Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent,  24 May 2012

Technical Memories (Part 17)

A Turn of a Key

“Mr. A. F. Sharman Crawford said that as Vice-Chairman of the Technical Instruction Committee of the Borough of Cork, he had on their behalf to thank the Lord Mayor [James Simcox] for his attendance and to welcome him at the end of what he hoped would be his first year in office.  He would ask him to declare the building open, but first of all he would call on Mr. Arthur Hill, architect, to present this lordship with the key. Mr. Arthur Hill, architect, said it gave him great pleasure indeed to present the Lord Mayor with the key and he was quite safe in saying that he would not use it to lock the institute against any student who wanted to get inside” (Cork Examiner, 17 January 1912).

Recently, the key that was presented to the Lord Mayor of Cork James Simcox in 1912 was re-presented on loan to the Crawford College of Art by his grandson Canon James Simcox. Speaking at the event, the present registrar of Cork Institute of Technology Barry O’Connor noted quite aptly that “it was a tapestry of education that started with the turn of this key. It opened enquiring minds to technical education, which hasn’t stopped since”.

In my interview with Canon James, he outlined that his great grandfather worked for the Dean of Cloyne but decided to marry a Roman Catholic girl- Elizabeth Lucky. Hence he was banished from Rectory and found work as a farm labourer in the Uniake estate near Killeagh. Born in 1858, James Simcox (1958-1920) was the canon’s grandfather. James left home and found work as a grocer’s assistant in Midleton. Moving with some savings to Cork City, he lived on North Main Street, working again in a grocer’s shop. There he met Helena O’Sullivan. She was the eldest of a large family who were living above a draper’s shop on the street as well. Marrying, James and Helena had 5 children, Lily, May, Evelyn, Richard and Jack. In 1896, Helena died and James remarried Kathleen Sutton, the daughter of Nathaniel Sutton, Harbour Master of Cork. The Suttons lived in Empress Villas on Summerhill North. James and Kathleen had a further family of five children. The eldest Eileen died in infancy, the second died of diphtheria at the age of 13. Then there was Frank (the canon’s father), then Redmond and Katherine. In 1900, the family moved from Adelaide Terrace, Summerhill to Bloomfield House on Rochestown Road.

In 1901, James Simcox was elected to the corporation representing the north central ward and became an Alderman in 1905. One of the many highlights in his year of office was the opening of the Crawford Technical College. In his concluding remarks at the opening of the Institute in 1912, he foresaw the significance in Cork’s educational future:

“I wish it great success and great prosperity and I hope in the years that are before us that the people of Cork will be grateful to the Committee and those who worked to procure these magnificent Schools to-day. I would like to say a word of the members of the Department who are here to-day, but I don’t like to praise men before their faces.  I think at the same time they have acted very handsomely, and we thank them for it but that is no reason why we should not apply for more”.

Three months after the opening, in April 1912, James Simcox attended a convention of the All-for-Ireland League (AFIL) which attempted to generate a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. Cork in the first decade of the twentieth century was the source of considerable tension between nationalist factions. There was an enduring split in Cork between the William O’Brien-led ‘All for Ireland League’, which had been established in 1909 and the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by John Redmond. The source of the split was differing attitudes to the 1903 Land Act and equally to the process of cooperation between unionists and nationalists, promoted by O’Brien as ‘conference, conciliation and consent’.

After attending a convention in Dublin representing the city Lord Mayor James Simcox was criticised. Some of his councillor colleagues felt that he should not be associated with any particular political factions or movements as long as he held office. Subsequently James resigned as Lord Mayor but retained his aldermanship position in a subsequent election in the City’s Council chamber.

James’ sons Frank and Redmond Simcox, like their father, went on to become directors of the Simcox business on Paul Street. Redmond overlooked the bakery and confectionary section and Frank the tea blending section. In time a series of shops were opened across the city. There was great rivalry with the O’Shea family, another baking business. This was not resolved until Frank married the youngest member of Sir Henry O’Shea’s family, Dolly. Sir Henry O’Shea succeeded James Simcox as Lord Mayor in 1912.

Dolly and Frank had two children, James (the Canon) and Ann. James studied for the priesthood in All Hallows College in Dublin, was ordained and moved to the Archdiocese of Glasgow in June 1953.

To be continued…

Caption:

642a. Jenny O’Flynn, first cousin of the Canon, Canon James Simcox with the Crawford Technical Institute key and Ann Sexton, the Canon’s sister (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 17 May 2012

Technical Memories (Part 16)

Foraging for Fruitful Ideas

“The Intermediate School is very far from being what we want. It is too literary; it bears but slight relation to commerce, industry, or agriculture. It is true that it is filled with pupils from primary schools, but they enter it too late- at 15 or 16 years of age – when it is futile to try to acquire a serviceable knowledge of the two foreign languages required by the board…the curriculum of the school we seek to create has a different character and aim from that of an Intermediate School. Though not divorced from the humanities, it should be more frankly Utilitarian and practical; more capable of assimilation by children of elementary attainments, and more applicable to actual use in the desk, the field and workshop” (William Starkie, Cork, 5 June 1912)

William Starkie made a well researched address as Resident Commissioner of National Education for Ireland at the eleventh annual congress of the Irish Technical Instruction Association on 5 June 1912, which was held at the Crawford Municipal Technical Instruction, Sharman Crawford Street. In a paper on intermediate schools that would provide technical education for teenagers, 14/ 15 years of age, he pitched his arguments based on the models of other countries. He pointed out that in many countries in Europe, it was generally recognized that the most significant need of the day was a type of school, not of an intermediate character, but closely attached to primary education. It should aim at continuing beyond the elementary stage, and in a practical direction. Such schools should have two aims he argued, first to continue and complete the subjects learnt in the elementary schools, and secondly to communicate such “branches of knowledge – literary, scientific and general, as bear directly on the various occupations in life in some one of which the pupil would afterwards be engaged in”. Furthermore, such hand and eye training and workshop practice would, according to Starkie, “engender habits of manual industry”.

Starkie referred to the arguments of Professor Michael Sadler who was Director of an education-research agency set up by the Education Department in London in 1895. The task of the agency was to gather information about the educational systems of Europe, of the colonies of the then British Empire, and of the United States of America. Sadler’s tenure of this Office of Special Inquiries and Reports lasted from1895 to 1903. During that time he organized 11 volumes of reports, writing 15 papers himself, and directing the energies of numerous specialists. It is significant that within the papers he wrote he wove in the work of German educational schemes. He was a firm believer that of all the foreign influences upon English methods on teaching and education ideals the Germans had during the last 100 years prior to 1912 had been the most formative. Nor had the French educational system been without their due influence. Those traits were also re-iterated by William Starkie in his Cork speech in 1912.

Starkie also made reference to the work of François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787–1874) who was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics serving as Prime Minister of France 1847-1848. Guizot’s influence was critical in expanding public education, which under his ministry saw the creation of primary schools in every French commune and higher primary schools in the rural districts of France. In a like manner in Germany, they had the “Realschulen”, a German secondary school with an emphasis on the practical that evolved in the mid-18th century. It was distinguished by its practical curriculum (natural science and chemistry) and use of chemistry laboratories and workshops for wood and glass. The Realschule also became the model for educational reformers in other countries.

Starkie went onto to debate in his Cork speech that German ideals had touched every grade from in the British system of education from kindergarten to the university. Starkie debated that English and Scottish departments have “foraged Europe and America for fruitful ideas” through financial support from the British exchequer. But Ireland, Starkie argued was “the Cinderella of the European family, must sit contented in her rags, happy if now and again- for political reasons – a few morsels are thrown to her from the rich banquet of her more fortunate sisters”. He continued to note that in 1904 a scheme of higher education was approved in principle by the British treasury for Ireland but that money was re-directed to land purchase, light railways and harbours.

Willliam Starkie continued to strongly argue that the boy “who is meant for higher things” should leave the primary school system before the completion of the ordinary course. In Germany, the age for making that change was often 10, in France 11, in Scotland 12, in Ireland it was generally 15, when the child was compelled to begin the study of two modern languages. Further commenting Starkie noted that “Freedom of curriculum is clearly hampered because subjects have to be included in the curriculum of a class, not because the students are ready for them but because the exigencies of the written examination require them”.

To be continued…

Caption:

641a. Michael Sadler, Director of Education Department. London (source: Cork City Library)

My thanks to everyone who supported the historical walking tour of Shandon this evening, in association with Shandon Area History Group.