Church and State in Education in Wellington, 1860-1900

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the age-old issue of Church and State as it was worked out in a new form in a colonial environment. The problem is education and the setting is a New Zealand one, within the particular confines of Wellington city. As particularism decreased throughout the nineteenth century, the local issue naturally became merged with the more general issue throughout New Zealand. But this did not greatly alter the situation in Wellington which, because of its evenly assorted representation of Church bodies, faced problems which later became typical of New Zealand as a whole. The years 1860 to 1900 were important for the political (as well as the educational) development of New Zealand; in those years the framework of our political and administrative institutions was erected on the basis of the Constitution Act of 1852, and the framework of the centralized national state thus created has not been substantially altered. Similarly the focal point of this thesis is the 1877 Education Act which has remained the cornerstone of the national system of "free, compulsory, secular" education. The events in Wellington which culminated in that system and the relations between Church and State which followed are the subject-matter of this thesis.