Wilderspin, Samuel, 1792-1866

Samuel Wilderspin was the controversial self-styled founder of the Infant School System. He was born in Hornsey, North London in 1792 and was an apprentice clerk in the City before being introduced to infant education by Buchanan. He trained with Buchanan at a school in Vincent Square, London and then became master of his own school in Quaker Street, Spitalfields. From 1824 he worked for the Infant School Society and as a freelance, teaching others about his system of schooling. He ran an infant school supply depot in Cheltenham for supplying apparatus and in 1839 set up the Central Model School in Dublin which was subsequently run by Sarah Anne and Thomas Young (his daughter and son-in-law). After returning from Dublin he was heavily involved with the Mechanics' Institute movement. In 1848, having founded several hundred schools, he retired to Wakefield on a civil list pension.

Wilderspin's theories on education were mainly a product of his Swedenborgian beliefs. He saw education as a life long training of the child's soul and as such approached education from social, moral and religious aspects.

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