(This is a joint event with the Modern History Seminar)

It is not easy to categorise Charlotte Yonge’s significance. Known mainly for her best-selling novel, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), and as a peripheral member of the Oxford Movement, there is a tendency by mainstream literary and historical scholars to overlook the variety of her achievements. Least studied has been her commitment to the expansion of parochial education both locally and nationally, taking forward the battle to defend the voluntary schools of the Church of England after the 1870 Education Act.