Printing stamp from the Slade School of Fine Art, the first British arts institution open to all, regardless of gender, religion and social class.
Courtesy of UCL Art Museum
The Conflict
It is easy to take for granted our current education system in Great Britain. Access to a local school is available to most regardless of their background. Yet this was not always the case. The right to educate children and the reality of its accessibility used to be a constant battle.
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Nowadays, catchment areas determine which school you attend, but in earlier centuries, social class, gender and religion were far more important factors about whether you were allowed an education or not. In fact, higher education was only offered to a minority of the population; Anglican males with a high social status.
The Object
The object pictured above is a metal printing stamp, nailed to a block of wood. It was made in 1895 and belonged to the Slade Sketch Club. It was most likely used to illustrate their leaflets. The image depicted by the stamp is influenced by the Art Nouveau movement, which was beginning to establish itself around the 20th century and emphasised the importance of the decorative arts as a craft.
The Relevance
The stamp belongs to the Slade, an institution which acted as a doorway for greater accessibility to education, specifically for Fine Art. It was founded in 1871 as part of UCL, which was the first university in England open for all students regardless of race or religion. It therefore was revolutionary at the time because it arose out of the conflict between accessibility and education.
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In the 19th century, the right to an education was based upon social class, religion and gender. That is, working class children were forced into labour work, the Church controlled most of the academic world and women’s tutoring was superficial and limited by subject and length. Education in the Arts was no exception to these constraints, and the most prestigious art schools at the time were private institutions – only those from a high or middle class background were allowed to attend.
In the midst of this, the Slade School of Fine Art was an example of how to make academia more accessible to all classes, and all genders. And it is the stamp which leads us back to this, as it is representative of the struggles lower classes and women were faced with when trying to access a good education. Yet, how accessible is education now in the 21st century? The subject of private vs state teaching arises. Is there more progress to be made within this conflict?