As one of the two rival inventors of what was called the “monitorial” or “mutual” method of instruction, Lancaster’s name was prominent for many years in educational controversy. Dr Andrew Bell (q.v.) had in 1797 published an account of his experiments in teaching; and Lancaster in his first pamphlet, published in 1803, frankly acknowledges his debt to Bell for some useful hints. The two worked independently, but Lancaster was the first to apply the system of monitorial teaching on a large scale. As an economical experiment his school at the Borough Road was a signal success. He had one thousand scholars under discipline, and taught them to read, write and work simple sums at a yearly cost of less than 5s. a head. His tract Improvements in Education described the gradation of ranks, the system of signals and orders, the functions of the monitors, the method of counting and of spelling and the curious devices he adopted for punishing offenders. Bell’s educational aims were humbler, as he feared to “elevate above their station those who were doomed to the drudgery of daily labour,” and therefore did not desire to teach even writing and ciphering to the lower classes. The main difference between them was that the system of the one was adopted by ecclesiastics and Conservatives,—the “National Society for the Education of the Poor in the principles of the Established Church” having been founded in 1811 for its propagation; while Lancaster’s method was patronized by the Edinburgh Review, by Whig statesmen, by a few liberal Churchmen and by Nonconformists generally. It was the design of Lancaster and his friends to make national education Christian, but not sectarian,—to cause the Scriptures to be read, explained and reverenced in the schools, without seeking by catechisms or otherwise to attract the children to any particular church or sect. This principle was at first vehemently denounced as deistic and mischievous, and as especially hostile to the Established Church. To do them justice, it must be owned that the rival claims and merits of Bell and Lancaster were urged with more passion and unfairness by their friends than by themselves. Yet neither is entitled to hold a very high place among the world’s teachers. Bell was cold, shrewd and self-seeking. Lancaster had more enthusiasm, a genuine and abounding love for children, and some ingenuity in devising plans both for teaching and governing. But he was shiftless, wayward and unmethodical, and incapable of sustained and high-principled personal effort. His writings were not numerous. They consist mainly of short pamphlets descriptive of the successes he attained at the Borough Road. His last publication, An Epitome of the Chief Events and Transactions of my Own Life, appeared in America in 1833, and is characterized, even more strongly than his former writings, by looseness and incoherency of style, by egotism and by a curious incapacity for judging fairly the motives either of his friends or his foes. We have since come to believe that intelligent teaching requires skill and previous training, and that even the humblest rudiments are not to be well taught by those who have only just acquired them for themselves, or to be attained by mere mechanical drill. But in the early stages of national education the monitorial method served a valuable purpose. It brought large numbers of hitherto neglected children under discipline, and gave them elementary instruction at a very cheap rate. Moreover, the little monitors were often found to make up in brightness, tractability and energy for their lack of experience, and to teach the arts of reading, writing and computing with surprising success. And one cardinal principle of Bell and Lancaster is of prime importance. They regarded a school, not merely as a place to which individual pupils should come for guidance from teachers, but as an organized community whose members have much to learn from each other. They sought to place their scholars from the first in helpful mutual relations, and to make them feel the need of common efforts towards the attainment of common ends. (J. G. F.)
LANCASTER, THOMAS, Earl of (c. 1277–1322), was the eldest son of Edmund, earl of Lancaster and titular king of Sicily, and a grandson of the English king, Henry III.; while he was related to the royal house of France both through his mother, Blanche, a granddaughter of Louis VIII., and his step-sister, Jeanne, queen of Navarre, the wife of Philip IV. A minor when Earl Edmund died in 1296, Thomas received his father’s earldoms of Lancaster and Leicester in 1298, but did not become prominent in English affairs until after the accession of his cousin, Edward II., in July 1307. Having married Alice (d. 1348), daughter and heiress of Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and added the earldom of Derby to those which he already held, he was marked out both by his wealth and position as the leader of the barons in their resistance to the new king. With his associates he produced the banishment of the royal favourite, Piers Gaveston, in 1308; compelled Edward in 1310 to surrender his power to a committee of “ordainers,” among whom he himself was numbered; and took up arms when Gaveston returned to England in January 1312. Lancaster, who had just obtained the earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury on the death of his father-in-law in 1311, drove the king and his favourite from Newcastle to Scarborough, and was present at the execution of Gaveston in June 1312. After lengthy efforts at mediation, he made his submission and received a full pardon from Edward in October 1313; but he refused to accompany the king on his march into Scotland, which ended at Bannockburn, and took advantage of the English disaster to wrest the control of affairs from the hands of Edward. In 1315 he took command of the forces raised to fight the Scots, and was soon appointed to the “chief place in the council,” while his supporters filled the great offices of state, but his rule was as feeble as that of the monarch whom he had superseded. Quarrelling with some of the barons, he neglected both the government and the defence of the kingdom, and in 1317 began a private war with John, Earl Warrenne, who had assisted his countess to escape from her husband. The capture of Berwick by the Scots, however, in April 1318 led to a second reconciliation with Edward. A formal treaty, made in the following August, having been ratified by parliament, the king and earl opened the siege of Berwick; but there was no cohesion between their troops, and the undertaking was quickly abandoned. On several occasions Lancaster was suspected of intriguing with the Scots, and it is significant that his lands were spared when Robert Bruce ravaged the north of England. He refused to attend the councils or to take any part in the government until 1321, when the Despensers were banished, and war broke out again between himself and the king. Having conducted some military operations against Lancaster’s friends on the Welsh marches, Edward led his troops against the earl, who gradually fell back from Burton-on-Trent to Pontefract. Continuing this movement, Lancaster reached Boroughbridge, where he was met by another body of royalists under Sir Andrew Harclay. After a skirmish he was deserted by his troops, and was obliged to surrender. Taken to his own castle at Pontefract, where the king was, he was condemned to death as a rebel and a traitor, and was beheaded near the town on the 22nd of March 1322. He left no children.
Although a coarse, selfish and violent man, without any of the attributes of a statesman, Lancaster won a great reputation for patriotism; and his memory was long cherished, especially in the north of England, as that of a defender of popular liberties. Over a hundred years after his death miracles were said to have been worked at his tomb at Pontefract; thousands visited his effigy in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and it was even proposed to make him a saint.
See Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., edited with introduction by W. Stubbs (London, 1882–1883); and W. Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii. (Oxford, 1896).
LANCASTER, a market town and municipal borough, river port, and the county town of Lancashire, England, in the Lancaster parliamentary division, 230 m. N.W. by N. from London by the London & North-Western railway (Castle Station); served also by a branch of the Midland railway (Green Ayre station). Pop. (1891) 33,256, (1901) 40,329. It lies at the head of the estuary of the river Lune, mainly on its south bank, 7 m. from the sea. The site slopes sharply up to an eminence crowned by the castle and the church of St Mary. Fine views over the rich valley and Morecambe Bay to the west are commanded from the summit. St Mary’s church was originally attached by Roger de Poictou to his Benedictine priory founded at the close of the 11th century. It contains some fine Early English work in the nave arcade, but is of Perpendicular workmanship in general appearance, while the tower dates from 1759. There are some beautiful Decorated oak stalls in the chancel, brought probably from Cockersand or Furness Abbey.
The castle occupies the site of a Roman castrum. The Saxon foundations of a yet older structure remain, and the tower at the south-west corner is supposed to have been erected during the reign of Hadrian. The Dungeon Tower, also supposed to be of Roman origin, was taken down in 1818. The greater part of the old portion of the present structure was built by Roger de Poictou, who utilized some of the Roman towers and the old walls. In 1322 much damage was done to the castle by Robert
