Enclosure, industrialisation and population growth during the early nineteenth century contributed to enormous social, economic and political changes in Britain. The government, faced with complex new challenges, was under pressure to reform - for example, to provide free, compulsory, state-controlled education, which was already provided in some European countries. However, the dominant force in British politics, the Tories, were fearful of the social consequences of providing the masses with an education and were unwilling to pay for it. The prevailing attitude of laissez-faire, the distrust of state interference and the general opinion that education was best left to the church meant that elementary education was left entirely to voluntary organisations such as Charity schools and the two rival Religious societies, Joseph Lancaster's non-conformist 'British and Foreign Schools Society' (initially formed in 1808) and the Church of England's 'National Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church' (set up in competition in 1811).…
