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LEARNING TO TEACH
ENGLISH IN THE
SECONDARY SCHOOL

How do you approach teaching English in the modern classroom?

What is expected of a would-be English teacher?
This best-selling textbook combines theory and practice to present a broad
introduction to the opportunities and challenges of teaching English in secondary
school classrooms. Each chapter explains the background to debates about teaching
the subject and provides tasks, practical teaching approaches and further reading
to explore issues and ideas in relation to school experience.
Already a major text for many university teacher education courses, this new
edition has been thoroughly updated in the light of recent revisions to the National
Curriculum for English, examination syllabuses and the Standards for Qualified
Teacher Status. As well as containing critical explorations of the history and definitions
of the subject and policies such as the Secondary National Strategy that are
appropriate to Professional and Masters level PGCE study, other chapters present
a broad range of effective, innovative approaches to teaching such crucial areas as:
I reading and writing, speaking and listening
I drama
I media studies and information and communications technology
I grammar, poetry and language study
I Shakespeare
I post-16 English language and literature.
Written particularly with the new and student teacher in mind, this book offers
principles and practical examples of teaching and learning within a twenty-first
century context in which new notions of literacy compete with demands of national
assessment. Taking these changing principles as a starting point, the text also
addresses questions about the nature of initial teacher preparation and raises issues
concerning standards-based teacher education, mentoring in schools and monitoring
the development of a student teacher.
Jon Davison has been Professor of Teacher Education in four UK universities
including the Institute of Education, University of London, where he was also Dean.
Jane Dowson is Reader in Twentieth-Century Literature within the Department of
English, De Montfort University.
LEARNING TO TEACH SUBJECTS IN THE SECONDARY
SCHOOL SERIES
Series Editors: Susan Capel, Marilyn Leask and Tony Turner
Designed for all students learning to teach in secondary schools, and particularly those on
school-based initial teacher training courses, the books in this series complement Learning
to Teach in the Secondary School and its companion, Starting to Teach in the Secondary
School. Each book in the series applies underpinning theory and addresses practical issues
to support students in school and in the training institution in learning how to teach a particular
subject.

Learning to Teach in the Secondary Learning to Teach Mathematics in the

School, 5th edition Secondary School, 2nd edition
Edited by Susan Capel, Marilyn Leask Edited by Sue Johnston-Wilder, Peter
and Tony Turner Johnston-Wilder, David Pimm and John
Learning to Teach Art and Design in the Westwell
Secondary School, 2nd edition Learning to Teach Modern Foreign
Edited by Nicholas Addison and Languages in the Secondary
Lesley Burgess School, 3rd edition
Norbert Pachler, Ann Barnes and Kit
Learning to Teach Citizenship in the
Field
Secondary School, 2nd edition
Edited by Liam Gearon Learning to Teach Music in the
Secondary School, 2nd edition
Learning to Teach Design and
Edited by Chris Philpott and Gary
Technology in the Secondary
Spruce
School, 2nd edition
Learning to Teach Physical Education in
Edited by Gwyneth Owen-Jackson
the Secondary School, 2nd edition
Learning to Teach English in the Edited by Susan Capel
Secondary School, 3rd edition
Learning to Teach Religious Education
Edited by Jon Davison and Jane
in the Secondary School, 2nd edition
Dowson
Edited by L. Philip Barnes, Andrew
Learning to Teach Geography in the Wright and Ann-Marie Brandom
Secondary School, 2nd edition Learning to Teach Science in the
David Lambert and David Secondary School, 2nd edition
Balderstone Edited by Jenny Frost and Tony Turner
Learning to Teach History in the Learning to Teach Using ICT in the
Secondary School, 3rd edition Secondary School, 2nd edition
Edited by Terry Haydn, James Arthur, Edited by Marilyn Leask & Norbert
Martin Hunt and Alison Stephen Pachler
Learning to Teach ICT in the Secondary Starting to Teach in the Secondary
School School, 2nd edition
Edited by Steve Kennewell, John Edited by Susan Capel, Ruth Heilbronn,
Parkinson and Howard Tanner Marilyn Leask & Tony Turner
LEARNING TO
TEACH ENGLISH
IN THE SECONDARY
SCHOOL
A companion to
school experience
3rd Edition

Edited by
Jon Davison and
Jane Dowson
First published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2009 Jon Davison and Jane Dowson for editorial material and selection.
Individual contributors, their contribution.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Learning to teach English in the secondary school: a companion
to school experience/edited by Jon Davison and Jane Dowson.
—3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. English language—Study and teaching (Secondary)—Great
Britain. 2. English literature—Study and teaching (Secondary)—
Great Britain. 3. English teachers—Training of—Great Britain.
I. Davison, Jon, 1949–. II. Dowson, Jane, 1955–.
LB1631.L333 2009
428.0071′241—dc22 2008046096

ISBN 0-203-87114-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–49165–7 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0–415–49166–5 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–87114–6 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978–0–415–49165–5 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978–0–415–49166–2 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–87114–0 (ebk)
 CONTENTS

List of illustrations ix
List of contributors x

Introduction to the third edition xiv

JON DAVISON AND JANE DOWSON

Introduction to the second edition xvi

JON DAVISON AND JANE DOWSON

Introduction to the first edition xviii

JON DAVISON AND JANE DOWSON

1 Which English? 1
JOHN MOSS
I introduction: where are you coming from? I the diversity of English
I the Cox Report’s five views of English I consensus or compromise?
I principled positions I the National Curriculum: English (2007) I

futures I summary and key points I further reading I

2 Battles for English 20

JON DAVISON
I introduction I the nineteenth century I English and the Board of

Education I the Newbolt Report I the 1930s I Leavis I English

teaching postwar I English from 5 to 16 I Language in the National
Curriculum (LINC) I English in the National Curriculum I Key Stage
4 and General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) I revisions,
revisions: 1993–2007 I revision of the National Curriculum I
summary and key points I further reading I

v I
CONTENTS I I I I

3 Working with the National Curriculum 44

MORIETTE LINDSAY AND JOHN YANDELL
I introduction I the history of the National Curriculum I framing

the subject: the purposes of English I authorised versions: the

National Curriculum and the canon I planning I planning at
Key Stage 4 I a bigger picture? I summary and key points
I further reading I

4 The Secondary National Strategy 62

JO WESTBROOK
I introduction I historical context of the National Curriculum and
the National Literacy Strategy I the legacy of the four-part lesson
plan I a clash of pedagogies: criticisms of the NLS I a snapshot
of English teaching from 2001 to 2007 I so have standards in
English risen? I the new National Curriculum and Secondary
Framework I summary and key points I further reading I
acknowledgements I

5 Speaking and listening 79

GABRIELLE CLIFF HODGES
I introduction I observing speaking and listening I exploring

differences between spoken and written language I exploring variety

in spoken language I planning and organising classrooms for speaking
and listening I speaking and listening and information and
communications technology (ICT) I progression and assessment in
speaking and listening I summary and key points I further reading
I acknowledgements I

6 Reading 103
CAROLINE DALY
I introduction I reading in the National Curriculum I the National
Strategy for Key Stage 3 I making meanings out of texts I reading
strategies: individual, group, whole class I supporting progression:
reading the unfamiliar I assessment I summary and key points I
further reading I websites I

7 Writing 134
JOHN MOSS
I introduction I what you know about learning to write I writing and

the processes of English I writing and learning I the social dynamics

of writing in the classroom I genre I audience and publication I
formative assessment and evaluation I summary and key points I
further reading I

I vi
8 Teaching language and grammar 158
ANNE TURVEY
I introduction I grammar: implicit and explicit knowledge about
language I grammar: making use of a shared metalanguage I
exploring use and theorising structure I analysing language in literature
and children’s writing I summary and key points I further reading I

9 Media education and ICT 178

ELAINE SCARRATT AND ROB M C INNES
I introduction I outlining the field I Media Studies I media languages
I media representations I media audiences I institution I media
qualifications I GCSE Media Studies I A level Media Studies
I media education I moving images for literacy and media literacy

resources I media literacy I why study the media? Interrogating

cultural attitudes I some issues to consider about media in English
I continuing professional development (CPD) I ICT and the English

curriculum I using ICT in English I assessment, reporting and pupil

tracking I professional development and the learning community
I summary and key points I further reading and resources I

10 Drama 218
JOHN MOSS
I introduction I drama and the National Curriculum for English I the
identity of school curriculum drama I the character of drama in schools
I working conditions for risk-taking drama I drama games I

movement and mime exercises I improvisation I working with texts

I working methods in drama teaching I structuring drama lessons
I summary and key points I further reading I

11 Approaching Shakespeare 242

JOHN YANDELL AND ANTON FRANKS
I introduction I starting points – knowledge, attitudes and obstacles I
historical contexts I the text: playwright, company and the conditions
of production I authenticity and interpretation: production histories
and contemporary Shakespeares I assessment I summary and key
points I further reading I

12 Possibilities with poetry 260

GABRIELLE CLIFF HODGES
I introduction I the need for a rationale I planning poetry lessons
I poetry across the age range I early Key Stage 3: the pleasures of
poetry I later in Key Stage 3: focusing on interpretation I DARTs
I entering Key Stage 4: the challenges of criticism I summary and

key points I further reading I

vii I
CONTENTS I I I I

13 Teaching English at 16+: BTEC, Key Skills and

GCE A level 287
PETER GILBERT AND VERONICA RAYBOULD
I introduction I BTEC and Applied GCE levels I what is a BTEC
qualification? I communication I assessment criteria I tests and proxy
qualifications I organisation I the future of Key Skills I A level I
which course and which specification? I approaches to teaching at A
level I spelling, punctuation and grammar I preparing to teach A level
I summary and key points I resources I further reading I

14 Teaching English: critical practice 311

JON DAVISON AND JANE DOWSON
I introduction I student teacher development I monitoring
development I developing roles and relationships I reflection I further
reading I summary and key points I

Bibliography 328
Index 342

I viii
 ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

3.1 The canon 55

5.1 Teachers in detention 90
5.2 Speaking and listening record sheet 100
6.1 The range of reading in the secondary classroom 114
6.2 Lesson outline: exploring text 127
10.1 Qualities of movement 231
11.1 Developing Tray 247
11.2 Richard III in ten lines 249
13.1 Pupil’s essay 302

TABLES

1.1 Curriculum (2007) views of English 13

3.1 English KS3 and 4 Programmes of Study 50
3.2 Planning the first lesson on ‘Desiree’s Baby’ 56
3.3 Sample of work for Year 8 (a shared class novel) 57
4.1 Secondary Strategy Framework learning objectives 75
5.1 Observing speaking and listening 82
5.2 Analysing a transcript 86
6.1 Sources for texts 115
8.1 Layers of understanding about language 168
11.1 Working with a speech 247
14.1 Subject knowledge in relation to curriculum areas 317

ix I
 CONTRIBUTORS

Gabrielle Cliff Hodges is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of

Cambridge, Faculty of Education. She taught in three 11–18 comprehensive
schools in Cambridgeshire, in the last as Head of English, before moving
into teacher education in 1993. She co-ordinates and teaches on the
Secondary English/English and Drama PGCE courses, as well as contributing
to the MEd Researching Practice in Primary and Secondary Schools and
MPhil Approaches to Children’s Literature. From 1997–1998 she was Chair
of the National Association for the Teaching of English. She is the author
of Two Poems by John Keats (NATE, 1998) and co-editor of Tales, Teller
and Texts (Cassell, 2000). She has also published a number of chapters and
articles on reading, writing and language in secondary English teaching. Her
current research focuses on students’ development as readers, especially in
the early teenage years.
Caroline Daly is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the Institute of Education,
University of London. She taught English and drama in secondary schools
for eleven years, five of them as Head of English. She teaches on the
secondary English PGCE programme at the Institute of Education, and is a
tutor and module leader on the mixed mode Master of Teaching degree for
serving teachers. She has worked on a range of professional development
initiatives, including the London Challenge English Subject Network, and
outreach PGCE English development on Jersey. Her research areas are in
English teaching, gender in education and teachers’ professional development
in e-learning contexts. Publications include chapters in Issues in English
Teaching (Routledge, 2000), Gender in Education (ATL, 2004), Enhancing
Learning through Technology (Idea Group, 2006), and articles in Changing
English, The Journal of In-Service Education, E-Learning and Teaching
in Higher Education. She is co-editor of New Designs for Teachers’
Professional Learning (Bedford Way Papers, 2007).

Ix
 I I I I CONTRIBUTORS

Jon Davison has been Professor of Teacher Education in four universities including
the Institute of Education, University of London where he was also Dean.
His research interests include sociolinguistics, citizenship education and the
professional formation of teachers. From 2004–2006 he was co-director of
the KITE project researching the professional knowledge and identity of
teacher educators in English universities and from 2005–2008 was a member
of the Executive of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers.
Currently, he leads one of the projects in the national ‘Learning for Life’
project researching character education in the UK. Jon has lectured on
teacher education throughout Europe – from Finland to Portugal, as well as
in the USA, Canada, South Africa, China and Japan. He has published
extensively on the teaching and learning of English and teacher education –
most recently, Professional Values and Practice (Routledge, 2005). He
serves on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Educational Studies
and the Journal of Citizenship Teaching and Learning. He is a fellow of the
Royal Society of Arts and of the Higher Education Academy, consultant to
the Training and Development Agency for Schools, and Chair of the Society
for Educational Studies.
Jane Dowson is Reader in Twentieth-Century Literature at De Montfort University
where she co-ordinated the PGCE and B.Ed Secondary English courses at
the Bedford campus. She spent ten years teaching English in an upper school
and was a member of the Northamptonshire and East Midlands Flexible
Learning Working Parties. She was a participant in the National Shakespeare
in Schools Project 1992/3, sponsored by RSA and RSC. She contributed
chapters on the school curriculum to Learning to Teach in the Secondary
School (Routledge, 1995). She is on the steering group of the Contemporary
Women’s Writing Network and a contributor to the Oxford University
Press Modernist Magazines Project. Her publications include A History of
Twentieth-Century Women’s Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Anton Franks was a teacher of drama and English in London schools and now
teaches, researches and writes on drama and English in education at the
Institute of Education, University of London. Recent publications include:
English in Urban Classrooms (2004) with Kress et al; ‘Learning theory and
drama education . . .’ in Cultura y Educación, 2004, 16/1–2 and ‘School
drama and representations of war and terror . . .’ in Research in Drama
Education 13/1.
Peter Gilbert was educated for six years at Hull University and has taught English
in an upper school in the East Midlands for twenty-five years. He is an
experienced GCSE examiner and qualified verifier for GNVQ. Currently, he
is Deputy Head of Sixth with a responsibility for the delivery of Key Skills,
Communication Studies, ICT in English and General Studies.

xi I
CONTRIBUTORS I I I I

Moriette Lindsay has been teaching in urban schools for over twenty years,
including some of these as Head of English. Currently, she is a part time
Lecturer in Education at the Institute of Education, University of London
and still teaches English two days a week in an inner London school.
Rob McInnes is Head of Film and Media Studies at Forest Hill School, London.
He has taught and examined on a range of media studies and English courses
and has contributed to the development of several resources for secondary
teachers (including Screening Shorts, BFI). He is the author of a number of
articles, books and teaching materials on film and media including, most
recently, Teen Movies: A Teacher’s Guide and Classroom Resources (Auteur,
2008).
John Moss is Dean of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent.
A former Head of English, Drama and Media Studies in a large compre-
hensive school, he has taught undergraduate English and Drama at university
level and secondary PGCE courses for ten years. He is co-author of Subject
Mentoring in the Secondary School (Routledge, 1997), co-editor of Issues
in English Teaching (Routledge, 2000) and series editor of series of books
on citizenship in the secondary curriculum.
Veronica Raybould is currently Head of English at Weavers School, Welling-
borough. She has a particular interest in teaching and learning styles,
especially with regard to the transition from GCSE to AS.
Elaine Scarratt is Chair of the Media Education Association and a freelance media
advisor, teacher-educator and writer. She is an experienced media teacher
who has worked in several London schools, and was formerly Head of Media
at Christ the King VI Form College. She is an Associate Tutor of the British
Film Institute and Visiting Lecturer for London Metropolitan University’s
Secondary PGCE in English, Media and Drama. She delivers INSET for
teachers, events for students and writes resources for use in the classroom.
Recent publications include The Science Fiction Genre: A Teacher’s Guide
(Auteur, 2001), The Science Fiction Genre: Classroom Resources (Auteur,
2001), and The Media Studies Handbook (Routledge, 2009).
Anne Turvey was an English teacher and Head of Sixth Form in a London
secondary school for a number of years. She is now a lecturer in education
at the Institute of Education in London, where much of her work is with the
PGCE secondary English course and the Master of Teaching. She is Chair
of the London Association for the Teaching of English and a member of
the Initial Teacher Education committee of the National Association for the
Teaching of English. Her interests include: the development of subject
knowledge in the early stages of teaching; learning and teaching grammar;
literacy and gender.

I xii
 I I I I CONTRIBUTORS

Jo Westbrook is a senior lecturer in Education at the University of Sussex and

currently joint Programme Director of the PGCE Modular Programme.
Previously she was a Head of English and Media Studies at a London
comprehensive, completing an MA on the use of the shared reader in the
classroom. She then taught in Uganda for two years as an English Teacher
Trainer with VSO, undertaking Gender and Education work with other non-
governmental organisations. At Canterbury Christ Church University Jo
taught on the full-time English PGCE programme, and carried out research
on the underachievement of pupils at Key Stage 3 in English for QCA before
developing the new flexible route to PGCE in English. She has written
distance learning materials for secondary English in collaboration with three
other universities, published as The Complete Guide to Becoming an English
Teacher (Paul Chapman, 2003). Her interests focus on what is read in the
classroom, how, and by whom.
John Yandell taught in inner London secondary schools for twenty years,
including eleven years as Head of English Kingsland School, Hackney, and
three years as Head of the Ethnic Minority Achievement Team at Haverstock
School, Camden. He now leads the Secondary PGCE English and English
with Drama course (Initial Teacher Education) at the Institute of Education,
University of London. Recent publications have appeared in the British
Educational Research Journal, the Cambridge Journal of Education,
Changing English, English in Education and English Teaching: Practice and
Critique. He is currently engaged in research on how literature is read in
English classrooms.

xiii I
 INTRODUCTION
TO THE THIRD
EDITION

We still believe strongly in what we said in the Introduction to the first edition of
Learning to Teach English in the Secondary School about the nature of teaching
English and what it means to be a teacher of English. We hope you will find the
time to read what we wrote in 1997, as it is still, perhaps more, relevant eleven
years on.
However, as the Introduction to the second edition of this book noted, the
final paragraph of the Introduction to the first edition begins, ‘It is a truism that
what is most up-to-date is quickly dated’. Four years on and plus ça change, plus
c’est la même chose . . .
Since we published the second edition there have been:

I a further four Secretaries of State for Education*

I the fourth revision of the Secondary National Curriculum
I another new set of GCSE requirements
I a revision of A levels
I another revision of the Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status
I a complete revision of the Requirements governing Initial Teacher Education
I the rapid development of, and new ways of using, a host of communications
technologies and media.

The reasons for publishing a third edition are, therefore, self-evident: we are
responding to the changes alongside the continuities involved in teaching such a
dynamic subject as English.

* Strictly speaking it is five Secretaries of State as the position was divided into two
offices in 2007: Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and Secretary
of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

I xiv
 I I I I INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION

While the list above may seem uncannily reminiscent of the list in the Intro-
duction to the second edition of this book, there are significant differences in the
philosophy and emphases of the latest changes. For example, while earlier editions
of this book were critical of the constraining nature of much that was contained
in previous National Curriculum orders for English that appeared to require
teachers simply to ‘deliver’ pre-specified, centrally determined packages of
curriculum content, the 2008 National Curriculum is not simply about delivery,
but invites teachers to be creative with subjects that have moved away from an
emphasis on skills and content to those that are based upon key concepts, processes
and aspects.
Similarly, the latest version of the Standards for the Award of Qualified
Teacher Status (Training and Development Agency (TDA), 2007) proposes that
teachers should not be seen as compliant, competent technicians delivering a
curriculum, but need to develop professional judgement based upon critical
thinking. Standard Q8 identifies the need for newly qualified teachers (NQTs) to
be ‘creative and constructively critical’, while Standard Q7 (a) states that NQTs
also need to ‘reflect on and improve their practice’.
Common to both these examples is the fact that once again there has been
a significant and noticeable slimming down of the content coupled with attempts
at coherence across and between the central aspects of the documentation. A further
development in Initial Teacher Education has been the inception of Master’s degree
level (M level) postgraduate certificates in education (PGCEs). This new edition
flags texts in our recommendations for further reading that will support M level
study with the symbol .
Two decades have passed since the Education Reform Act (1988) heralded
the birth of the first National Curriculum for English in 1990. Since then it has
undergone major revisions approximately every five years. While we cannot be sure
as to the exact specificities of any future National Curriculum for English (an
example of this uncertainty and of continuous revision may be seen in the abolition
of Key Stage 3 SATs, which happened between the writing of the manuscript of
this book and the process of proofreading the final text for publication), what we
can be certain of is that it will continue to change throughout the twenty-first century
as a result of the political agendas of future governments and the development of
a range of media and new communications technologies: that, and that English
teachers will make it work.
Jon Davison and Jane Dowson
May 2009

xv I
 INTRODUCTION
TO THE SECOND
EDITION

The final paragraph of the Introduction to the first edition of this book begins ‘It
is a truism that what is most up-to-date is quickly dated’. If a week in politics is
a long time, four years in the teaching of English can seem aeons. Since we
published the first edition of this book there have been:

I four Secretaries of State for Education

I two new circulars governing teacher education
I the introduction of Skills Tests to achieve Qualified Teacher Status
I a complete revision of the National Curriculum
I the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy in primary schools and
latterly at Key Stage 3
I new GCSE requirements
I the revision of A level into AS and A2 levels

and as this edition goes to press a new discussion is beginning about complete
changes to A level that may mean it becomes more like the baccalaureate. There
would seem little point in attempting to justify the decision to publish a second
edition.
While there have been many changes in the world of English teaching, the
aim of the second edition remains the same as the first edition. Our aim is to
promote a coherent approach to school experience that will help you to draw
together and investigate what you read, what you have experienced during your
own education, and your school experience as an English specialist. All chapters
in the second edition of Learning to Teach English in the Secondary School have
been revised to take account of the changes described above: some have been
totally rewritten and we commissioned a completely new chapter on the National
Literacy Strategy. You will find that the Introduction to the first edition will support

I xvi
 I I I I INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

you by offering ways in which this book might be used to help you to develop
your knowledge skills and understanding of English teaching during school
experience. More general approaches to school experience can be found in the
companion volume Learning to Teach in the Secondary School (3rd edn, Capel,
Leask and Turner, 2001).
We hope you will enjoy your school experience and that you find the book
a helpful source of information and ideas. We welcome comments and feedback
from student teachers, tutors and mentors.

Jon Davison and Jane Dowson

April 2003

xvii I
 INTRODUCTION
TO THE FIRST
EDITION

What is expected of a would-be teacher of English and what does the student
teacher expect from a teacher education course? DES Circular 9/92 heralded the
era of competence-based teacher education with a requirement for substantial
elements of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses to be based in school. Two-
thirds of Secondary PGCE courses are spent in school; therefore, during those 120
days, much of the responsibility for the development of student teachers now rests
with mentors working in partnership with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).
Therefore, much of the time on your course will be spent working with your mentor
and departmental colleagues in school, not only to develop your classroom skills,
but also to develop you in the widest sense as a subject specialist. In recent years,
the terms ‘reflection’ and the development of the student teacher as a ‘reflective
practitioner’ (Schön, 1983; Calderhead, 1989; Lucas, 1991; Rudduck, 1991) have
become central to ITE programmes run by HEIs. Indeed, it would appear that the
reflective practitioner is now ‘the dominant model of professional in teacher
education’ (Whiting et al., 1996). The aim of this book, therefore, is to promote
a coherent approach to school experience which will help you to draw together
and investigate what you read, what you have experienced during your own
education, and your school experience as an English specialist. More general
approaches to school experience can be found in the companion volume Learning
to Teach in the Secondary School (Capel, Leask and Turner, 1995).
Learning to Teach in the Secondary School is a valuable introduction to issues
which concern every student and new teacher; Learning to Teach English in the
Secondary School is complementary in looking at aspects like assessment or
being a ‘professional’ in the context of becoming a subject specialist in English.
The chapters introduce issues concerning the teaching of English which particularly
relate to current developments such as competence-based and competence-assessed
courses; working with a mentor; working with the National Curriculum; using IT
in English lessons; understanding GNVQ. In addition, we are introducing aspects
of English teaching which sound familiar, such as speaking and listening, reading,
writing, teaching Shakespeare.

I xviii
 I I I I INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION

How might you use this book? It is intended to be sufficiently flexible to

suit different stages of initial teacher education and different contexts. It is assumed
that the book can be read in its entirety as a course text and also be used as a
reference book, particularly on school experience. For example, you may be
teaching a scheme of work on poetry or be involved in assessing speaking and
listening for the first time: you would then consult the relevant chapters for
principles and ideas which would aid your planning and your evaluation of your
lessons. Some tasks are more suited to your university or college sessions, and
may be directed by the tutor; others are clearly school-based. It is unlikely that
you will undertake all the tasks but you may wish to try some out on your own
or with a partner. Above all, the tasks are designed to guide your thinking and
enquiry about why teachers do what they do and why you will make the decisions
that you do. What is important, however, is that you consider and apply the
principles to your particular context.
In the following chapters, the point is made several times that, just as when
you are teaching, aspects of English are integrated, so, although these chapters are
separated into activities like ‘Writing’, ‘Drama’ or ‘Knowledge about Language
and Grammar’ for the purposes of investigation, it is recognised that they are all
interdependent and interactive. You will be able to transfer principles raised in
one area to their significance in another area; this is particularly true, of course,
with media and information technology education.
It is usual for student teachers to begin a course with a fairly clear idea about
what ‘being an English teacher’ is like; their reading and observations in school
soon illustrate that there are many models of English teacher and that there are
competing ideas about the aims of English teaching; they may be surprised to
realise the extent to which English is perceived as ‘political’ by politicians,
journalists and teachers. The lack of clarity and lack of consensus about the nature
and aims of English teaching can be unsettling, but also exciting as the English
teacher appreciates the significance of their role; because of the relationship
between language and power, English teaching, which is based on a notion of
literacy, is inherently political. As Burgess puts it, ‘the connections between
language, education and full participation in a political democracy have lain
behind debates round English throughout two centuries’ (Burgess, 1996, p. 67).
It is in the context of encouraging new teachers to participate in the debates
about language, education and power, that the first three chapters outline the
‘battles’ for English; they examine the changing ideas about the nature of English
and their implications for the perceived roles of the English teacher. The
background to current legislation demonstrates that a concept of what constitutes
‘good practice’ in English teaching is not fixed and never has been. English teachers
may argue fiercely about whether to set their groups, whether drama should be
used by all teachers, whether all pupils should take literature exams or how best
to teach a child to spell or recognise a sentence.
Debates about the relative importance of grammar and spelling, language and
literature, drama and media studies are longstanding and continuing. If you are

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INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION I I I I

coming to this book hoping for ‘answers’ you may be disappointed. We cannot
reduce complicated processes concerning the relationship between language, thinking
and identity into simple guidelines; we cannot resolve the questions about the proper
nature of language study or how to teach someone to read or spell. These debates,
along with ‘what constitutes a text’, and more precisely what constitutes a ‘good text’,
or ‘major author’ are the bread and butter of English and Cultural Studies; these
debates keep English as a dynamic subject which interacts with social trends.
The chapters consciously combine the critical issues surrounding each aspect
of English teaching with ideas for classroom practice in order to encourage individual
critical thinking. Many of the tasks are exploratory in nature and aim to provide
opportunities to develop principles by which to make decisions concerning what and
how to teach a text or an oral lesson or GCE A level; they are not offering blue-
prints. There are, however, some common approaches to the discussions and tasks;
most signifcantly, there is a consensus that the job of the English teacher is to enable
each child to become more literate. Although there is disagreement about what
constitutes literacy, the current thinking is that we should speak of ‘literacies’ as
incorporating the range of texts which people read; this version of literacy is not as
radical as it might sound to conservative thinkers. The development of literacy has
always been based upon available reading material; available reading material now
encompasses all kinds of fiction and non-fiction, media and technological sources.
Many applicants to teacher education declare a love of ‘literature’, ‘reading’
or ‘books’ as their reason for wanting to teach English. Once on the course, they
find themselves being asked to question the definition of ‘book’, the terms of
describing a ‘text’ and the notion of reading. In schools they find that teaching a
literary work is a small part of what English teachers do. The skills of critical
analysis, however, which they have developed during their degree, are central to
all areas of English teaching. Learning to Teach English in the Secondary School
offers opportunities to work through the transition from previous engagement with
English or cultural studies to the school curriculum; with its emphasis on ‘critical
practice’, it suggests that it is not only possible but essential to retain a critical
perspective on your reading and school experience, and on your model of initial
teacher education. It is intended that, from an understanding of historical changes
in the subject from the more remote and recent past, you will develop alternative
ways of seeing the present conditions in education. We are also concerned that
you will be a participant in setting the agenda for English teaching in the future.
It is a truism that what is most up-to-date is quickly dated. This is particularly
applicable to the English curriculum which is subject to frequent changes in statutory
requirements. We have had to make reference to current orders, particularly reference
to the National Curriculum, but realise that these may change. At all times, it is
acknowledged that it is the principles of suggested teaching ideas which are important
and that these would have to be implemented with reference to current syllabuses
and resources.
Jon Davison and Jane Dowson
May 1997

I xx
 WHICH ENGLISH?
John Moss

INTRODUCTION: WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM?

As you begin your secondary English initial teacher education (ITE) course, you
will bring to it a perception of what English teaching is about which has been
formed from a combination of the following: your own school experience of being
taught English; your undergraduate studies in English, and perhaps other subjects;
information you have gleaned from the media, observation visits to schools, and
conversations with teachers you know; and, in some cases, work experience which
is related to your planned career, such as teaching English as a foreign language
(TEFL) teaching or running a youth club drama group.
Any analysis you have undertaken of these experiences will have engaged
you in thinking about one or more of three ways in which the identity of English
is constructed: by those who determine its scope and limits as an academic subject
in higher education; by the definitions that apply to the statutory school curriculum
and its assessment mechanisms; and by the teachers interpreting its lived-out
identity through the teaching and learning that actually goes on in schools.
If you were asked what English is during an undergraduate literature or
language seminar, you would probably have concentrated on the first of these
matters, and it is also likely that you feel more confident about it than the others.
You may be expecting your ITE course to require you to focus on exploring ideas
about the teaching and learning of English and the relationship between these ideas
and the statutory curriculum. You will, however, probably find that these
explorations will also challenge you to re-evaluate your understanding of what
English as an academic subject is or could be beyond school.

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JOHN MOSS I I I I

OBJECTIVES

At the end of this chapter you should be:

I aware of the major versions of English available to you and their
implications for your work
I aware of the complexity of the debates about English
I able to place your own past, present and future experiences of English
in the context of these debates.

THE DIVERSITY OF ENGLISH

Your re-evaluation of English may well begin as soon as you meet the other
members of your ITE English course. You will find that the ideas of your fellow
student teachers have been influenced by a wide range of different academic
experiences of English. You may find, in a single ITE English group, student
teachers who have experienced:

I A levels in English which explored English literature, the English language,

or both, in varying combinations
I chronologically structured English literature degrees, whose overarching
questions and concerns were with the relationships between literary tradition
and originality or issues of canonicity
I degrees in English language which explored historical and geographical
variations in English, and in which students learned to use sophisticated tools
for analysing spoken and written language
I degrees in English language and literature in which studying the history of
the language and stylistics has given students a perception of the significance
of language change and writers’ language choices to the analysis of literature
I degrees centred on current debates about the value of different kinds of
literary theory and the ways in which they can inform reading practices,
which have been explored by reference to a range of literary and non-
literary texts
I joint honours degrees in which the study of philosophy, history or art has
given students particular perspectives on ways in which the study of literature
can be enriched by a knowledge of one or more types of social, historical
or cultural context
I joint honours degrees in English and drama in which, among other things,
students have experienced the value of practical drama methods in
interpreting texts

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 I I I I WHICH ENGLISH?

I joint honours degrees in English and education in which students have

explored issues such as language development which have a direct bearing
on the teaching they will undertake in school.

You may value highly the versions of English you have experienced, or you
may have developed a critical distance from them. In either case you may expect
the school English curriculum to be underpinned by clear theoretical positions
about the subject that you can compare with those that have influenced your own
educational experiences to date. In fact, the variety of ideas about ‘what English
is’ is represented in an ongoing debate about the English curriculum which takes
place through academic writing both about English and English-in-Education, the
frequent publication of new curriculum policy documents produced for
government, and through the development of classroom practice.

THE COX REPORT’S FIVE VIEWS OF ENGLISH

The task you face in defining your position as a teacher of English is similar to
that which has been faced by those responsible for defining and redefining a
National Curriculum for English since the late 1980s. Brian Cox and his team, the
first group to attempt this, pointed out:

Throughout our work we were acutely aware of the differing opinions that
are held on a number of issues that lie at the heart of the English curriculum
and its teaching. Our Report would not be credible if it did not acknowledge
these differences and explain our response to them.
(Department of Education and Science (DES),
1989, para. 1.17)

The development of your own credibility as an English teacher requires you to

engage with these opinions and explain your position in relation to them.
Before you continue, complete Task 1.1.

Task 1.1 THE EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES OF ENGLISH

Write a fifty-word statement defining the educational purposes of English as you
understand them from your own educational experience at A level and/or degree
level. Exchange your statement with another student teacher and write a fifty-
word commentary on his or her statement. In a group discuss the statements
and commentaries you have produced, identifying repeated words and ideas
and any contradictions. Try to achieve a consensus statement, and consider
the reasons for your ability or inability to do so.

3 I
JOHN MOSS I I I I

The Cox Report (1989) famously defined the different views of English that
its writers found in the teaching profession:

2.21 A ‘personal growth’ view focuses on the child: it emphasises the

relationship between language and learning in the individual child, and the
role of literature in developing children’s imaginative and aesthetic lives.

This view is associated with work undertaken in the 1960s on the need for a child-
centred approach to learning in English, which permanently changed the subject
at the time. John Dixon’s Growth Through English, first published in 1967, was
a particularly influential book, making a strong case for the importance of activities
such as creative writing, talk and improvised drama, which many teachers had
sought to prioritise in their teaching and wanted validated by the National
Curriculum.

2.22 A ‘cross-curricular’ view focuses on the school: it emphasises that all

teachers (of English and of other subjects) have a responsibility to help
children with the language demands of different subjects on the school
curriculum: otherwise areas of the curriculum may be closed to them.

This view had been promoted by the recommendations on language across the
curriculum of Chapter 12 of the Bullock Report, A Language for Life (DES, 1975)
which was strongly influenced by the work of Barnes, Britton and Rosen (1975)
in Language, the Learner and the School. In the 1970s and 1980s many schools
had devised language across the curriculum policies in response to Bullock, but
implementation was patchy, and some interest groups wanted this work to be
consolidated through the National Curriculum.

2.23 An ‘adult needs’ view focuses on communication outside the school:

it emphasises the responsibility of English teachers to prepare children for
the language demands of adult life, including the workplace, in a fast-
changing world. Children need to learn to deal with the day-to-day demands
of spoken language and of print; they also need to be able to write clearly,
appropriately and effectively.

Cox’s reference to a ‘fast-changing world’ implies that an adult needs view of

English will also place considerable emphasis on information and communications
technology (ICT) and the literacies involved in using new technologies. Both before
Cox and since, government has been concerned to take into account the views of
employers, as represented by groups such as the Confederation of British Industry
(CBI), about the extent to which the curriculum is providing the communication
skills needed in the workplace. From time to time, and to varying extents, the
assumption is made that it is the primary function of English to provide these skills.

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 I I I I WHICH ENGLISH?

2.24 A ‘cultural heritage’ view emphasises the responsibility of schools to

lead children to an appreciation of those works of literature that have been
widely regarded as amongst the finest in the language.

This view is associated with those schools of literary criticism, which claim to be
able to determine which books are most worth reading. A leading figure in the
history of the idea of cultural heritage is F. R. Leavis, who, for example, in his
book on the novel The Great Tradition (1948), argued that the great novelists can
be identified as those who are ‘distinguished by a vital capacity for experience, a
kind of reverent openness before life, and a marked moral intensity’.

2.25 A ‘cultural analysis’ view emphasises the role of English in helping

children towards a critical understanding of the world and cultural
environment in which they live. Children should know about the processes
by which meanings are conveyed, and about the ways in which print and
other media carry values.

This view is associated with forms of criticism that acknowledge that the
interactions among writers, readers and texts are influenced by a range of social,
cultural and historical factors. Holders of the cultural analysis view may believe
that the investigation of these interactions in relation to any text – literary or non-
literary, print or non-print, written or spoken – is potentially of equal value, since
the value of any text is not absolute but culturally determined. In the 1970s and
1980s, students of English in higher education had become increasingly exposed
to a broad range of critical approaches which challenged Leavisite positions, and
as teachers, sought to embed them in the school curriculum.
These views of English have been the subject of much discussion and
research, both by those who have attempted to find out to what extent each view
is represented in the teaching profession (e.g. Goodwyn, 1992), and by those who
have questioned the validity of the categories or their definitions, or suggested other
ways of defining viewpoints in the debate about what English is (e.g. Marshall,
2000). You may be particularly interested in a contribution to this debate, made
shortly after the Cox Report (1989) was published, by a group of student teachers
(see Daly et al., 1989). The historical context of the debate among views of English
that Cox identified is explored further in Chapters 2 and 3.

CONSENSUS OR COMPROMISE?

What has become most clear from the debate is that the position which Cox took
when deciding what to do about the different views of English that he found, which
was to assert that they ‘are not sharply distinguishable, and . . . certainly not
mutually exclusive’ (para. 2.20), fudges the issues. Reading between the lines of
the definitions of the ‘cultural heritage’ view and the ‘cultural analysis’ view, for

5 I
JOHN MOSS I I I I

example, it is not difficult to find a sharp distinction between the ‘appreciation of

those works of literature that have been widely regarded as amongst the finest’,
and ‘critical understanding of the . . . cultural environment’ (para. 2.24–2.25).
The distinction is between being taught a taste for what a particular group in
society, whose identity is hidden by the passive construction, wishes to have
culturally transmitted, and learning to make an active analytical response to all
the signs and sign systems of the cultural products available to that analysis.
You may find this distinction reflected in positions held in your ITE English
group, which may include those whose ambition as teachers is ‘to pass on’
something (e.g. a love of a particular kind of literature) and those who seek ‘to
change’ something, perhaps their pupils’ sense of their own power to influence
the development of society. Daly et al. provide an important statement of one
version of the second position: ‘we must develop goals, classroom approaches and
materials which will transform “English” into the study of how and why our entire
culture is produced, sustained, challenged, remade’ (1989, p. 16). The distinction
between ‘cultural heritage’ and ‘cultural analysis’ is both profound and political.
Cox offered a compromise rather than a consensus rationale for the English
curriculum, perhaps in an attempt to steer a course between the Scylla and
Charybdis of extreme views.
Later in this chapter, you will be asked to consider where the newest iteration
of the National Curriculum for English is placed in the ‘Which English?’ debate.
However, it will be useful for you to explore this document with knowledge of
two particularly coherent texts, which offer explicit rationales for the models of
English they promote. Their authors demonstrate that principled positions
distinctive from the Cox compromise are possible.

PRINCIPLED POSITIONS

Critical literacy
One particularly valuable attempt at achieving a coherent radical vision of English
which nevertheless acknowledges the complexity of the arguments about it may
be found in West and Dickey’s Redbridge High School English Department
Handbook (1990). This book draws on a range of ideas about language, learning
and literacy to formulate a theoretical position which might drive the work of a
secondary English department in a typical urban high school: a multifaceted
statement of departmental philosophy introduces detailed suggestions for teaching.
A key text for the authors is Paulo Freire’s Literacy: Reading the Word and the
World (1987) from which they derive a view of English as ‘critical literacy’: English
is concerned with the processes of language and with all aspects of the making of
meaning. Its business is the production, reproduction and critical interpretation of
texts, both verbal and visual, spoken and written.

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 I I I I WHICH ENGLISH?

Its aim is to help [pupils] achieve critical literacy. To do this it seeks to:
I enable [pupils] to make meaning
I develop their understanding of the processes whereby meanings are
made
I develop [pupils’] understanding of the processes whereby meanings
conflict and change.
(West and Dickey, 1990, pp. 10, 23)

The authors note that this definition is intended to encompass ‘aspects of Media
Education and Drama that are undertaken by the English department’. They state
that they see their definition as building on Cox’s description of ‘cultural analysis’
by emphasising the social dimension of literacy: in a democratic society, pupils
have the right to make and contest meanings as well as to understand how they
are made. This definition of critical literacy informs the practical details of the
schemes of work suggested in the book, and, in doing so, illustrates how the way
teachers think about what English is influences their planning models and
classroom practice.
Whether or not your vision for English is the same as West and Dickey’s,
it is vital for your practice to be similarly principled: you need to learn how your
conception of what English is can inform all the decisions you make about content,
lesson structure and sequence, teaching and learning objectives and assessment
strategies.
All of West and Dickey’s schemes of work include sections headed: starting
point, exploration, reshaping, presentation and opportunities for reflection/
evaluation. For example, in a unit of work called ‘Introduction to media education’
pupils work on a photographic project. Among other things, the pupils are asked to:

I start by discussing the statement: ‘The camera never lies . . .’ and by

creating a display about this idea
I explore a range of magazine photographs in a sequence of work which
draws attention to issues of authorship, intention, technique and repre-
sentation
I ‘reshape’ a collection of photographs of their school which they take
themselves into sets of six frame sequences, some negative, some posi-
tive, some balanced
I present a selection of the photographs to an audience either within the
class or outside it
I reflect on the presentations in oral and written responses which may
cover issues such as: the way the project has affected their view of the
school; their understanding of the relationship between selectivity and
representation.
(Selected and adapted from West and Dickey,
1990, pp. 151–152)

7 I
JOHN MOSS I I I I

This unit of work shows how pupils who are studying the ways in which texts
(here, primarily visual texts) are created can extend their learning in important ways
by participating in the processes by which similar texts are shaped and reshaped.
Above all, pupils following this unit of work will learn about the power of makers
of texts to make meaning consciously, deliberately and persuasively, and to contest
meanings constructed by other makers of texts.
In ‘Critical social literacy for the classroom: an approach using conventional
texts across the curriculum’ (Lankshear et al., 1997), Colin Lankshear sets out the
fundamental questions about texts with which critical literacy is concerned. These
are as follows:

1 What version of events/reality is foregrounded here?

2 Whose version is this? From whose perspective is it constructed?
3 What (possible) versions are excluded?
4 Whose/what interests are served by this representation?
5 By what means – lexical, syntactic, etc. – does this text construct its
reality?
6 How does the text position the reader? What assumptions about readers
are reflected in the text? What beliefs, assumptions, expectations
(ideological baggage) do readers have to entertain in order to make
meaning from the text?
(Lankshear et al., 1997, p. 52)

Lankshear’s list helps us to understand how the bridge between the theory and
practice of critical literacy can be constructed through the adoption of a consistent
approach to textual analysis.

Language in the National Curriculum (LINC)’s functional model

of language
While learning about and through textual construction is at the heart of the model
of critical literacy proposed by West and Dickey, their definition of English begins
by identifying ‘the processes of language’ as its primary concern. The unpublished
materials produced by the Language in the National Curriculum (LINC) project
offered a model of language which could provide a coherent rationale for the
English curriculum, and which complements West and Dickey’s work through its
comparable emphasis on meaning-making. The authors of the materials see their
work as an attempt to form a synthesis of the language theories of Britton and
Halliday. Britton’s importance is that his work, centred in language in education,
‘clearly demonstrated the centrality of context, purpose and audience in language
use [and is] grounded in fundamental consideration of the relationship between
language and thought’. Halliday’s work complemented this by offering ‘functional
theories of language [which] placed meaning at the centre’ (LINC, 1992, p. 2).
The authors define the theories of language implicit in the materials as follows:

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 I I I I WHICH ENGLISH?

1 As humans we use language primarily for social reasons, and for a

multiplicity of purposes.
2 Language is dynamic. It varies from one context to another and from
one set of users to another. Language also changes over time.
3 Language embodies social and cultural values and also carries
meanings related to each user’s unique identity.
4 Language reveals and conceals much about human relationships. There
are intimate connections, for example, between language and social
power, language and culture, and language and gender.
5 Language is a system and is systematically organised.
6 Meanings created in and through language can constrain us as well as
liberate us. Language users must constantly negotiate and renegotiate
meanings.
(LINC, 1992, pp. 1–2)

The practical implications of the LINC view of language for teaching are best indi-
cated in Knowledge about Language and the Curriculum: The LINC Reader
(Carter, 1990). In particular, George Keith, in Chapter 4, outlines a scheme of work
for Key Stage 3 which any English department could usefully consider using as
the basis of a coherent and systematic approach to language teaching. The integrity
of the scheme of work derives from the centrality accorded to work on language
and society and the investigation of talk. The following practical suggestions for
exploring this topic demonstrate how the LINC theories of language recorded
above can be translated into schemes of work:

I using questionnaires and interviews to find out information about

people’s attitudes, beliefs, opinions: vox populi – getting people talking
(will involve reflection on method of enquiry as well as on content of
data)
I ‘they don’t speak our language’ – enquiries into occupational dialects
I jargon; officialese; slang; codes; accents; Received Pronunciation; talk-
ing ‘posh’; talking ‘dead common’; regional stereotypes and foreign
accent; stereotypes – use BBC tapes, English with an Accent, English
Dialects
I ‘the language of situations’ (pragmatics) – having an argument; being
questioned or interviewed; threatening, bullying; embarrassing
situations
I euphemisms and taboo subjects in conversation
I ways people talk to each other (gender, age, social class, social
power)
I the speech of young children as a source of knowledge about
language.
(Carter, 1990, pp. 90–91)

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JOHN MOSS I I I I

An English teacher or English department could base a coherent approach to the

teaching of English on the principles of critical literacy, the theory of language in
LINC, or indeed, since they focus to different extents on texts and language, but
share similar positions on the processes of meaning-making, on the complementary
implications of both. The LINC project and its materials are discussed further in
Chapter 2.
Now complete Task 1.2.

Task 1.2 VIEWS OF ENGLISH IN THE CLASSROOM

Observe three English lessons at your placement school with the intention of
determining what view of English is being communicated to pupils or constructed
by them. Make notes on matters such as: the choice of material; statements
made by the teacher about the purpose of the work; the kinds of questions the
teacher asks; the sequence of activities pupils engage in. You may find evidence
of more than one view of English in a single lesson, or that one teacher teaches
lessons that seem to offer very different views of English on the same day.
Discuss your findings with the teachers and/or your fellow student teachers.

THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM: ENGLISH (2007)

Since the publication of the Cox Report (1989) there has been a proliferation of
official documents setting out to define the curriculum for English. These
documents have explicitly or implicitly promoted the different views of English
identified by Cox to different extents, but, disappointingly, have frequently failed
to provide any kind of substantial justification for the positions taken.
As you work towards redefining your own view of English, it will be helpful
to apply the principles of critical literacy to your reading of these documents.
Clearly, a document with an explicit rationale invites the reader to consider
Lankshear’s (1997) key critical literacy questions, but no official curriculum
document concerning English has provided as comprehensive a rationale as the
fourteen chapters of the Cox Report since its publication. However, it is possible
to engage with Lankshear’s questions using a range of strategies, including
searching documents for references to previous versions of the positions they take.
For example, in English in the National Curriculum (Department for Educa-
tion (DFE), 1995), two pages of general requirements offer the closest thing to a
rationale, and this short statement is more concerned with stressing the import-
ance of standard English than justifying the position taken in relation to the
whole English curriculum. Moreover, this curriculum statement can be shown to
be a heavily redrafted revision of earlier documents, in which meaning has been

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distorted as the result of unacknowledged battles between various interest groups

to control the definition of the curriculum.
There is only scope in this chapter to illustrate this point with one small
example, so a statement about a particularly controversial issue, the place of
standard English in the curriculum, has been chosen. According to English in the
National Curriculum:

The richness of dialects and other languages can make an important

contribution to pupils’ knowledge and understanding of standard English.
(DFE, 1995, p. 2, para. 2)

The first thing to notice about this sentence is that it is ungrammatical. It needs
to be prefaced by ‘Learning about’ or ‘Experience of’ to make sense. Second, the
sentence makes the nonsensical and linguistically imperialistic claim that the
main purpose and value of learning about other forms of language is to inform an
understanding of standard English. We can expose the battle for control of the
curriculum that was taking place by finding the equivalent sentence in English in
the National Curriculum: Draft Proposals, May 1994, the consultation document
produced as a first draft of the 1995 Orders:

The richness of other languages and dialects can make an important

contribution to pupils’ knowledge and understanding of language.
(School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA),
1994, p. 1, para. 4)

This sentence has nothing to do with standard English, and makes a much more
logical statement about the relationship between the study of examples of kinds
of language and the development of an understanding of language principles.
While both The National Curriculum for England: English (Department for
Education and Skills (DfEE)/Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA),
1999b) and The National Curriculum: English (QCA, 2007a) pay lipservice
towards offering a rationale for the subject under the heading ‘The importance of
English’, it is disappointing that these lack substance. Traces of the debates in Cox
can be detected, but in a watered-down and neutralised form, so that the tensions
among different views have been dissolved in an apparently seamless compromise,
the origins of which cannot be determined, at least without applying the techniques
of critical literacy to reading them.
Although it is easy to recognise a rearticulation of the Cox compromise
position in this statement, this is not to say that the debate has stood still since
1990. One key development has been the incorporation of the language of literacy
in the official discourse about English. For example, the National Literacy Strategy
(NLS) Framework for Teaching English: Years 7, 8 and 9 (Department for Educa-
tion and Employment (DfEE), 2001) had a section entitled ‘Rationale’ including
a statement about literacy:

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JOHN MOSS I I I I

I Table 1.1 Curriculum (2007) views of English

Curriculum 2007 statement View of English suggested

English is vital for communicating with Cross-curricular view
others in school
– and in the wider world Adult-needs view
– and is fundamental to learning in all Cross-curricular view
curriculum subjects.
In studying English, students develop Adult-needs view – with a hint that this
skills in speaking, listening, reading and involves the National Curriculum’s
writing that they will need to participate general aim of creating ‘responsible
in society and employment. citizens who make a positive contribution
to society’
Students learn to express themselves Personal growth view
creatively and imaginatively and to
communicate with others confidently
and effectively.
Literature in English is rich and influential. Cultural heritage view . . . [although
‘Literature in English’ is broader than
‘English Literature’]
It reflects the experiences of people from The modification is suggestive of the
many countries and times and contributes post-colonial globalisation of English,
to our sense of cultural identity. but it is noteworthy that cultural identities
are not referenced in the plural as a
cultural analysis perspective might
suggest
Students learn to become enthusiastic This could suggest either the cultural
and critical readers of stories, poetry and heritage or cultural analysis view of
drama reading
– as well as non-fiction and media texts but the inclusion of non-fiction indicates
value being placed on a wide range of
material in the cultural analysis tradition
– gaining access to the pleasure and however, the reference to ‘pleasure’
world of knowledge that reading offers. is perhaps more suggestive of personal
growth
Looking at the patterns, structure, origins There is little sense here of placing
and conventions of English helps students meaning at the centre of a theory of
understand how language works. language (as in LINC)
Using this understanding, students can and although there is a hint here of the
choose and adapt what they say and empowerment promoted by critical
write in different situations literacy
– as well as appreciate and interpret the the term ‘appreciate’ carries
choices made by other writers and connotations which link this sentence
speakers. back to depoliticised modes of analysis
and towards a cultural heritage view

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 I I I I WHICH ENGLISH?

The notion of literacy embedded in the objectives is much more than simply
the acquisition of ‘basic skills’ which is sometimes implied by the word: it
encompasses the ability to recognise, understand and manipulate the conven-
tions of language, and develop pupils’ ability to use language imaginatively
and flexibly. The Framework also encompasses speaking and listening to
support English teachers in planning to meet the full demands of the National
Curriculum, and to tie in the development of oral skills with parallel demands
in written text.
(DfEE, 2001, pp. 9–10)

What is striking here includes:

I the clear statement that literacy goes beyond the ‘basic skills’ which may
meet a narrow definition of adult needs, but the lack of clarity about what
this additional value of literacy is
I the hint of pupil ownership of language, which might be linked to a view of
English based in critical literacy, in the suggestion that pupils should learn
to ‘manipulate’ language and use it ‘flexibly’
I the hint of a recognition of personal growth in the word ‘imaginatively’ –
but the lack of any sense of a deep understanding of the connections between
speaking and listening, reading and writing in the curiously bolted-on
sentence about speaking and listening (it is also interesting that the term
‘oracy’, which has given speaking and listening more weight in recent years
has not been used)
I the distant hint of the LINC project’s view of language in the recognition of
pupils’ needs to recognise and understand the conventions of language as a
means of informing their use of them
I the absence of any sign of the cultural heritage or cultural analysis views of
English: no attempt has been made to suggest how the NLS project’s vision
of literacy informs decisions about what will be read and why. (However,
the NLS objectives for reading are more in tune with cultural analysis than
cultural heritage.)

The question ‘Which English?’ increasingly involves further questions

including: ‘English and/or literacy?’ and ‘Which literacy (or literacies)?’ The NLS
emphasis on a cross-curricular and adult-needs view of literacy has prioritised these
components of the Cox compromise.
Moreover, it is possible to detect in the provision in The National
Curriculum: English (QCA, 2007a) details which strengthen the position of
approaches to reading in harmony with critical literacy and approaches to language
study in sympathy with LINC partly as a result of a much enriched interpretation
of cross-curricular practice, including the cross-referencing of citizenship to
English, and which mark a resurgence of enthusiasm for the personal growth view
of English under the banners of creativity and enjoyment.

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JOHN MOSS I I I I

Each new official curriculum document shifts the balance among the com-
ponents of the Cox compromise. The implications of this situation for you as a
student teacher are serious. You need to define a rationale for your teaching,
however provisionally, in order to set the learning objectives of any lesson. It will
be helpful for you to discover where the tutors responsible for your ITE course
and the teachers in your placement schools stand in relation to the various debates
which have been identified above. Some of the questions you should ask tutors,
heads of English departments and mentors include the following:

I Does your English teaching aim to reflect the complexity of the debates about
what English and literacy are, or to reflect a particular view of what English
and/or literacy are?
I How are your aims interpreted at the practical levels of planning, teaching,
assessment and evaluation?
I Do you expect me to teach as if I share your aims in my teaching?
I How do you reconcile your aims with the demands of national assessment
requirements such as those of the Standard Assesssment Tasks (SATs) and
the learning objectives in GCSE and A level specifications?
I In what ways does the National Curriculum inform your practice and how
should it influence mine?
I In what other official curriculum documents are there statements which
strongly influence your work?
I How as a student teacher can I experiment to begin to formulate and
implement my own views of English?

Before continuing complete Task 1.3.

Task 1.3 EXPLORING ENGLISH DEBATES IN OFFICIAL

DOCUMENTS
Identify a language issue, such as multilingualism, drafting, dialect, discourse
structure, grammar, literary English, language variety, spoken standard English.
Either on your own or in a group of student teachers, find and compare
statements about this issue in English for Ages 5–16 (DES, 1989); Language in
the National Curriculum: Materials for Professional Development (DES, 1992),
English in the National Curriculum (DfEE, 1995), The National Curriculum for
England: English (DfEE/QCA, 1999b), the NLS Framework for Teaching English:
Years 7, 8 and 9 (QCA, 2001), QCA National GCSE Criteria for English and
English Literature (QCA, 2001). What similarities and differences, emphases and
omissions do you notice in the documents? Where does The National Curriculum
for England: English stand on this issue in relation to ongoing debates about
language represented in the documents collectively?

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 I I I I WHICH ENGLISH?

FUTURES
So far, this chapter has asked you to consider ideas about English which are derived
from your own educational experience, from recently formulated but established
views of the subject, and from debates which have contributed to the introduction
and revision of the National Curriculum. The last part of the chapter focuses on
some developments that are currently transforming teachers’ perceptions of what
school curriculum English is or can be. Three central threads in these developments
concern: ideas about the importance of genre and rhetoric; the impact of new
technologies on speaking, reading and writing, and the relationships between them;
and the regionalisation and globalisation of English.

Postmodern textuality: genre and rhetoric

One way in which the ‘personal growth’ and ‘cultural analysis’ views of English
may form a new synthesis is through an adjustment of the ideas about the self
which are associated with the former, in the light of ideas about genre and rhetoric
which are associated with the latter. The discussion of ‘critical literacy’ earlier in
this chapter drew attention to the value of examining the ways in which meanings
are constructed in texts. Pupils who are to be politically empowered by the English
curriculum need to understand both how different genres work and how to select
and adapt the genre which is most appropriate to their purpose when they seek to
use spoken or written texts to exert influence on society. This understanding must
be based partly on consideration of the conventions used in different genres. Some
of these conventions are major and structural, but others operate at the level of
syntax and vocabulary. For example, science fiction often translates familiar social
and ethical problems to unfamiliar narrative contexts, but also makes use of
specialised vocabulary to define the technological capabilities of its characters.
The art of rhetoric was concerned historically with using language to exert
influence, or to persuade, and in particular with the careful selection of figures of
speech, the arrangement of language features in a spoken or written text, and with
oratorical delivery. It offers us insights into the constructedness of texts at the level
of language detail, and promotes the view that effective oral communication is
founded on technique rather than on personality traits. Thinking about rhetoric and
genre together can help us to see that the composition of a text in a particular genre
and using particular rhetorical devices has something of the nature of a scientific
experiment about it, since it involves throwing one of a number of available frame-
works over reality. It may even suggest that meaning exists only in the constructs
of different generic and rhetorical procedures. Another way of putting this is to
say that rhetoric and genre provide analogies of the kind of real or imaginary
theatrical masks which actors use to establish character and to make the com-
munication of dramatic meaning possible.
This view of textual construction has something in common with postmodern
views of the fragmentation and constructedness of the self, which in some versions

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JOHN MOSS I I I I

would suggest that the self is identifiable and definable only in terms of the
language or conventions through which it is expressed at particular times. Personal
growth may then be about the taking on of new selves through the taking on of
new rhetorical and generic conventions. Teaching in a way which draws attention
to rhetoric and genre may then make an important contribution to the personal
growth of those who experience it. In practical terms this may mean placing greater
emphasis on allowing pupils to experiment with the conventions of genres, by
providing them with opportunities for parody, to transpose texts from one genre
to another, and to create new genres or texts which, like a considerable number
of postmodern ‘literary’ texts, make use of a number of different genres.

Literacies and new technologies

New technologies are having an accelerating impact on our understanding of what
it is to be literate, and how literacy is achieved. As noted above, The National
Curriculum for England: English (QCA, 2007a) includes the statement that
‘In English pupils develop skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing’. It is
widely recognised that a fifth term, ‘viewing’, needs to be inserted into this list of
processes, to reflect the media literacy which plays such an important role in pupils’
lives and their language development. In addition, we must now also acknowledge
the relevance to language development of the Internet, CD-ROMs, DVDs, multi-
media texts, e-mail, texting, podcasts, wikis and blogs, and that these technologies
challenge the ways in which we understand both the individual processes of
reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing and the increasingly interactive
relationships between them.
For example, reading digital text, especially web pages with hyperlinks,
draws attention to the multidimensionality of reading, which has never been so
apparent before. We know that we are not obliged just to read in a sequential way
across and down a two-dimensional page, but nor are we limited to exploring the
two-dimensional architecture of that page as we do when, for example, we look
at a footnote. Reading a website is more like playing three-dimensional chess: one
move through a hyperlink can completely redirect our attention, and even if we
do choose to return to the previous page, it may be with an entirely new perspective
on its content. This experience modifies our understanding of what reading is. Some
other experiences of using the Internet challenge our conceptions of the boundaries
between the different language processes. For example, chat rooms on which
ephemeral comments about a topic can be recorded and responded to, and which
are periodically cleared by whoever maintains the site, are redefining the boundaries
between speech and writing.
New technologies can also cause us to rethink our positions in relation to the
established views of English discussed earlier in this chapter. For example, the
Internet may affect the extent to which we tend towards ‘cultural heritage’ or
‘cultural analysis’ views. It is making available a wide range of texts which it was

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 I I I I WHICH ENGLISH?

previously difficult to access. A substantial number of pre-twentieth-century

literary texts by women that are out of print are available on the Internet. This makes
it much easier than before to demonstrate that the male white literary canon
promoted in the ‘cultural heritage’ view of English is a construct. For some time,
word processing has made texts available to readers in many different states and
drafts in a way that shows us that meanings are not fixed.
The brief discussion of the drafting of the 1995 National Curriculum above
illustrates how access to such drafts can affect our understanding of the material
with which we are presented, and allow us to recognise how the possibility of
shifting meaning in particular directions is related to power. The easy links
between web pages and sites make readers very aware of the intertextual context
of texts, and draw attention to the ways in which many apparently coherent and
complete texts both contain gaps and draw, in different ways, on the work of a
multiplicity of authors. Indeed, readers using the Internet have to learn to recognise
and accommodate the fact that what they experience as a single reading event
consists of texts produced by many different authors. These processes promote
modes of reading that are linked with the ‘cultural analysis’ view of English.

Regionalisation and globalisation

While all versions of the National Curriculum for English have maintained the
importance of standard English, students of language are gaining more access to
other systematic, rule-governed and dynamic versions of English than has ever
been available before. Academic studies have long drawn attention to differences
such as those between American standard English and English standard English
to explode the myth that there is one standard English which should be developed
and used for global communication, and they have also demonstrated the
systematic, rule-governed character of all dialects. However, in the past twenty
years, recognition of the value of regional and international varieties of English
in the media, in film and in literature has reoriented the way many readers of visual
and printed texts perceive their relationship to speakers and writers who use
dialects other than those with which they are most familiar. We place more value
on the global diversity of Englishes than on the dominance of one English, and
recognise that the high status accorded to particular versions of English has been
culturally determined.
In this context, one important word-level shift in recent versions of the
National Curriculum is that the category of texts previously described as ‘texts
from other cultures’ has now been properly retitled ‘Texts from different cultures
and traditions’ (QCA, 2007b). However, the statement that ‘The study of English
should include . . . the significance of standard English as the main language of
public communication nationally and globally’ (QCA, 2007b) suggests there is
still some distance to travel before it is acknowledged that a rich perception of the
language heritage of English may be that our own version of English, whatever

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JOHN MOSS I I I I

that may be, exists as one variety of a language which twenty-first-century com-
munications technology makes globally available alongside many others.
Now complete Task 1.4.

Task 1.4 THE TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE

DIVERSITY OF ENGLISH
What all three sections of the preceding discussion of ‘futures’ for English have
in common is a sense of a need to develop approaches to teaching which
promote and celebrate diversity and flexibility in language use, a moving in and
out of and between genres, language modes, texts and/or cultural perspectives.
Find a literary or non-literary text or group of texts in which the writer or producer
encourages the reader or viewer to experience shifts in meaning or a multiplicity
of meanings, and write a commentary in which you either describe your response
to the material or suggest ways in which you could use it in the classroom.

SUMMARY AND KEY POINTS

The claims that can be made for the possible effect of centring English teaching
on the developments discussed in the final part of this chapter may be large or
small. There is no doubt that developments in each area are giving teachers new
insights into literacy and into the ways in which language works. However, it is
important to remain cautious about the extent to which any of these develop-
ments will transform the educational experience or lives of pupils. Centring the
writing curriculum on genre and rhetoric will not in itself give pupils access to
the audiences they need to begin to influence society; battles are currently taking
place to achieve structural control of the Internet which may limit the access to
it of many less privileged groups in global culture; there are questions to ask
about the implications of the domination of global language culture by particular
Englishes and by Englishes collectively.
Many of the formulations of English discussed in this chapter may be
interpreted as serving the interests of particular privileged groups rather than as
genuinely offering pupils the empowerment which can be stated as at least one
justification for even those versions of English which may now strike us as most
reactionary. As you begin your development as an English teacher, one question
which you should keep firmly at the centre of your thinking, despite the temptation
to abandon it which may result from your having to address more immediate
issues, concerns your pupils more than English. What futures do you imagine
for them, and how can your English teaching contribute to their development
towards those futures?

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FURTHER READING

Kress, G. (1995) Writing the Future: English and the Making of a Culture of
Innovation, Sheffield, NATE.
Gunther Kress challenges us to develop a curriculum for English to meet the needs
of the social individual in the twenty-first century.

Davison, J. and Moss, J. (2000) Issues in English Teaching, London: Routledge.

This collection of essays by various authors invites further exploration of many of
the issues raised in this chapter and elsewhere in this book.

Goodman, S. and Graddol, D. (1997) Redesigning English: New Texts, New Identities,
London: Routledge.
Mercer, N. and Swann, J. (1977) Learning English: Development and Diversity,
London: Routledge.
Both consider respectively what kind of language English is becoming globally, and
the issues involved in teaching English.
Searle, C. (1998) None But our Words: Critical Literacy in Classroom and Com-
munity, Buckingham: Open University Press.
This book explores the challenges one teacher faced when promoting a radical and
principled version of critical literacy in his teaching.

Important discussions of the current directions of English teaching also may be found in
these journal articles: English in Education (2006) 40 (1), a volume of the journal devoted
to ‘English: What for?’ and English in Education (2000) 34 (1), which is a special edition
on ‘English in the New Millennium’. See also ‘Beliefs about English’, English in Education
(1995) 29 (3), by Robin Peel and Sandra Hargreaves, and a collection of short articles by
various authors grouped under the heading ‘The future of English’ (1996) in the English
and Media Magazine, 34, pp. 4–20.

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 BATTLES FOR
ENGLISH
Jon Davison

English is a subject suitable for women and the second- and third-rate
men who are to become schoolmasters.
(Professor Sanday, 1893)

INTRODUCTION

Because of the way in which English literature is often presented as a body of

historical texts, there is a notion that English as a subject spreads back into the
mists of time. English as a recognisable school subject has existed only since the
beginning of the twentieth century and the category of English literature, as we
know it, is little more than a hundred years old (Gossman, 1981, p. 341). The
Oxford School of English was not established until 1894 in the face of strong
opposition from the Classicists, as the quotation that opens this chapter indicates
(Palmer, 1965, pp. 104–117). Nevertheless, within the last century the centrality
of English to the education of children was recognised and the subject now exists
as part of the ‘core’ of the National Curriculum. However, the progress from
new to established subject was not a smooth journey and, at times, the conflict-
ing beliefs about the nature and purpose of English caused fierce debate, not
least during the late 1980s when there were two national reports on the teaching
of English: Kingman (1989) and Cox (1989). The National Curriculum Order for
English, produced in 1990, was revised in 1993, 1994, 1999 and 2007. This chapter
explores the roots of the views about English teaching that underpinned the recent
debates.
Before continuing complete Task 2.1.

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Task 2:1 WHY ENGLISH?

Before you read any further, answer this question:

‘Why should it be mandatory for every child in this country to study English
in school as part of a core of the National Curriculum?’

Either by yourself or with a partner, brainstorm all the reasons you would give
for studying English. Then list your reasons in order of importance. If possible
discuss them with another student teacher/pair and be prepared to justify your
list and the relative importance of your reasons. Then as you read this chapter,
look for the connections between your reasons and the reasons others have
given during the last one hundred years.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this chapter you should:

I have some knowledge of the key reports that determined the shape
of English as a subject
I be aware of philosophies and attitudes to culture and social class that
underpinned the establishment of English on the curriculum
I understand the importance to the subject that has been placed upon
the literary ‘canon’
I be aware of the reasons why notions of ‘correctness’ have been seen
as central to English
I understand that different and conflicting paradigms of English have
influenced the National Curriculum for English.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Before the turn of the last century, English did not exist as a separate school subject
(Ball, 1985, p. 53). It was not until 1904 that the Board of Education (BoE)
Regulations required all elementary and secondary schools to offer courses in
English language and literature. The reasons for the subject’s inclusion in the
curriculum of state schools were not necessarily ones that teachers today might
deem educational. Indeed, some commentators (e.g. Eagleton, 1983, p. 23ff.)
believe that the need for state education and the importance of English was

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JON DAVISON I I I I

‘advocated in a hard-headed way as a means of social control’ (Gossman, 1981,

p. 82). There is not space in a chapter of this length to detail fully the growth of
the subject; however, the main strands of development are worth exploration as
many of the earlier beliefs and opinions about the subject can be found to underpin
much of what happens in the name of English today. Although the Cox Report
notes that ‘Views about English teaching have changed in the last twenty years
and will continue to do so’ (Department of Education and Science (DES), 1989,
para. 2.4), it is possible to trace the differing views of English teaching back to
the origins of state education in England.
With the growth of Victorian technology there was a need for a workforce
trained ‘in terms of future adult work’: a workforce comprising adults who could
read simple instructions; understand verbal commands; give and receive
information and who exhibited ‘habits of regularity, “self discipline”, obedience
and trained effort’ (Williams, 1961, p. 62). Broadly, this utilitarian approach to
education was dealt with in terms of ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ lessons. Later, the
Board of Education’s Elementary Code averred that teachers should give pupils:

some power over language as an instrument of thought and expression, and

while making them conscious of the limitations of their own knowledge, to
develop in them [such] a taste for good reading and thoughtful study . . . to
implant in the children habits of industry, self control and courageous
perseverance in the face of difficulties.
(BoE, 1904, p. viii)

For Matthew Arnold, poet and Her Majesty’s Inspector (HMI), writing in 1871,
English literature was ‘the greatest power available in education’. Arnold was much
influenced in his thinking by Wordsworth. As a child he spent holidays in the
cottage neighbouring the poet’s own cottage and, as he grew up, he developed a
belief in the power of poetry to act as ‘an excellent social cement’ (Eagleton, 1983,
p. 23). In the Preface to his Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth argues:

Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge – it is as immortal as the heart
of man . . . The Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire
of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time.

Elsewhere, in A Defense of Poetry (1840) Shelley regards poetry as ‘something

divine’, because ‘it is not like reasoning . . . It is as it were the interpretation of a
diviner nature through our own.’ To inhabit the realm of literature is to somehow
transcend the quotidian; to be at one with a diviner nature; to be at one with the
‘vast empire of human society’. That its nature could not be debated, rather its
truths could only be ‘felt’ or ‘experienced’ is significant, because this view gave
rise to the development of poetry ‘appreciation’ rather than ‘criticism’ in the school
curriculum for much of the first half of the twentieth century. As Palmer (1965,

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p. 39) puts it: ‘The main emphasis in the moral evangelical approach to literature
is upon reading, upon the value of making contact with the great imaginations of
the past.’

ENGLISH AND THE BOARD OF EDUCATION

The present is an age of educational reform. The methods of teaching most

of the subjects in the curriculum have undergone considerable changes and
been vastly improved, during the last decade.
(Roberts and Barter, 1908, p. 1)

Good taste vs. slang

The reader might be forgiven for thinking that this quotation from The Teaching
of English had been written in the 1990s. However, the first twenty years of the
twentieth century saw an outpouring of publications from the Board of Education
that attempted to define and structure the curriculum in elementary and secondary
schools. The Board of Education’s Circular 753 (1910) was instrumental in
establishing the nature of English as it came to be in school. It shows clearly the
underlying philosophies mentioned earlier:

instruction in English in the secondary school aims at training the mind to

appreciate English Literature and at cultivating the power of using the
English Language in speech and writing . . . Literature supplies the enlarged
vocabulary which is the mechanism of enlarged thought, and for want of
which people fall helplessly back on slang, the base coin of the language.
Pure English is not merely an accomplishment, but an index to and a
formative influence over character.
(BoE, 1910, para. 2)

Clearly, the approach is a high cultural, pure-English-as-civilising-agent approach

advocated in the previous century by Matthew Arnold. The Circular envisages
its own literary canon: a body of great literary works to which pupils need to be
introduced. Pupils ‘should be taught to understand, not to criticise or judge’
the great works (ibid., para. 36). Texts recommended include Hiawatha, Ancient
Mariner, Robinson Crusoe, Stories of Heroes, Patriotic Songs, Gulliver’s Travels,
and the poetic works of Milton, Gray, Coleridge, Tennyson and Wordsworth. There
is an obvious lack of Dickens, or any other novelist, who might venture into the
realms of social realism; but stories of courage distanced in the realms of
Romanticism were quite acceptable. Maybin and Mercer (1996, p. 236) reminds
us that canonical texts have always been important not only because they are
regarded as the backbone of English literature, but also in relation to the definition

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of standard English. In compiling his English dictionary, Samuel Johnson based

it upon the books he regarded as illustrating ‘authoritative uses and meanings in
the language’. Similarly, histories of English languages in the nineteenth century
focused upon the written works that were believed to be most important rather
than the spoken word. The importance of literature in relation to its ‘divine’ nature,
in relation to notions of correctness and standard English, and the subordinate status
of the spoken word, fundamentally determined the nature of English in school
throughout the twentieth century.

The unsuitability of novels

Startlingly perhaps for teachers today, the Circular has this to say: ‘Novels,
indeed, though occasionally points for discussion, are rarely suitable for reading
in school’ (para. 34) and ‘Boys and girls will read of their own accord many books
– chiefly fiction. These . . . are only of transitory interest, and involve little or no
mental effort’ (para. 17). How different from the current National Curriculum:
‘During Key Stages 3 and 4 pupils read a wide range of texts independently, both
for pleasure and for study. They become enthusiastic, discriminating and responsive
readers, understanding layers of meaning, and appreciating what they read on a
critical level’ (Department for Education (DfE)/Qualifications and Curriculum
Authority (QCA), 1999b, p. 34).
Part of the explanation for the Circular’s antipathy to novels lies in the
growth of mass production. For at least twenty years, novels had been widely and
cheaply available. A further explanation of this hostility to popular culture lies in
the view of high culture that underpins Circular 753: ‘the real teachers of Literature
are the great writers themselves. . . the greater the work, the more it speaks for
itself’ (BoE, 1910. para. 21). Such an attitude to the difference between literary
language and the spoken language of working-class children and the negative
effects of popular culture is also in evidence in the Newbolt Report:

The great difficulty of teachers in elementary schools in many districts is

that they have to fight against evil habits of speech contracted in home and
street. The teacher’s struggle is thus not with ignorance but with a perverted
power.
(BoE, 1921, para. 59)

The document displays a clear attitude to children from the working class, who
in their culture of ‘home and street’ are believed to threaten established norms,
not through ignorance but by virtue of a ‘perverted power’. Part of this power was
no doubt located within developing popular culture. Therefore, the best thing an
English teacher can do for a pupil is ‘to keep him from the danger of the catchword
and everyday claptrap’ (BoE, 1921, para. 81); ‘to teach all pupils who either speak
a definite dialect or whose speech is disfigured by vulgarisms, to speak Standard

I 24
 I I I I BATTLES FOR ENGLISH

English’ (para. 67) – there is no acknowledgement that standard English is, in itself,
a dialect.
Now complete Task 2.2.

Task 2.2 CORRECTNESS AND CHARACTER

Look back over this chapter so far. Examine the language of the educational
policy makers. Alone, or with a partner, answer the following questions:

1 What recurring connotations do you notice in the language (for example

the adjectives) used to describe the working class and children’s spoken
language? What attitudes does such language display?
2 How important do you believe standard English is in written work?
3 How important do you believe standard English is in speaking?
4 Can great literature be inspirational and an influence over the formation of
character?
5 Can/should English teaching be used as a form of social engineering?
6 How do the reasons given in these early documents for the importance
of studying English compare with your reasons produced in Task 2.1?

THE NEWBOLT REPORT

The most formidable institution we had to fight in Germany was not the
arsenals of the Krupps or the yards in which they turned out submarines, but
the schools of Germany . . . An educated man is a better worker, a more
formidable warrior, and a better citizen.
(Lloyd George, 1918)

Play up! and play the game!

It is significant that the first major evaluation of education after World War I was
carried out into The Teaching of English in England (BoE, 1921) by what came
to be known as the Newbolt Committee. The constitution of the Committee bears
analysis, for its composition undoubtedly shaped the approach to English that
underpinned not only the Report, but also the teaching of English for the follow-
ing thirty years. Sir Henry Newbolt chaired the Committee. Oxford educated and
Professor of Poetry from 1911 to 1921, Newbolt is, perhaps, now best remem-
bered for his poem Vitae Lampada, which details the virtues of self-sacrifice for
one’s country and contains the refrain: ‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’
Other Oxford men on the Committee were John Bailey, F. S. Boas and Professor
C. H. Firth, while from Cambridge came Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John

25 I
JON DAVISON I I I I

Dover Wilson (critic and HMI). Other notable members included Professor
Caroline Spurgeon, best known for her exhaustive work on Shakespeare’s imagery,
J. H. Fowler of English Usage fame and George Sampson, author of English for
the English. With such luminaries on a committee of fourteen members, it is not
surprising that notions of correctness, cultural heritage and a belief in the
humanising nature of literature should hold sway.
The Committee discovered that, in schools, ‘English was often regarded as
being inferior in importance, hardly worthy of any substantial place in the
curriculum’ (para. 6); while in boys’ schools the study of English was ‘almost
entirely neglected’ (para. 106). More worrying to the Committee was the attitude
of the working class (para. 233):

especially those belonging to organised labour movements, [who] were

antagonistic to, and contemptuous of literature . . . a subject to be despised
by really virile men . . . to be classed by a large number of thinking working
men with antimacassars, fish-knives and other unintelligible and futile
trivialities of ‘middle-class culture’ and ‘to side-track the working movement’.

Although the Report is lengthy (393 pages) it is ‘seldom positive in its proposals’
(Palmer, 1965, p. 82). Like all reports produced by a committee it is, on occasion,
contradictory.
English is asserted to be the ‘basis of school life’ (para. 61) and the Report
coins a phrase which still has currency: ‘every teacher is a teacher of English,
because every teacher is a teacher in English’ (para. 64). However, in a contra-
dictory paragraph it notes that good English teaching ‘demands skill and resource,
[and] is too often thought a task which any teacher can perform’ (para. 116).

Changing methodologies
Although the Newbolt Report’s central philosophy mirrors earlier Board of Educa-
tion publications, its approach to methodology is different. The Report is critical
of the approaches advocated in Circular 753. It deplores that there was often ‘Too
much emphasis on grammar and punctuation, spelling’ (para. 79). Paragraph 81
lists eleven ‘positive methods’ for the improvement of English lessons. While
most are fairly standard and had been proposed earlier – ‘listening’; ‘using the
dictionary’; ‘summarising’ – three recommendations appear surprising:

(g) proposals from the children about the choice of subjects; class
discussions, dramatic work
(h) preparation in advance of the subject matter of composition . . .
(k) free and friendly criticism by the scholars of each other’s work.
All agree in emphasising the value of oral exercises.
(BoE, 1921, para. 81)

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 I I I I BATTLES FOR ENGLISH

Such methodology would not seem out of place in an English department today.
However, in the 1920s it is obvious that factors such as class size would have
militated against the adoption of these recommendations, in the same way it did
against the Report’s belief in the value of discussion between small ‘groups of
children’ (para. 74). It is clear that within its short existence as a curriculum subject,
what we now believe to be ‘traditional’ methods were the backbone of English
teaching, while the more progressive recommendations would not be adopted for
approximately fifty years.

THE 1930s

For the authors of the Spens Report (1938), hope lay in the great tradition and the
values and higher moral code espoused by the great writers: ‘it involves the
submission of the pupil to the influences of the great tradition; it is his endeavour
to learn to do fine things in a fine way’ (BoE, 1938, p. 161). The study of literature
was believed to exercise ‘a wide influence upon the life and outlook of the
adolescent, more general and long lasting in its effects than that normally exercised
by any other subject in the curriculum’ (p. 218). Teachers ‘may yet succeed in
making the normal citizen of this country conscious and proud of his unequalled
literary heritage’ (p. 228). Here again we are presented with a view of culture as
complete: a legacy, an heirloom, which, having been cherished, is to be handed
down to the next generation. Presumably, any citizen not ‘conscious and proud of
his unequalled literary heritage’ is perforce ‘abnormal’.
More worrying for some was the standard of spoken English, which was seen
(or heard?) as ‘slovenly, ungrammatical, and often incomprehensible to a stranger’
(p. 220), but which the ‘common habit of English teaching’ (p. 222) would cure.
The textbook Good and Bad English (Whitten and Whittaker 1938, pp. 69–71)
mirrors this attitude throughout: for example, ‘NEVER – never – write “alright”.
It is all wrong (not alwrong), and it stamps a person who uses it as uneducated.’
Similar attitudes may be found in the April 1993 draft proposals for National
Curriculum English 5–16 (Department of Education and Science (DES) and Welsh
Office (WO), 1993a) in its regular restatement that, from Key Stage 1, pupils
‘should speak clearly using Standard English’ and ‘should be taught to speak
accurately, precisely, and with clear diction’. The draft proposals include a variety
of ‘Examples’: ‘We were (not was) late back from the trip’; ‘We won (not winned)
at cricket’; ‘Pass me those (not them) books’; ‘Clive and I (not me) are going to
Wembley’; ‘We haven’t seen anybody (not nobody)’ (pp. 9–23).
If high culture was to be the saviour of working-class children, the Spens
Report, like earlier documents, knew where to lay the blame for their slovenly
language:

Teachers everywhere are tackling this problem [debased forms of English]

though they are not to be envied in their struggle against the natural

27 I
JON DAVISON I I I I

conservatism of childhood allied to the popularisation of the infectious

accents of Hollywood. The pervading influences of the hoarding, the cinema,
and a large section of the public press, are (in this respect as in others) subtly
corrupting the taste and habits of the rising generation.
(BoE, 1938, pp. 222–223)

The burgeoning mass media, like some virulent disease (‘infectious’), were
portrayed as corrupting a whole generation. As in earlier documents, the language
of disease, corruption and perversion links the mass media and the working class.
Popular culture was seen as a threat because pupils needed no introduction to it –
it was the stuff of their lives – whereas they needed to be ‘brought into the presence’
of great writers who would civilise them.

LEAVIS

English students in England today are ‘Leavisites’ whether they know it or not.
(Eagleton, 1983, p. 31)

The Great Tradition and Practical Criticism

Arguably, the major influence upon the development of teaching English literature
in this country was the launch of the critical journal Scrutiny in 1932 and the
development of the ‘Cambridge School’ of English. Central to Leavisite critical
theory is the notion of ‘close reading’ or ‘practical criticism’ (Richards, 1929) of
texts, whereby the critic deals with ‘an individual’s work rather than a writer’s
achievements as a whole’ (Daiches, 1956, p. 299). Unlike the vagaries of the
Romantic appreciation promoted by Arnold and his descendants, which culminated
in the Board of Education promoting a love of greatness in literature without
judgement, practical criticism is ‘unafraid to take the text apart’ (Eagleton, 1983,
p. 43). For F. R. Leavis, texts would be analysed in relation to the literary standards
exemplified in the canon of great literature. It is this method which has come to
be at the very core of the teaching of English literature in universities and schools.
However, while Leavis’s methodology may have differed from Newbolt’s and
Arnold’s, his philosophy was strikingly similar. The Leavisite canon included inter
alia Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jonson, Bunyan, Pope, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats,
Austen and George Eliot. To be included in the canon a text had to ‘display
particular kinds of moral, aesthetic and “English” qualities which would arm
readers against the moral, aesthetic and commercial degeneration of the age’
(Maybin and Mercer, 1996, p. 245). It is clear that the belief in the humanising
effects of great literature, produced in some past golden age, is central to the
Leavisite view.

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However, the Norwood Report (BoE, 1943), Curriculum and Examinations

in Secondary Schools, not only criticises the notion of close reading but also
reaffirms the power of literature proposed by Arnold and Newbolt. Paragraph 93
of the Report argues that ‘too much attention has been paid to aspects [of great
literature] which are of secondary importance and the higher values have been
obscured’. It asserts that these values are ‘final and absolute: they cannot be broken
down into constituent parts: they are beyond analysis and wait upon the
appreciative powers of the pupil’. The paragraph concludes that the teaching of
English literature is concerned with that ‘which is past analysis or explanation,
and values which must be caught rather than taught’.
To sum up, in all educational documentation relating to the study of English
which was produced before the Second World War, it is possible to identify a
number of recurring themes. First, there is a belief that it is possible to identify
a number of works from the past that stand the test of time because they exhibit
certain values and qualities which are universal. Second, there is a conviction that
such works have a humanising effect on the lower classes and are therefore an aid
to social stability. Third, pupils should be taught to appreciate great literature, not
to criticise it. Fourth, the spoken and written language of working-class children
is of extremely low quality. Fifth, the exposure of pupils to ‘fine writing’ will enable
them to write and speak standard English. Sixth, popular culture should be seen
as a corrupting influence and an enemy to high culture.

ENGLISH TEACHING POSTWAR

If the Oxford and Cambridge Schools were instrumental in shaping the ‘English
as literature’ paradigm of the subject prior to the Second World War, arguably the
most influential institution postwar has been the University of London Institute of
Education (formerly the London Day Training College). Foremost among those
associated with the Institute who helped to shape the teaching of English in the
second half of the twentieth century were Britton, Barnes, Rosen and Martin. While
the Cambridge School, for the most part, addressed itself to the teaching of the
subject in grammar schools, the ‘London School’ was more associated with the
spread of comprehensive education in the 1950s and 1960s. The difference between
London and Cambridge in Britton’s words was the difference ‘between using
the mother tongue and studying it’ (Britton, 1973, p. 18). Ball (1985, p. 68)
characterises the London approach as the ‘English as language’ paradigm of
English teaching. Key texts that have underpinned the development of this
paradigm are, among others, Language and Learning (Britton, 1970); From Com-
munication to Curriculum (Barnes, 1976); and Language, the Learner and the
School (Barnes et al., 1975). Since the 1950s it is clear that both paradigms of
English teaching have held sway, often to be found in the differing approaches of
members of the same English department.

29 I
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Mercers’ Hall in Cheapside; the Grocers’, a portion of which was
long used by the Bank of England; the Haberdashers’, where the rich
ceiling was its great ornament; the Tallow Chandlers’, with its interior
colonnade and its fountain; the Apothecaries’, one of the largest in
the City; the Stationers’; and, last but not least, the Alderman’s
Court adjoining Guildhall, rebuilt almost immediately after the fire; a
very handsome room, rich in carving, and finely proportioned.
S. Edmund the King, in Lombard Street, was finished this year. The
necessities of the site caused Wren to build it north and south, the
altar being at the north end. The front to Lombard Street, the only
part of the outside visible, is of stone and very picturesque with its
belfry and little domed spire. The interior has been lately re-
arranged with a wise treatment of the old work and carving. The
‘marble font possesses, like that of S. Mary Abchurch, a very
beautiful canopied cover; it is in two stages, the lower being domed,
and above are four seated figures of the Cardinal Virtues; it is railed
in and is on the west side of the church.’[206]
S. Margaret’s, Lothbury, belongs to the same date, and was rebuilt
of stone. Some years later Wren bestowed much rich wood carving
on the interior. He chose the Corinthian style for this building and
handled it with considerable skill.
Queen Mary, who had the Stuart love for
genius, was invariably gracious and even HAMPTON COURT.
friendly to Wren, with whom she held many a
conversation on matters of art and science. He considered her to be
very well versed in all these subjects and enjoyed discussing them
freely with her. Queen Mary was much charmed with the situation of
Cardinal Wolsey’s old palace of Hampton Court, and engaged Wren
to make alterations there. The old buildings were accordingly in part
pulled down and two sets of royal apartments built; Queen Mary,
though she amused herself with planning the gardens and making
suggestions, had yet the wisdom to defer to Wren’s better taste and
knowledge. Her husband, with characteristic obstinacy, insisted on
his own ideas, thereby dwarfing the cloisters and marring much of
the architecture. It is, however, fair to say that King William always
owned that the defects[207] were his, the merits, Wren’s; and these
merits are very great, as anyone who knows the fine old palace with
its rich red brick, its arcades, and the quaint formal gardens will
readily allow. He built, at about the same time, the Pavilion and
Ranger’s House in Bushey Park.
Kensington Palace was also under Wren’s hands. It had been the
property of Lord Chancellor Finch, and was sold by his son to William
III. Wren added another story to the old house, which forms the
north front of the palace, and also built the south front. The defect
of the building as seen at the end of the long avenue of Kensington
Gardens is its want of height, but on a nearer approach this fault is
much diminished. King William was in the midst of his Irish
campaign while the work went on, but found time to send back
repeated inquiries as to its progress, and complaints when that did
not answer his expectations. There, five years later, Queen Mary
died, to the regret of all her subjects, and even of her cold-hearted
husband.
Nor were these the only palaces which Wren
contrived for Queen Mary. That of Greenwich GREENWICH AS A
had been begun by Inigo Jones for Henrietta HOSPITAL.
Maria, and a wing had been built for Charles
II., but it had been left unfinished. Wren, who knew Greenwich well
from his visits to the Observatory, and who took a great interest in
sailors, observing the entire lack of any refuge for them in illness,
proposed to Queen Mary the magnificent plan of making the palace
into a seaman’s hospital. The Queen willingly entered into the idea,
and proposed to add to the Queen’s House, as it was called, so as to
make it a dwelling for herself, at the same time. Evelyn, Sir Stephen
Fox and others, came readily into the scheme and contributed
liberally. Wren’s contribution, though not in money, was a liberal one
also; for he gave his time, labour, skill and superintendence, despite
his innumerable other works.
The plans were prepared and money collected, but nothing was
actually done until some years later.
Wren’s eldest son had in the meantime finished his Eton and
Cambridge career and had obtained, by his father’s interest, the
post, which must surely have been a sinecure! of Assistant Deputy
Engrosser. He does not seem to have inherited any of the brilliant
genius of his father, though apparently of very fair abilities and with
much taste for antiquities. Far more like Sir Christopher was his
daughter Jane, who shared his tastes and studies and took a vivid
interest in his work. She added to her other accomplishments that of
being a very skilful musician. She was never married, but remained
all her life her father’s affectionate companion.
Wren’s old friend, Dr. Bathurst of Trinity College, Oxford, appealed to
him, in the spring of 1692, for help in the buildings which were still
going on there.
 ‘Worthy Sir,—When I sent Mr. Phips (the surveyor of the
buildings) to wait on you with a scheme of our new building, he
told me how kindly you was pleased to express your
remembrance of me, and that you would send me your
thoughts concerning our design; and particularly of the
pinnacles, the which as they were superadded to our first
draught, so I must confess I would be well content to have
omitted with your approbation. The season for our falling to
work again will now speedily come on; which makes me the
more hasten to entreat from you the trouble of two or three
lines in relation to the promises whereby you will farther oblige,
‘Sir, your old friend, and ever faithful servant,
‘R. Bathurst.’
Wren’s answer comes promptly, and shows his generous readiness
to help the schemes of others, no matter how pressing his own work
was.
‘Sir,—I am extremely glad to hear of your
good health, and, what is more, that you HE SENDS HIS
are vigorous and active, and employed in THOUGHTS.
building. I considered the design you sent
me of your Chapel which in the main is very well, and I believe
your work is too far advanced to admit of any advice: however,
I have sent my thoughts, which will be of use to the mason to
form his mouldings.
‘He will find two sorts of cornice; he may use either. I did not
well comprehend how the tower would have good bearing upon
that side where the stairs rise. I have ventured a change of the
stairs, to leave the wall next the porch of sufficient scantling to
bear that part which rises above the roofs adjoining.
‘There is no necessity for pinnacles, and those expressed in the
printed design are much too slender.
 ‘I have given another way to the rail and baluster, which will
admit of a vase that will stand properly upon the pilaster.[208]
‘Sir, I wish you success and health and long life, with all the
affection that is due from,
‘Your obliged, faithful friend, and humble servant,
‘Christopher Wren.
‘P.S. A little deal box, with a drawing in it, is sent by Thomas
Moore, Oxford carrier.’
In the same year the Church of S. Andrew by the Wardrobe[209] was
finished; recent alterations in the city have benefited this building; it
now stands well above a flight of steps, with its square tower, and
the red brick which contrives to be red and not black, and stone
dressings.
Two years later Wren rebuilt All Hallows, Lombard Street, on an
ancient foundation: outside it is one of his plainest and most solid
churches, inside he spent upon it much rich work and curious
carving both in stone and wood.
S. Michael Royal, College Hill, belongs to this same date, and was
built under Wren’s directions by Edward Strong, his master-mason. It
is a well-lit, handsome church with a tower at one corner, and
contains an altar-piece of singular beauty, carved by Grinling
Gibbons in ‘right wainscot oak.’ The old church was founded and
made a collegiate church of S. Spiritus and S. Mary by no less a
person than Sir Richard Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of
London (1397, 1406, 1419), whose fame, with that of his cat,
survives in the well-known story. He founded also another college,
known as the Whittington College, and endowed it with a divinity
lecture ‘for ever.’ Edward VI., however, suppressed both the colleges
and the lecture, though the Whittington College was allowed
partially to survive as almshouses for poor men. Whittington[210]
was buried in this church, but his monument perished in the Fire.
In the following year Wren added a well-proportioned, peculiar
steeple, the gift of the parishioners, to the little stone Church of S.
Vedast[211] in Foster Lane, a church to which a painful interest now
attaches from the recent persecution and imprisonment of its rector,
the Rev. T. P. Dale.
The church was decorated, as was Wren’s custom, with fret-work,
carving, and stucco, but is not otherwise remarkable.
S. Mary’s, Somerset, or Somers’hithe, was likewise finished in this
year: a stone church with two aisles surmounted by a handsome
cornice and balustrade; its great feature was the beautiful pinnacled
tower, which, though the church is gone, still stands a perpetual
memorial of that reckless disregard of God’s honour, which has
counted any common want, any farthing of money, of more
importance than the claims of His service, or than gifts solemnly
offered to Him.[212]
The Cathedral meanwhile grew slowly, though
many a hindrance annoyed its architect. The CLIPT WINGS.
Parliament took part of the fabric money and
applied it to the expenses of King William’s A GRAND DESIGN.
wars, so that, as Sir Christopher complained,
his wings were clipt and the Church was deprived of its ornaments.
[213] The organ was another annoyance. Sir Christopher’s wish and
intention was to place the organ where it now is, on either side of
the choir, in order to leave the vista clear from the west door to the
altar, which in his design stood grandly raised under a handsome
canopy. This was overruled, and the organ was to be placed in a
gallery cutting right across the entrance of the choir. With his
wonted philosophy, Wren bent his mind to reducing as much as
possible the injury to the architectural effect, by keeping the pipes
as low as he could. But in the builder of the organ, Bernard Smith,
or ‘Father’ Smith, as he is called, Wren had a difficult person to deal
with. Far from lowering the pipes, Smith made them higher than in
his estimate, so that the case and ornaments had to be enlarged,
and Sir Christopher complained bitterly that the Cathedral ‘was spoilt
by that box of whistles.’ The rival organ builder, Renatus Harris, if
indeed he was the author of an anonymous paper, called ‘Queries
about the S. Paul’s Organ,[214] was not sparing in his criticisms. One
query asks
‘Whether Sir C. Wren wou’d not have been well pleas’d to have
receiv’d such a proposal from the organ builder of S. Paul’s, as
shou’d have erected an organ, so as to have separated twenty
foot in the middle, as low as the gallery, and thereby a full and
airy prospect of the whole length of the church, and six fronts
with towers as high as requisite?’
This question is easy enough to answer, and fortunately Wren’s
wishes have been at last fulfilled by that division of the organ, which
now leaves the desired clear view from the great western doors to
the altar. Harris, in 1712, proposed to erect a great organ over the
west doors of the Cathedral,
‘study’d to be in all respects made the most artful, costly and
magnificent piece of organ-work that ever has hitherto been
invented. The use of it will be for the reception of the Queen,
on all publick occasions of thanksgivings for the good effect of
peace or war, upon all state days, S. Cecilia’s Day, the
entertainment of foreigners of quality, and artists, and on all
times of greatest concourse etc., and by the advice and
assistance of Sir C. Wren, the external figure and ornaments
may be contrived so proportionable to the order of the building,
as to be a decoration to that part of the edifice and no
obstruction to any of the rest.... Sir Christopher Wren approves
it.’
Alas! at that time Wren’s approval was enough to determine the
majority of the commission to reject any plan thus sanctioned, and
Renatus Harris’s grand design survives on paper alone.
 CHAPTER XII.
1697–1699.
OPENING OF S. PAUL’S CHOIR—A MOVEABLE PULPIT—LETTER TO
HIS SON AT PARIS—ORDER AGAINST SWEARING—PETER THE
GREAT—S. DUNSTAN’S SPIRE—MORNING PRAYER CHAPEL
OPENED—WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wit.
Two Gentlemen of Verona.

One serious trouble and hindrance in all public works was the state
of the coinage. The money had been so clipped and defaced, that no
coin was worth its professed value, and for some time the
expedients used by the Government failed to lighten the pressure. In
paying such an army of workmen as those employed about S. Paul’s,
the inconvenience must have amounted to positive distress.
Scattered here and there through Evelyn’s diary are many references
to the ‘great confusion and distraction’ it occasioned.
A sudden subsidence of a large part of the ground at Portland, close
to the quarries set apart for Wren’s use, caused an inconvenient
delay in bringing the stone to London, but yet the work progressed,
and on December 2nd, 1697, the choir was opened for service.
It was the occasion of the thanksgiving for the peace of Ryswick,
which, though it brought little glory to England, was yet heartily
welcomed as the close of a long and exhausting war.
King William went to Whitehall, and heard Bishop Burnet’s flattering
sermon, while Bishop Compton preached for the first time in the new
S. Paul’s. No report of his sermon has come down to us. The choir
was not yet enriched with the carvings of Gibbons; but the pulpit
appears to have been very remarkable in its way: Sir Christopher
had placed it on wheels, perhaps with a design of using it
afterwards, for services under the dome, not unlike those we are
now familiar with.
A pulpit on wheels was a novelty, which gave rise, we can well
believe, to many squibs, one of which has been preserved.
A faithful copy of the Verses, lately fastened upon the pulpit of S.
Paul’s Choir.
TO THE ARCHITECT UPON HIS HAPPY INVENTION OF A PULPIT ON
WHEELS FOR THE USE OF S. PAUL’S CHOIR.
This little Structure (Excellent Sir Kit)
Holds forth to us that You bestowed more Wit
In Building it than on all Paul’s beside;
This shows the Principles, that but the Pride
Of its Inhabitants; True Sons of Saul,
For he (Good Man) became All things to All,
That by all Sorts of Means he might gain some.
They too for Gain would follow him to Rome,
This Passively Obedient thing will go as
They’d have it, or to Mecca, Rome, or Troas;
All one to it, if forward Hawl’d or back,
’Twill run a Holy Stage for Will or Jack;
And truckle to and fro’ ’twixt Cause and Cause,
Just as Strongest Pull of Interest draws.
But if the Pulpit be a Vital Part
O’ th’ Church, or as the Doctors say her Heart,
Why don’t you fix that also on a Rock
And let the Steeple Roost the Weather-Cock?
Where if a Puff of Strong Temptations blow,
It might remind the Staggering Saints and Crow.
Improve the Thought, Dear Sir, and let St. Paul’s
Wise Fane be this new Going Cart for Souls.[215]
It hardly needs the hint that these lines were affixed to ‘the Dean’s
side of the pulpit,’ to read in them a bitter satire on Dean Sherlock,
whose sudden change of front relative to the non-jurors, and
acceptance of the Deanery of S. Paul’s, laid him open to the grave
suspicion of having acted from interested motives, and stirred up
much vehement animosity. A spirited, if not an impartial, account of
this controversy, is given by Lord Macaulay.[216]
Sir Christopher’s remarkable invention appears to have survived the
laughter against it, and to have remained in the Cathedral until
1803.
The vaults of S. Paul’s were opened shortly after this thanksgiving to
receive the body of Dr. White, the non-juring Bishop of
Peterborough, whose funeral was attended by Bishop Turner, Bishop
Lloyd and forty nonjuring clergymen.
At the beginning of the following year, as soon
as travelling was possible, Wren sent his son A FOREIGN TOUR.
Christopher to Paris; not indeed with the
intention of his making that grand tour which a few years later was
supposed to finish a young gentleman’s education, but that he might
acquire a little experience and knowledge of the world. The young
man, evidently, had other ideas, spent a good deal of his money,
and then wrote home to his family a letter complaining in true
English fashion, of the climate and the cookery of France, and asking
leave to continue his journey to Italy. Sir Christopher’s reply has
been preserved; and in its folio sheet and brown ink exists in the
‘Parentalia.’ It is, I think, so charming as to double one’s regret that
so very few of his letters have been preserved.
[217]
‘Whi ‘I WILL NOT
DISCONTENT YOU.’
teha
ll, March 7.
‘My dear Son,—I hope by this time you are pretty well satisfied
of the condition of the climate you are in; if not, I believe you
will ere Lent be over; and will learne to dine upon sallad; and
morue with egges will scarce be allowed: if you thinke you can
dine better cheape in Italy you can trie, but I think the passing
of the Alpes and other dangers of disbanded armies and
abominable Lodgings will ballance that advantage; but the
seeing of fine buildings I perceive temptes you, and your
companion, Mr. Strong, whose inclination and interest leades
him, by neither of which can I find you are mov’d; but how doth
it concerne you? You would have it to say hereafter that you
have seen Rome, Naples and a hundred other fine places; a
hundred others can say as much and more; calculate whither
this be worth the expence and hazard as to any advantage at
youre returne. I sent you to France at a time of businesse and
when you might make your observations and find acquaintance
who might hereafter be usefull to you in the future concernes of
your life: if this be your ayme I willingly let you proceed,
provided you will soon returne, for these reasons, the little I
have to leave you is unfortunately involved in trouble, and your
presence would be a comfort to me, to assist me, not only for
my sake, but your own that you might understand your affaires,
before it shall please God to take me from you, which if
suddenly will leave you in perplexity and losse. I doe not say all
this out of parsimony, for what you spend will be out of what
will in short time, be your owne, but I would have you be a man
of businesse as early as you can bring your thoughts to it. I
hope, by your next you will give me account of the reception of
our ambassador;[218] of the intrigues at this time between the
two nations, of the establishment of the commerce, and of
anything that may be innocently talked of without danger, and
reflection, that I may perceive whither you look about you or
noe and penetrate into what occurres, or whither the world
passes like a pleasant dream, or the amusement of fine scenes
in a play without considering the plot. If you have in ten weeks
spent half your bill of exchange besides your gold, I confesse
your money will not hold out, either abroad for yourself or for
 us at home to supply you, especially if you goe for Italy, which
voyage forward and backward will take up more than twenty
weekes: thinke well of it, and let me hear more from you, for
though I would advise you, I will not discontent you. Mr. Strong
hath profered credit by the same merchant he uses for his son,
and I will thinke of it, but before I change, you must make up
your account with your merchant, and send it to me. My hearty
service to young Mr. Strong and tell him I am obliged to him for
your sake. I blesse God for your health, and pray for the
continuance of it through all adventures till it pleases him to
restore you to your Sister and friends who wish the same as
doth
‘Your most affectionate Father,
‘Chr. Wren.
‘P.S. Poor Billy continues in his indisposition, and I fear is lost to
me and the world, to my great discomfort and your future
sorrow.’
What answer the younger Christopher sent does not appear; but his
father did not ‘discontent’ him; the young man did make the journey
to Italy, then such a formidable undertaking, and was ever after
reckoned a very accomplished and travelled gentleman. ‘Young Mr.
Strong’ must have been the son of Sir Christopher’s faithful master-
mason, Edward Strong, one of a great family of builders and stone-
cutters; I suppose the ‘poor Billy’ of the postscript to have been the
writer’s youngest son, then nearly nineteen, who however recovered
and outlived his father by about fifteen years.
The Royal Society had sustained a severe loss by Charles II.’s death,
and if King James took little interest in their discussions, William III.
was utterly indifferent. Still it had won a certain position of its own,
and was able to keep its steady course. Wren remained one of the
members who attended most regularly and contributed to
discussions on a variety of subjects, though not perhaps on the
‘jessamine-scented gloves,’ which figure so often in Pepys’ diary, the
secret of whose perfumery Wren once undertook to find out. He was
again chosen Grand Master of the Freemasons, and continued in
that office until 1702.
His friend and fellow-member in the Royal
Society, Robert Boyle, had written a book called ORDER AGAINST
‘A Free Discourse against Swearing,’ which was SWEARING.
published after his death. Wren followed this
up by an order which he had affixed in many parts of S. Paul’s, while
the building went on:—
‘Whereas, among labourers, &c. that ungodly custom of
swearing is too frequently heard, to the dishonour of God and
contempt of authority; and to the end, therefore, that such
impiety may be utterly banished from these works, intended for
the service of God and the honour of religion—it is ordered that
customary swearing shall be a sufficient crime to dismiss any
labourer that comes to the call, and the clerk of the works, upon
sufficient proof, shall dismiss them accordingly, and if any
master, working by task, shall not, upon admonition, reform this
profanation among his apprentices, servants and labourers, it
shall be construed his fault; and he shall be liable to be
censured by the Commissioners.’
Such was Sir Christopher’s care for his grand work: it was intended
for the service of God, and therefore was to have no blemish which
Wren’s diligence could avoid. He was constantly there and shrank
neither from fatigue nor from risk. The famous Duchess of
Marlborough, in her quarrels with Vanbrugh over the building of
Blenheim, complained bitterly that he asked 300l. a year for himself
and a salary for his clerk, ‘when it is well-known that Sir Christopher
Wren was content to be dragged up in a basket three or four times a
week to the top of S. Paul’s, and at great hazard, for 200l. a year.’
Probably it was because her Grace considered his charges so
moderate that, after her last quarrel with Vanbrugh, she engaged Sir
Christopher to build Marlborough House, at the corner of Pall Mall.
The site presented great difficulties, but the building in red brick and
stone was a handsome one, and lately has been much enlarged.
Vanbrugh’s first start in life was his being engaged by Wren to act as
clerk of the works to the buildings at Greenwich. Gibbs and
Hawksmoor were also pupils of Wren’s, and worked under him at
some of the innumerable works on which he was engaged. The
building of Greenwich was vigorously continued, and in 1705,[219]
‘they began to take in wounded and worn-out seamen, who are
exceedingly well provided for.’
At the beginning of 1698, Peter the Great made his extraordinary
voyage to England and took possession of Evelyn’s house, Sayes
Court, at Deptford, in order to be near the dockyard and inspect the
ship-building. He was anything but a desirable tenant. ‘There is a
house full of people and right nasty,’ wrote Evelyn’s servant.
‘The Czar lies next your library, and dines in the parlour next
your study. He dines at ten o’clock and six at night, is very
seldom at home a whole day, very often in the King’s yard, or by
water, dressed in several dresses. The King is expected here this
day, the best parlour is pretty clean for him to be entertained.
The King pays for all he has.’[220]
The Czar’s three months’ occupancy of Sayes Court left it a wreck,
and Evelyn got Sir Christopher, and the Royal gardener, Mr. Loudon,
to go down and estimate the repairs which would be necessary.
They allowed 150l. in their report to the Treasury, but could not by
any money replace the beautiful holly hedge through which Peter
the Great had been trundled in a wheel-barrow, or repair the garden
he had laid waste.
In 1699, Wren finished the last of those City
churches which the Fire had injured or S. DUNSTAN’S
destroyed. S. Dunstan’s in the East had SPIRE.
suffered severely by the Fire: the walls of the
church had not fallen, but the interior had been much damaged and
the monument to the famous sailor and discoverer, Sir John
Hawkins, who was buried there, perished. The old church had a lofty
wooden spire cased with lead, which of course fell and was
consumed. When Sir Christopher had repaired the body of the
building the parishioners were anxious to have back the spire also,
and Dame Dionis Williamson, a Norfolk lady, who had been a great
benefactress to S. Mary’s, Bow, gave 400l. towards this object. It is
one of the most curious of all Wren’s spires, as it rests on four
arches springing from the angles of the tower. Three more such
spires exist, two in Scotland and one at Newcastle. Tradition says
that the steeple of S. Dunstan’s was the design or the suggestion of
Wren’s daughter Jane. Perhaps, like the leaning tower of Pisa, it is
more wonderful than satisfactory to the eye, but Sir Christopher was
certainly proud of it and confident in its stability. Great crowds
assembled to see the supports taken away, and Wren watched with
a telescope, says the story, on London Bridge for the rocket which
announced that all was safely done, but it is hardly probable that he
was anxious about the result.
Four years later, when the tempest known as the ‘great storm’ raged
in England, destroying twelve ships in the Royal navy, many
merchant vessels, and a great number of buildings, some one came
with a long face to tell Sir Christopher, that ‘all the steeples in
London had suffered;’ he replied at once, ‘Not S. Dunstan’s, I am
sure.’ He was perfectly right, and the account given of the others
was an exaggeration.
On February 1, 1699, the Morning Prayer Chapel of S. Paul’s was
opened for service. Later in the same month, a fire broke out at the
west end of the choir, where ‘Father Smith’ was still at work. It
caused considerable alarm, and was got under with some damage,
especially to two of the pillars, and to a decorated arch. The gilding
also lost some of its brightness. A nameless poem[221] fixes the date
of this fire, which has been much disputed. It may have been in
consequence of this alarm that Sir Christopher covered all the
woodwork of the upper parts of the Cathedral with ‘a fibrous
concrete’ said to resist fire so well that faggots might be kindled
below it with impunity.
While S. Paul’s was thus advancing towards its
full beauty, the care of Westminster Abbey was WESTMINSTER
assigned to Wren. Little or no attention seems ABBEY.
to have been spent on it between the time of
Charles I.’s reign and that in which it was handed over to Wren.
With the energy which his sixty-seven years had not checked, he
examined the grand building where he had worshipped as a
schoolboy, and instantly ordered some of the most needful repairs.
In 1713 he sent in a statement to Dr. Atterbury, who was both
Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, having in that year
succeeded to Wren’s old friend, Bishop Sprat: from this paper,
though it is anticipating the date, some extracts are here given.
‘When I had the Honour to attend your Lordship, to
congratulate your Episcopal Dignity, and pay that Respect which
particularly concerned myself as employed in the chief Direction
of the Works and Repairs of the Collegiate-Church of S. Peter in
Westminster, you was pleased to give me this seasonable
admonition, that I should consider my advanced Age; and as I
had already made fair steps in the Reparation of that ancient
and ruinous Structure, you thought it very requisite for the
publick Service, I should leave a Memorial of what I had done,
and what my Thoughts were for carrying on the Works for the
future.’ Then follows the history of the building of the abbey up
to the reign of Henry III., who rebuilt it ‘according to the Mode
which came into Fashion after the Holy War.
‘This we now call the Gothick manner of Architecture (so the
Italians called what was not after the Roman style), tho’ the
Goths were rather Destroyers than Builders; I think it should
with more Reason be called the Saracen Style; for those People
wanted neither Arts nor Learning, and after we in the West had
lost both, we borrowed again from them, out of their Arabick
Books, what they with great Diligence had translated from the
Greeks.... They built their Mosques round, disliking the Christian
form of a Cross: the old quarries whence the Ancients took their
 large blocks of marble for whole Columns and Architraves were
neglected, for they thought both impertinent. Their carriage was
by camels, therefore their Buildings were fitted for small stones,
and Columns of their own fancy consisting of many pieces, and
their Arches were pointed without key-stones which they
thought too heavy. The Reasons were the same in our Northern
Climates abounding in free stone, but wanting marble.... The
Saracen mode of building seen in the East, soon spread over
Europe and particularly in France, the Fashions of which nation
we affected to imitate in all ages, even when we were at enmity
with it.’...
Wren laments over the mixture of oak with the less-enduring
chestnut wood in the roof of the Abbey, and the use of Rygate stone
which absorbed water, and in a frost scaled off. He says he cut all
the ragged ashlar work of Rygate stone out of the east window,
replacing it with durable Burford stone, and secured all the
buttresses on the south side. The north side of the Abbey is so
choked up by buildings, and so shaken in parts by vaults rashly dug
close to its buttresses, that he can do little.
‘I have yet said nothing of King Henry VIIth’s Chapel, a nice
embroidered Work and performed with tender Caen stone, and
though lately built in comparison, is so eaten up by our
Weather, that it begs for some compassion, which I hope the
Sovereign Power will take as it is the Regal Sepulture.’
The most necessary outward repairs of stone-
work, he says, are one-third part done; the THE ORIGINAL
north front, and the great Rose Window there INTENTION.
are very ruinous; he has prepared a proper
design for them. Having summed up the repairs still essential for the
security of the building, he proceeds to state what are, in his
judgment, the parts of the original design for the Abbey still
unfinished.
‘The original intention was plainly to have had a Steeple, the
Beginnings of which appear on the corners of the Cross, but left
off before it rose so high as the Ridge of the Roof, and the Vault
of the Quire under it, is only Lath and Plaister, now rotten and
must be taken care of.

I have made a Design, which will not be very expensive but

light, but still in the Gothick Form, and of a Style with the rest of
the structure, which I would strictly adhere to, throughout the
whole intention: to deviate from the old Form would be to run
into a disagreeable mixture which no Person of a good Taste
could relish. I have varied a little from the usual Form, in giving
twelve sides to the Spire instead of eight, for Reasons, to be
discerned upon the Model.
‘The Angles of Pyramids in the Gothick Architecture were usually
enriched with the Flower the Botanists call the Calceolus, which
is a proper form to help workmen to ascend on the outside to
amend any defects, without raising large scaffolds upon every
slight occasion; I have done the same, being of so good Use, as
well as agreeable Ornament.... It is evident, as observed before,
the two West Towers were left imperfect, and have continued so
since the Dissolution of the Monastery, one much higher than
the other, though still too low for Bells, which are stifled by the
Height of the Roof above them; they ought certainly to be
carried to an equal Height, one story above the ridge of the
Roof, still continuing the Gothick manner, in the stone-work, and
tracery.... It will be most necessary to rebuild the great North
Window with Portland stone, to answer the South Rose Window
which was well rebuilt about forty years since; the stair-cases at
the corners and Pyramids set upon them conformable to the old
style to make the whole of a piece.... For all these new
Additions I have prepared perfect Draughts and Models, such as
I conceive may agree with the original scheme of the old
architect, without any modern mixtures to show my own
Inventions: in like manner as I have among the Parochial
 Churches of London given some few Examples (where I was
obliged to deviate from a better style), which appear not
ungraceful, but ornamental to the East part of the city; and it is
to be hoped, by the publick care, the West part also, in good
time will be as well adorned: and surely by nothing more
properly than a lofty Spire and Western Towers to Westminster
Abbey.’
With this, still unfulfilled hope, Wren’s interesting paper closes. Nine
years afterwards he did, however, finish the north front, commonly
known as Solomon’s Porch.
Wren is so commonly spoken of as having built
—and spoilt—the western towers, that it is well ‘MODERN
here to mention that his share in them is very MIXTURES.’
small; he only restored with a careful hand the
lower portion of the towers then standing.[222] They were continued
by Hawksmoor after Wren’s death, and by two other architects in
succession after the death of Hawksmoor in 1736. No one of these
had, as Wren had, the high-minded desire to do justice to ‘the
original architect without any modern mixtures of my own.’
 CHAPTER XIII.
1700–1708.
MEMBER FOR WEYMOUTH—RISING OF THE SAP IN TREES—
PRINCE GEORGE’S STATUE—JANE WREN’S DEATH—
THANKSGIVING AT S. PAUL’S—LETTER TO HIS SON—SON
MARRIES MARY MUSARD—DEATH OF MR. EVELYN—QUEEN
ANNE’S ACT FOR BUILDING FIFTY CHURCHES—LETTER ON
CHURCH BUILDING.
‘The old knight turning about his head twice or thrice to take a
survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the
City was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single
steeple on this side Temple Bar. “A most heathenish sight!” says
Sir Roger; “there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty
new churches will very much mend the prospect, but church
work is slow, church work is slow.”’—The Spectator, No. 383.

In 1700 Wren was returned by the boroughs of Weymouth and

Melcombe Regis to a somewhat stormy Parliament.
He was finishing several of the City churches by the addition of
towers to some, where, as at S. Magnus, London Bridge, and S.
Andrew’s, Holborn, the main parts had been previously built.
He gave a design for All Saints’ Church, Isleworth; it was, however,
reckoned too costly, and nothing was done until, in 1705, Sir
Orlando Gee left a legacy of 500l. towards the rebuilding of the
church, when Wren’s design was partially adopted, and the work
done by his faithful master-mason, Edward Strong.[223]
With all this work, Wren yet found time to write a treatise on ‘The
rising of the sap in trees.’ It is a short treatise, evidently copied by a
copyist, though a little indian-ink drawing at the side is probably
Wren’s own. The question in dispute seems to have been whether
this natural rising of the sap contradicted the newly discovered law
of gravity.
‘It is wonderful,’ he says, ‘to see the rising of the sap in Trees.
All will bleed more or less when they are tapped by boring a
hole through the Bark, some very considerably, as Birch, which
will afford as much liquor every day almost as the milke of a
cow; in a Vine when a bough is cut off it will if not stopped
bleed to death. Now by what mechanisme is water raised to
such a height, as in Palmitos to 120 foot high? A skillfull
Engineer cannot effect this without great force and a
complicated engine, which Nature doth without sensible motion;
it steals up as freely as the water descends: the reason of this is
obscure as yett to naturalists.’
After some discussion of various theories, he proceeds to show by
the help of the little drawing, ‘that the onely Vicissitudes of heat and
cold in ye aire is sufficient to raise the sap to the height of the
loftiest trees.’ Then follows the proof of this by mechanics refuting
the notion of
‘a secret motion in nature contrary to that of the gravity, by
which plants aspire upwards.
‘But though I have shown how the sap may be mechanically
raised from the Root to the top of the loftiest trees, yett how it
comes to be varyed according to the particular nature of the
Tree by a Fermentation in the Root; how the Raine water
entering the Root acquires a spirit that keeps it from freezing,
but also gives it such distinguishing tastes and qualities is
beyond mechanical Philosophy to describe and may require a
great collection of Phenomena with a large history of plants to
shew how they expand the leaves and produce the Seed and
Fruit from the same Raine water so wonderfully diversified and
continued since the first Creation.’
Another paper of the same date was written ‘On the surface of the
terrestrial Globe,’ but this does not appear to have been preserved.
Many of Sir Christopher’s writing’s and many also of his inventions
were lost by Mr. Oldenburg, the Royal Society’s secretary, of whom
Wren frequently complained that he not only neglected to enter
them on the Society’s Register, but conveyed them to France and
Germany, where they appeared, attributed as inventions to those
who had stolen them.
One cannot but admire the versatility of mind which enabled Wren,
in the midst of great architectural works, and endless business
details, to write papers such as these, and to digest and decide upon
Flamsteed’s long letters on the Earth’s motion, his quarrels with Mr.
Halley, and his measurement of the height of the Welsh hills.
The progress of Greenwich and Chelsea
Hospitals, the growth of his beautiful S. Paul’s, LONDON AS IT
the repairs of the Abbey, were now the WAS.
absorbing interests of Wren’s life. From the
house in Whitehall which he occupied with his daughter he could
easily reach the two former by water, or the latter on foot. Two most
interesting pictures by Canaletto,[224] giving a general view of the
city and of Westminster, enable us to realise what the whole effect
must have been in an atmosphere far clearer than at present, before
the river was cut by iron bridges, or the city robbed of steeple or
tower. The death of King William and the accession of Queen Anne
in the spring of 1702 made little difference to Wren, except to his
advantage. He appears to have been on very good terms with her,
and with her Danish husband. He is said to have built S. Anne’s,
Soho,[225] and to have made it externally to resemble a Danish
church as much as he could, out of compliment to Prince George. He
also gave to the Town Hall of Windsor, a statue of Prince George, to
correspond with that of Queen Anne. The Prince is dressed in a
Roman costume, and the pedestal has the following inscription:
SERENISSIMO PRINCIPI
GEORGII PRINCIPI DANIAE
 HEROI OMNI SAECULO VENERANDO
CHRISTOPHORUS WREN, ARM:
POSUIT MDCCXIII.
One marvels how ‘Est-il possible’ came to merit such an inscription
as this!
In 1702 Sir Christopher suffered a grievous loss
by the death of his only daughter, Jane, on the THANKSGIVING AT
29th of December. She was laid in the vault of S. PAUL’S.
S. Paul’s close to the graves of Dr. and Mrs.
Holder,[226] and her father wrote the short Latin inscription which
records her virtues, her skill in music, and implies how loving and
how congenial a companion he had lost in her. She was but twenty-
six when she died. The sculptor, Bird,[227] of whose power Wren had
a good opinion, carved a monument in low relief, representing Jane
Wren playing on an organ; a harp and a spinnet are beside her, and
a group of angels in the clouds above, one of whom holds the music.
It is but an ordinary piece of monumental sculpture, now much
obscured by dust. Jane Wren’s death must have left a great blank in
the life of the father whose interests and pursuits she had shared,
and one wishes she could have lived long enough to see the top
stone laid on the dome of S. Paul’s. The Duke of Marlborough’s
brilliant victory at Blenheim, on Aug. 13, 1704, brought Queen Anne
and all her court in their utmost splendour to a thanksgiving at S.
Paul’s on the 7th of September.
‘The streets were scaffolded from Temple Bar, where the Lord
Mayor presented her Majesty with the Sword, which she
returned. Every Company was ranged under its banners, the
Citty Militia without the rails, which were all hung with cloth
suitable to the colour of the banner. The Lord Mayor, Sheriffs
and Aldermen were in their scarlet robes, with caparisoned
horses; the Knight Marshall on horseback, the Foot Guards; the
Queen in a rich coach with eight horses, none with her but the
Duchess of Marlborough in a very plain garment, the Queene
full of jewells. Music and trumpets at every Citty Company. The
 great Officers of the Crown, Nobility and Bishops, all in coaches
with six horses, besides innumerable servants, went to S. Paul’s
where the Deane preached. After this the Queen went back in
the same order to S. James’s. The Citty Companies feasted all
the nobility and Bishops, and illuminated at night. Music for the
Church and anthems by the best masters. The day before wet
and stormy, but this was one of the most serene and calm days
that had been all the year.’[228]
No doubt it was a splendid pageant, the grandest that had been
seen since those which celebrated the Restoration, and S. Paul’s,
despite the scaffolding still round the dome, must have looked
magnificent. In 1705, Sir Christopher’s eldest son went abroad
again, travelling this time to Holland, where in the excitement of
Marlborough’s brilliant campaign he very nearly joined the army as a
volunteer.
A letter[229] to him from Sir Christopher is
extant; the handwriting is not quite so steady BARCELONA.
as in the former letter, but still clear.
‘Whitehall, Oct. 11, 1705.
‘Dear Son,—I received at once three of yr letrs: one from Harlem,
Sep. 26, another from Amsterdam of Sep. 28, O.S., a third of
Oct. 13, N.S., by all which I rejoyced in your good Health & your
recovery from your cold. I am very well satisfied you have layd
aside your designe for the Army; which I think had not been
safe or pertinent, at least not soe much as Bookes &
Conversation with ye learned. Your Traffic for good Bookes I
cannot disapprove. You tell me Gronovius[230] is 25 volumes, I
am told they are 26, and that the last is the best & comonly sold
by its selfe, you will have a care [a word seems to be omitted]
being imposed upon. Mr. Bateman in his (?) will give you advice
how you may get them into the Secretary’s packets. You
remember how much trouble Mr. Strong was put to at Dover by
the impertinence of the Customer there. I hope this may bee
 prevented. Wee have not yet rejoyced for Barcelona[231] though
you have; though wee doe not doubt it and wagers are layd 6
to one: last night the seales were given to Mr. Cowper &
changes are made of Lord Lieutenants. Give my Service to Mr.
Roman & thanks for his Civilities to you. I am importuned to
take a little journy to my cosin Munson’s to christen her 8th son.
Wee are told here that my Ld D. of Marlborough goeth certainly
to Vienna, & you resolve well to wait on him before he goes, &
then I thinke you have little else to doe but to take the best
opportunity to returne, which I am told may happen if you come
with my Ld Woodstock[232] who will have convoy. Wee are all in
good health at both Houses and wish you happinesse wch wee
also contrive for you.
‘I am, dear Son, your affectionate Father,
‘Chr. Wren.’
I suppose the mention of ‘both houses,’ and the hint of happiness
being contrived, refer to young Christopher’s marriage, which took
place in the following year. He married Mary,[233] daughter of Mr.
Philip Musard, jeweller to Queen Anne, by whom he had a son, a
fourth Christopher Wren.
Wren lost a faithful and valued friend in Mr. Evelyn, who died in the
February of 1706, at the age of eighty-five. If Evelyn’s diary, of
which such frequent use has been made in these pages, is not the
same entire revelation of the man himself as is the diary of his friend
Pepys, it yet possesses a singular charm in its refinement of thought,
and, when the veil is raised, shows us a gentleman and a Christian
to be respected as well as loved. He had kept up a steady friendship
with Sir Christopher since the day when they first met at Oxford, and
had the highest opinion of his powers: ‘an excellent genius had this
incomparable person,’ is his remark after a conversation with Wren.
Evelyn was on the S. Paul’s Commission from the first, and Wren
was destined, a few years later, sorely to miss the support of this
constant friend.
The needful sum for covering in the dome of S. Paul’s was voted by
Parliament in 1708. The question of using copper or lead was greatly
discussed; lead was finally chosen; it does not clearly appear which
way Sir Christopher’s judgment inclined. Probably to the lead, as he
considered it susceptible of much ornament, and the lead covering
of S. Paul’s dome is peculiarly beautiful. Bird in this year finished the
statue of Queen Anne, which is in the fore court of the Cathedral,
and is not without merit. He also carved the relief of the Conversion
of S. Paul above the western portico: the height is too great for it to
be possible to judge of the goodness of the sculpture.
The Act known as ‘Queen Anne’s Act for
building Fifty New Churches’ was passed in this FIFTY NEW
year, and Wren was of course one of the CHURCHES.
commissioners. At the age of seventy-six he
could not undertake the designing of these new churches. They
were principally built by Gibbs, Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh and others. S.
George’s, Hanover Square, S. Anne’s, Limehouse, S. George’s,
Bloomsbury, S. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, are some of those built under
this Act. Perhaps the best specimen is the beautiful S. Mary-le-
Strand, built by Gibbs, on an old site stolen from the Church by the
Duke of Somerset in the reign of Henry VIII. Recent careful painting
and gilding and the removal of pews have made S. Mary’s a
charming example of the amount of decoration which can be
advantageously bestowed on a Paladian church.
Wren wrote on this occasion a letter to a friend on the Church-
building Commission in which he gives the result of his great
experience in building town churches. The letter is given with a few
omissions. I fear that few of the Queen Anne churches were built
strictly on the principles he here lays down; certainly the hint as to
pews was disregarded, and grievous indeed have been the results of
such disregard. It has been a common fallacy that all Wren’s
churches were built for pews, and that anything but high pews
would ruin the architectural effect. What was Wren’s own opinion is
manifest from the letter; the actual effect can be seen, for instance,
in a print of S. Stephen’s, Walbrook, where this gem of all his
churches is represented, just after its completion, with the area
clear; or in S. Mary’s, Bow, where the pews have lately been
diminished into just such ‘benches’ as the great architect desired.
‘Since Providence,’ he writes, ‘in great mercy has protracted my
age, to the finishing the Cathedral Church of S. Paul, and the
parochial churches of London, in lieu of those demolished by the
fire, (all which were executed during the fatigues of my
employment in the service of the Crown from that time to the
present happy reign); and being now constituted one of the
Commissioners for building, pursuant to the late Act, fifty more
Churches in London and Westminster; I shall presume to
communicate briefly my sentiments, after long experience, and
without further ceremony exhibit to better judgement, what at
present occurs to me, in a transient view of this whole affair;
not doubting but that the debates of the worthy Commissioners
may hereafter give me occasion to change, or add to these
speculations.
‘1. I conceive the Churches should be built, not where vacant
ground may be cheapest purchased in the extremities of the
suburbs, but among the thicker inhabitants, for the convenience
of the better sort, although the site of them should cost more;
the better inhabitants contributing most to the future repairs,
and the ministers and officers of the church, and charges of the
parish.
‘2. I could wish that all burials in churches
might be disallowed, which is not only CEMETERIES.
unwholesome, but the pavements can never
be kept even, nor pews upright; and if the churchyard be close
about the church, this also is inconvenient, because the ground
being continually raised by the graves, occasions, in time, a
descent by steps in the church, which renders it damp, and the
walls green, as appears evidently in all old churches.
‘3. It will be enquired, where then shall be the burials? I answer,
in cemeteries seated in the outskirts of the town....
‘A piece of ground of two acres in the fields will be purchased
for much less than two roods among the buildings; this being
enclosed with a strong brick wall, and having a walk round, and
two cross walks decently planted with yew trees, the four
quarters may serve four parishes, where the dead need not be
disturbed at the pleasure of the sexton or piled four or five upon
one another, or bones thrown out to gain room.... It may be
considered further, that if the cemeteries be thus thrown into
the fields, they will bound the excessive growth of the city with
a graceful border, which is now encircled with scavengers’ dung-
stalls.
‘4. As to the situation of the churches, I should propose they be
brought as forward as possible into the larger and more open
streets; not in obscure lanes, nor where coaches will be much
obstructed in the passage: nor are we, I think, too nicely to
observe east or west in the position, unless it falls out properly;
such fronts as shall happen to lie most open to view should be
adorned with porticoes, both for beauty and convenience; which
together with handsome spires or lanterns, rising in good
proportion above the neighbouring houses (of which I have
given several examples in the City of different forms), may be of
sufficient ornament to the town, without a great expense for
enriching the outward walls of the Churches, in which plainness
and duration ought principally, if not wholly, to be studied....
‘5. I shall mention something of the
materials for public fabrics. It is true, the CHURCHWARDEN’
mighty demand for the hasty works of S CARE
thousands of houses at once after the Fire DEFECTIVE.
of London, and the frauds of those who built by the great,(?)
have so debased the value of materials, that good bricks are not
to be now had without greater prices than formerly, and indeed,
if rightly made, will deserve them; but brickmakers spoil the
earth in the mixing and hasty burning, till the bricks will hardly
bear weight; though the earth about London, rightly managed,
will yield as good bricks as were the Roman bricks (which I have
often found in the old ruins of the City), and will endure, in our
air, beyond any stone our island affords; which, unless the
quarries lie near the sea, are too dear for general use. The best
is Portland or Roch-Abbey stone; but these are not without their
faults. The next material is the lime: chalk-lime is the constant
practice, which, well mixed with good sand, is not amiss, though
much worse than hard stone-lime. The vaulting of S. Paul’s is a
rendering as hard as stone: it is composed of cockle-shell lime
well beaten with sand: the more labour in the beating, the
better and stronger the mortar. I shall say nothing of marble
(though England, Scotland, and Ireland afford good, and of
beautiful colours); but this will prove too costly for our purpose,
unless for Altar-pieces. In windows and doors Portland stone
may be used, with good bricks and stone quoins. As to roofs,
good oak is certainly the best, because it will bear some
negligence. The churchwardens’ care may be defective in
speedy mending drips; they usually whitewash the church, and
set up their names, but neglect to preserve the roof over their
heads. It must be allowed, that the roof being more out of
sight, is still more unminded. Next to oak, is good yellow deal,
which is a timber of length, and light, and makes excellent work
at first; but, if neglected, will speedily perish; especially if
gutters (which is a general fault in builders) be made to run
upon the principal rafters, the ruin may be sudden. Our sea-
service for oak, and the wars in the North Sea, make timber at
present of excessive price. I suppose, ere long, we must have
recourse to the West Indies, where most excellent timber may
be had for cutting and fetching. Our tiles are ill made, and our
slates not good: lead is certainly the best and lightest covering,
and being of our own growth and manufacture, and lasting, if
properly laid, for many hundred years, is, without question, the
most preferable; though I will not deny but an excellent tile may
be made to be very durable: our artisans are not yet instructed
in it, and it is not soon done to inform them.... Now, if the
churches could hold each 2,000, it would yet be very short of
the necessary supply. The churches, therefore, must be large;
but still, in our reformed religion it should seem vain to make a
parish church larger than that all who are present can both hear
and see. The Romanists, indeed, may build larger churches; it is
enough if they hear the murmur of the Mass, and see the
elevation of the Host; but ours are to be fitted for auditories. I
can hardly think it practicable to make a single room so
capacious, with pews and galleries, as to hold above 2,000
persons, and all to hear the service, and both to hear distinctly,
and see the preacher. I endeavoured to effect this in building
the parish Church of S. James, Westminster, which, I presume,
is the most capacious, with these qualifications, that hath yet
been built; and yet, at a solemn time, when the church was
much crowded, I could not discern from a gallery that 2,000
were present. In this church I mention, though very broad, and
the middle nave arched up, yet as there are no walls of a
second order, nor lanterns, nor buttresses, but the whole roof
rests upon the pillars, as do also the galleries, I think it may be
found beautiful and convenient, and, as such, the cheapest of
any form I could invent.
‘7. Concerning the placing of the pulpit, I shall observe a
moderate voice may be heard fifty feet distant before the
preacher, thirty feet on each side, and twenty behind the pulpit;
and not this unless the pronunciation be distinct and equal,
without losing the voice at the last word of the sentence, which
is commonly emphatical, and, if obscured, spoils the whole
sense. A Frenchman is heard further than an English preacher,
because he raises his voice, and sinks not his last words: I
mention this as an insufferable fault in the pronunciation of
some of our otherwise excellent preachers, which schoolmasters
might correct in the young as a vicious pronunciation, and not
as the Roman orators spoke: for the principal verb is, in Latin,
usually the last word; and if that be lost, what becomes of the
sentence?
‘8. By what I have said, it may be thought reasonable, that the
new church should be at least sixty feet broad, and ninety feet
long, besides a chancel at one end, and the belfry and portico at
the other.
‘These proportions may be varied; but to
build more than that every person may ‘NO PEWS, BUT
conveniently hear and see is to create noise BENCHES.’
and confusion. A church should not be so
filled with pews, but that the poor may have room enough to
stand and sit in the alleys; for to them equally is the Gospel
preached. It were to be wished there were to be no pews, but
benches; but there is no stemming the tide of profit, and the
advantage of pew-keepers; especially since by pews, in the
chapel of ease, the minister is chiefly supported. It is evident
these fifty churches are enough for the present inhabitants, and
the town will continually grow: but it is to be hoped, that
hereafter more may be added, as the wisdom of the
Government shall think fit; and, therefore, the parishes should
be so divided as to leave room for subdivisions, or at least for
chapels of ease.
‘I cannot pass over mentioning the
difficulties that may be found in obtaining CLEAR BUILDING
the ground proper for the sites of the GROUND.
churches among the buildings, and the
cemeteries in the borders without the town; and, therefore, I
shall recite the method that was taken for purchasing in ground
at the north side of S. Paul’s Cathedral, where, in some places,
houses were but eleven feet distant from the fabric, exposing it
to the continual dangers of fires. The houses were seventeen,
and contiguous, all in leasehold of the Bishop, or Dean alone, or
the Dean and Chapter, or the petty-Canons, with divers under-
tenants. The first we recompensed in kind, with rents of like
value for them and their successors; but the tenants in
possession for a valuable consideration; which to find what it
amounted to, we learned by diligent inquiry, what the
inheritance of houses in that quarter were usually held at; this
we found was fifteen years’ purchase at the most, and,
proportionably to this, the value of each lease was easily
determined in a scheme, referring to a map. These rates, which
we resolved not to stir from, were offered to each; and, to cut
off much debate, which it may be imagined everyone would
abound in, they were assured that we went by one uniform
method, which could not be receded. We found two or three
reasonable men, who agreed to these terms; immediately we
paid them, and took down their houses; others, who stood out
at first, finding themselves in dust and rubbish, and that ready
money was better, as the case stood, than to continue paying
rent, repairs, and parish duties, easily came in. The whole
ground at last was cleared, and all concerned were satisfied,
and their writings given in.... This was happily finished without a
judicatory or jury; although, in our present case, we may find it
perhaps, sometimes necessary to have recourse to Parliament.’
 CHAPTER XIV.
1709–1723.
PRIVATE HOUSES BUILT—QUEEN ANNE’S GIFTS—LAST STONE OF
S. PAUL’S—WREN DEPRIVED OF HIS SALARY—HIS PETITION
—‘FRAUDS AND ABUSES’—INTERIOR WORK OF S. PAUL’S—WREN
SUPERSEDED—PURCHASE OF WROXHALL ABBEY—WREN’S
THOUGHTS ON THE LONGITUDE—HIS DEATH—BURIAL IN S.
PAUL’S—THE END.
Heroick souls a nobler lustre find,
E’en from those griefs which break a vulgar mind.
That frost which cracks the brittle, common glass,
Makes Crystal into stronger brightness pass.
Bp. Thos. Sprat, quoted in Parentalia.

The year 1709 passed in steady work, and has little but finishing
touches to the churches to be recorded, unless some of the various
private houses built by Wren belong to this period. A house for Lord
Oxford, and one for the Duchess of Buckingham, both in S. James’s
Court; two built near the Thames for Lord Sunderland and Lord
Allaston; one for Lord Newcastle in Queen’s Square, Bloomsbury;
and a house, so large and magnificent that it has been divided in
late years into four, in Great Russell Street. This house was
afterwards occupied by Wren’s eldest son, and in turn by his second
son Stephen.
Sir Christopher himself, while keeping the house in Whitehall from
which his letters are dated, had received from Queen Anne the fifty
years’ lease of a house at Hampton Green at a nominal rent of 10l. a
year;[234] he must have found great refreshment in going there
occasionally by the then undefiled Thames, to country rest and
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