James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth

At first engaged in a Rochdale bank, in 1824 he became a medical student at Edinburgh University. Settling in Manchester about 1827, he worked for the Ancoats and Ardwick Dispensary, and the experience which he thus gained of the conditions of the poor in the Lancashire factory districts, together with his interest in economic science, led to his appointmeat in 1835 as poor law commissioner in Norfolk and Suffolk and later in the London districts. In 1839 he was appointed first secretary of the committee formed by the Privy Council to administer the Government grant for the public education in Great Britain.

He is remembered as having founded at Battersea, London, in conjunction with E Carleton Tufnell, the first training college for school teachers (1839-1840); and the system of national school education of the present day, with its public inspection, trained teachers and its support by state as well as local funds, is largely due to his initiative. In 1842 he married Lady Janet Shuttleworth, assuming by royal licence his bride’s name and arms. A breakdown in his health led him to resign his post on the committee in 1849, but subsequent recovery enabled him to take an active part in the working of the central relief committee instituted under Lord Derby, during the Lancashire cotton famine of 1861-1865. He was created a baronet in 1849. Until the end of his life he interested himself in the movements of the Liberal party in Lancashire, and the progress of education. His Physiology, Pathology and Treatment of Asphyxia became a standard textbook, and he also wrote numerous papers on public education.

His son, Sir Ughtred James Kay-Shuttleworth (b. 1844), became a well-known Liberal politician, sitting in parliament for Hastings from 1869 to 1880 and for the Clitheroe[?] division of Lancashire from 1885 till 1902, when he was created Baron Shuttleworth. He was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1886, and secretary to the Admiralty in 1892-1895.

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.