11 St Michael's Place

Revd Robert Louis Koe (1819 - 1902)

In the mid-1870s, Revd Koe, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools (HMI), moved into 11 St Michael’s Place with his wife, Augusta, and several daughters. Augusta was a member of the wealthy Baring family and niece of Thomas Read Kemp’s first wife, Frances Baring.   

In his youth, Koe had been described as a “capital cricketer"; he had, indeed, captained the cricket team at Harrow.  After taking holy orders, he had worked as a parish priest and remained a high church Anglican throughout his life. On locating to Brighton, he worshipped just down the road at St Michael and All Angels, which is where, ultimately, his funeral was held.

Yet he came from a radical background. His father, John Herbert Koe QC, had been amanuensis to the philosopher and reformer, Jeremy Bentham, with whom he was to become a close friend, confidante and active supporter.   

 Not only had Bentham sought disestablishment of the Anglican Church but he’d also turned increasingly against any organised religion.  Rather than the teachings of Christ, the National Schools at this time promoted what Bentham disparagingly called “Church of Englandism”.  Furthermore, the short period of schooling and limited curriculum meant, he believed, that children of the poor could not easily realise any ambition beyond what was deemed their “proper station". Bentham had far higher ambitions for the education of the less well-off.

Although it was the Koes’ first son, born in 1816, who was given the forename “Bentham” while Robert, three years his junior, was only fourteen when Jeremy Bentham died, one can imagine some lively conversations at the Koe family’s dinner table!  

From 1839, an elementary school (roughly equivalent to an infant and primary school today) seeking government funding was subject to regular state inspection.  At that time, such schools were set up by religious faith groups, both Anglican and non-conformist. By the time Koe moved to Brighton, circa 1874, he had already been inspecting such schools for over 20 years, initially as an assistant, then as a fully-fledged HMI.  He continued in this role for another 20 or so years having taking on responsibility for the non-denominational Board Schools as well.   

Rather him than me.  In 1862, the notorious but long-lived Revised Code, also known as Payment by Results, had been introduced. This made HMIs accountable for monitoring pupils’ school attendance and assessing their achievements in secular subjects, essentially the 3 Rs. Poor attendance and low attainment, according to what we would now call 'targets', meant less government funding for the school.   Needless to say, this was a cost-cutting measure.  

Another HMI at that time was the poet Matthew Arnold, son of the late Thomas Arnold, formerly Headmaster of Rugby School. Arnold fiercely condemned such a mechanised, approach to learning, which was essentially by rote. In his view,

The school examinations in view of payment by results are, as I have said, a game of mechanical contrivance in which the teachers will and must more and more learn how to beat us. It is found possible, by ingenious preparation, to get children through the Revised Code examination in reading, writing, and ciphering, without their really knowing how to read, write, and cipher.

I would love to know what Koe thought of it all deep down. Many an Anglican churchman objected in principle to the introduction of the non-denominational Board Schools while Payment by Results was only very gradually phased out during the 1880s and 1890s.  Surely he must have had some reservations about the truly relentless changes in arrangements for schooling the less affluent during his long tenure as HMI?

A little off-topic, but I would also be intrigued to know what he thought of his nephew, Laurence Koe, who lived at 8 St Michael’s Place for a time. Laurence studied at Brighton School of Art in the early 1890s and became a successful artist – a portrait painter above all who from time to time turning his attention to classical themes featuring embracing lovers and nude women. His ‘Venus and Tannhauser’ has been displayed above the stairs at Brighton Museum for as long as I can remember.

For good or ill, some of Laurence Koe's paintings have been ‘reimagined’ for the current age on all kinds of merchandise from beach towels to cushions, bags to mugs, notebooks and – for those with less cash to fritter – on face masks and even stickers (with a discount for bulk purchases).  

 To be less frivolous, what does seem clear is that, regardless of the moral arguments against Payment by Results and the constant legislative tweaking of state-funded education throughout his long career as HMI, Revd Robert Louis Koe got on with it!  When he retired in 1893 (by which time he and the family had downsized to nearby 9 Powis Villas), it was with a reputation for “unremitting courtesy and widespread impartiality”.  

He was presented with an album containing literally “hundreds” of school managers’ and teachers’ signatures as well as an “ornate illuminated address”.  I‘d no idea what these were so looked for an example.   

Postscript

Robert Louis Koe has many descendants, one of whom will, I hope, discover this article and let me know whether the album and/or the illuminated address are still in the family’s safekeeping.