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The 6th Earls wife Lady Mary Lygon (1869-1927) founded the Industrial School as a means to educating orphaned and abandoned girls between the ages of 6 and 14. This was in existence up to 1931. One young lady trained at the School set up a successful Laundry in Gloucester, another married a gardener called West, they had a son Arthur T Weston who commented on the character and discipline of his mother, no doubt instilled at the School.
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- Voluntary reformatories for young people had been opened by the Philanthropic Society and by private founders in the early 19th century. However juvenile delinquency was viewed with such increasing concern that in the 1840s, a Select Committee of the House of Lords was set up, and this resulted in two Youth Offenders’ Acts of 1854. The Act required the Home Office to certify certain recognised institutions, which came to be known as Certified Reformatories and Certified Industrial Schools. Boys and girls aged under 16 who had spent time in gaol could be transferred there. Uncertified Industrial Schools for neglected or destitute children were also opened. These specifically juvenile institutions replaced prison terms for many young offenders, and gave boys and girls a basic education plus a trade. There were also several reformatory ship schools or industrial training ships certified in the late 1850s, although they became shore-based in the 20th century.
- The 1857 Industrial Schools Act was aimed at making better provision for the care and education of vagrant, destitute and disorderly children who, it was thought, were in danger of becoming criminals. This Act, and following Acts in 1860-61, enabled magistrates to commit certain young offenders directly to the Industrial Schools, without a prior spell in a gaol or a house of correction. There were 30 Industrial Schools in England by December 1865. The Act also made provision for the children's religious persuasion in the choice of a school. Denominational (non-Church of England) Industrial Schools also existed after 1866, including some for Catholic children, and these were supported by local rates. The Education Act led after 1876 to the founding of industrial day schools and truant schools. By the beginning of the First World War, there were 208 schools for juvenile delinquents, and 132 of these were residential industrial schools. In 1933, the industrial schools which were still in existence became known as Approved Schools.
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