Adult Education: Todmorden Science and Art Classes

[issi]

Hi, I'm  wondering if anyone can clear up a mystery, please?

I'm very fortunate that at one point my LEE relatives lived in the remote-ish town of Todmorden where nearly everything got reported in their local newspapers.

I keep finding results of exams they passed, but it seems odd as the people concerned were adults by this point, e.g. the LEE children mentioned in this article were in their 20s. And I have more examples of them passing exams and getting certifications. Have I got this wrong? Were they actually from another family? Or were they really getting education in their 20s and from who/how/what? Is this like adult education, voluntary, or what?

The attached clips are from 1874 (public ceremony cancelled due to the prevailing epidemic) and 1875.
Many thanks for any clarification

[BumbleB]

You may find this of interest - scroll down to the end!

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~todmordenandwalsden/education.htm

[issi]

Thank you, that's very interesting  , but only covers children, not adults doing more advanced subjects. Anyone else have any idea?
Many thanks

[arthurk]

It sounds very much like the kind of opportunity offered by the Mechanics Institute movement - for an overview of this see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanics%27_institute

The newspapers seem to be using "Todmorden Science and Art Classes" as the formal name or title in this case, and a search for this leads to an entry in the National Archives' Discovery catalogue:

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/71b806fd-df18-4d19-8818-ad5b5a0f6576

This refers to an item held by West Yorkshire Archives in Calderdale (Halifax), and in fact WYAS' own catalogue describes it as a Mechanics Institute:

https://www.catalogue.wyjs.org.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=CC00208

[issi]

ooh! Thank you! Yes, that's seems possible, many thanks