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ARCHIVE:
THE SALMON COLLECTION
David
Salmon was a student at Borough Road College from 1870-72, serving briefly as
junior tutor and then becoming headmaster of the new Board School in Belvedere
Place almost opposite the college. Later he became Principal of the British and
Foreign School Society’s training college for women at Swansea and remained there
for the rest his career. In 1904 he produced his life of Joseph Lancaster and
followed this with articles on Lancaster and on various aspects of the early history
of the Society in the Educational Record. During these years he built up an interesting
collection of prints and autograph letters relating to persons connected with
the Society, such as Brougham, Wilberforce and the Duke of Kent, eventually mounting
these in a large album together with the pages of his life of Lancaster. Examples
from this album, as well as other souvenirs of Salmon’s interest in Lancaster,
are displayed in the present exhibition.
David
Salmon also assembled a valuable collection of printed books mainly dealing with
early nineteenth century elementary education in this country. These include,
in addition to Lancaster’s pamphlets (many of them produced on the printing presses
at Borough Road) and the writings of other early supporters of the Society, such
as William Allen, a collection of the educational treatises of Andrew Bell, early
editions of the works of Sarah Trimmer, several books by Thomas Bernard, and individual
works by lesser known educational writers. The collection contains several examples
of early Victorian teaching manuals prepared for the Society including Henry Dunn’s
Principles of Teaching, James Cornwell’s English Composition and other books produced
for the Society’s schools by tutors at the Borough Road Normal College. The collection
also includes the printed reports of the Finance Committee of the ‘Royal Lancasterian
Institution’ dating from the years before the more familiar Annual Reports of
the British and Foreign School Society.
This
large and valuable collection was left to Borough Road College by David Salmon
and has now passed into the keeping of the British and Foreign School Society
Archive Centre.
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