| Summary: | This study describes and analyses educational selfhelp in North Lancashire in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It relates different kinds of adult education to local culture and to the socio-economic structure of local communities. It seeks to explain the popularity of educational self-help in this period and distinguishes between formal and informal kinds of adult education. The area consists of the hundreds of Blackburn, Amounderness and Lonsdale. Furness is excluded from this study because it was a remote rural area. It is argued that adult education was concentrated in towns : particular attention has therefore been given to Lancaster, Preston, Burnley, Blackburn, Darwen and Accrington. A wide range of printed primary sources has been used. The most important were newspapers, periodicals, parliamentary papers, directories, and Victorian biographies. Few relevant manuscripts have survived. Extensive use has been made of secondary sources. This study is divided into ten chapters. The first is a brief Introduction. The second examines the socioeconomic structure of North Lancashire. Chapter Three is an analysis of educational self-help and includes a description of mutual improvement societies. The next two chapters deal with mechanics' institutes. Chapter Six examines literary and philosophical societies, scientific societies, and phrenological societies. Chapter Seven discusses the educational significance of public houses and newspaper reading rooms. The role of the churches in the provision of adult education is analysed in the next chapter. Chapter Nine describes the decline of adult education and educational self-help after 1850 and is followed by a short Conclusion.
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