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At the beginning of the 19th Century education was something for the male, the rich or the lucky. In Rotherham a boy with wealthy parents could obtain a good, classics based education at the expensive fee-paying Grammar School for Boys. There were a number of private schools and academies in the Borough but once again these were fee-paying though perhaps not as expensive as the Grammar School. Poor children could obtain an education at one of the charity schools: the Hollis School in Downs Row or the Feoffees in the Crofts. Presumably only the children of the 'deserving' poor were considered. Dame Schools still existed whereby a poor woman with some degree of education charged a few pennies to teach children their letters. Some children were taught at home if they were lucky enough to have a literate mother or father. Some learned at Sunday Schools. The fact of the matter was, that until near the end of the Nineteenth Century, a good many of the lower classes grew up illiterate and innumerate.
The various churches recognised the value of education. The Anglican Church erected National Schools in Rotherham, Kimberworth (1830), Masbrough (1864), Eastwood (1870) and Thorpe Hesley. In 1833 the non-conformists built the British School on Rawmarsh Road and in 1860 the Methodists opened a day school on Wilfred Street. However I think that these were still fee-paying and beyond the grasp of poor working families. In any case the few pennies a working child brought into a family were sometimes necessary to keep the family going. Sweeping up, holding horses, running errands, fieldwork in the harvest season all brought in that vital bit of brass.
At some point, pretty late in the Nineteenth Century, the upper classes and bosses who ruled this country eventually realised that keeping the working classes illiterate and ignorant might actually be working against them, rather than for them. Increasing technology meant that many factories needed workers who could, at least, read the instructions on the label. This lead to the Education Act of 1870 by which a national system of elementary schools would be set up all over Britain. Run by local school boards, these were intended to provide a free, basic education for the children of all classes from the age of five to school-leaving at eleven. In 1875 when the Rotherham School Board was founded there was a shortfall of around 2000 educational places in the Borough.
Schools were built at Wellgate (1879), Thornhill (1879), Blackburn (1880), Kimberworth (1880), St Ann's Road (1893), Ferham Road (1894), Alma Road (1896), Scholes (1896), and in 1901 Atlas Street, Park Street and Doncaster Road. When sufficient school places had been provided in the Borough the Feoffees' School and the Hollis School were closed down.
In 1894 John Brown & Company who owned Rotherham Main opened an elementary school at Canklow for the children of employees. This closed in 1907.
At Ickles there was a National School run by the church (St Peter's Day School) which opened about 1884. Catcliffe had a board school opened in 1876 and extended in 1900.
By the 1890s the parish of Rotherham was also running Sunday Schools with classes at the boys, girls and infants National Schools, the Ragged Schools, the Workhouse and at five mission churches in the Borough.
Parents who wanted a decent secondary education for their daughters had little choice. I understand that there was a private ladies school run by a Miss Law on Alma Road at the end of the century. This would have been fee-paying.
Another feature of the Nineteenth Century was the Mechanics Institutes. As far as I can tell they were often associated with the Temperance movement. These were the means whereby working men could obtain an education as long as he didn't want an alcoholic drink as well. The buildings that housed the Mechanics Institutes still exist in Rotherham and Wentworth. There may be others in the Borough I know nothing about.
A college to train Congregational (Independent) Ministers was founded in Masbrough in the Eighteenth Century. I am unsure what happened to this but the Congregational authorities had a new college built on Moorgate in 1876 at a cost of £26,000. However it had not been in use for much more than a decade when the authorities decided to move the training college to Bradford and the building was sold to the Feoffees for £8000. The Grammar School moved there in 1890 and the building is now the Thomas Rotherham College.
In my reading I have also come across mention of a Pupil Teachers' Training Centre at South Grove and an Art College on Effingham Street. I know nothing else about them.