| Description | The Central Nonconformist Committee was appointed in 1871. It met at offices at the Town Hall Chambers, 86, New Street Birmingham, and was chaired by Mr W. Middlemore, J.P. The committee met to discuss various affairs connected with the implementation of Foster's Education Act, 1870. The subject of educational reform and the provision of a more comprehensive system of elementary education was a cause close to the heart of the Reverend H.W. Crosskey, minister of the Church of the Messiah, Birmingham. There was not always agreement across the country over which direction reform should take. For example, the committee did not agree with a proposal agitated on the School Boards of the country to pay the fees of indigent children attending Denominational Schools, under Clause XXV of the Elementary Education Act (for example, see UC 2/13/3/1/1, Report No. 1, p. 1). |