which inevitably shaped the child’s experience. She understood that there was no point in trying to educate the intellects of children who were lacking the necessities of life – warm clothing, fresh air, sleep and of course nourishing food. Using the model of the settlement movement, in which middle-class young people moved to working-class areas to carry out philanthropic work., she established the “Fern Street School Settlement”, based around the school at which she was headteacher, in 1907. It was very important to her that she should live in the area herself and get to know the families as her neighbours.
Even before the formal founding of the settlement, she recognised the centrality of feeding the children and was on the executive committee of the Poplar School Children’s Meals Association. She provided breakfasts for about 50 infants at the school. Parents who could manage it were asked to pay a penny a week. Those who couldn’t were asked to contribute in other ways – by washing the tablecloths, for example. Like many middle-class people of her time (and later), Grant was very concerned about the ill-effects on parents’ morals if they received something for nothing. Crucially, though, her main priority was to ensure that the children did not suffer. The settlement was established just after the passing of the School Meals Act (1906) so that Grant could relinquish the responsibility of feeding the children to the County Council, which she did with pleasure. Ever the pragmatist, she firmly believed in joined up working both with other charities and with political authorities. Her role was to show what was possible and point the way forward.
Clara Grant’s lasting legacy stems from her understanding that schools can be an effective cog in the fight against child hunger and poverty. For Grant, the personal touch was important. She expected a lot of herself and a lot of other staff– perhaps more than was realistic. London County Council Education Minutes suggest that she sometimes had ‘strained’ relationships with her teachers. As we continue to build on her work by asking schools to offer more and more ‘wrap-around care’ and holiday provision, let’s make sure it happens in a sustainable way with proper long-term funding and that staff are treated fairly and paid appropriately.
References
Grant, C. (1905) Work and Clo Fund, London: Penny and Hull
See also
Grant, C. (1929) Farthing Bundles, London: Fern Street Settlement
Palmer, A. (2021) Clara Grant (1867 – 1949), Implementing Froebelian Pedagogy in an East London Slum in Palmer A. and Read, J. British Froebelian Women from the Mid-Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century, London: Routledge.
Picture Reference
Clara Ellen Grant taken by unknown photographer, c. 1920, Wikimedia Commons
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