AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. South View of the North of England Agricultural School, Great Ayton. Lithograph by S. Straker, after Thomas Cail. Slight marginal crease marks, but very scarce. The image is repeated on the reverse. central image measures: 205mm x 270mm. c1841. ~ The North of England Agricultural School was founded by The Society of Friends in 1841. The School was established in direct response to growing concern about the education of children of those Friends who had been ‘disowned’, often as a result of ‘marrying out’. Unable to attend existing Friends schools, it was felt these children were deprived of an education which would provide ‘that grounding which would have made (them) recruit(s) for the Society. (Their lives) and possibilities were lost to the Friends.’ A visit in 1840 by Jonathan Backhouse and his wife Hannah Chapman Backhouse to the recently founded Brookfield School near Dublin, provided Friends in Durham and North Yorkshire with a model: a practical education in farming for boys and domestic service for girls, combined with a good Quaker education. A boarding school was preferred, and one in close proximity to ‘a considerable number of our society’, both aimed at winning back hearts and minds. ref: G. Alston Watson, Ayton School Centenary History, 1841-1941.