A short history of nurseries

The history of nurseries begins in the home. The nursery was originally a room in the house designated to the youngest child. They were often very similar to the sort you see in films, with typical features like a rocking horse, a mobile over a cot and a chair for the mother or nurse to feed the baby on. Certainly in Victorian times, children were to be seen and not heard, and wealthy parents often had very little to do with the upbringing of their children.

It wasn’t for these parents that the day nursery was created for though. For hundreds of years, caring for children was primarily a mother’s duty while the father went to work. Only women from the poorest families needed to contribute to the household income in order to get by, but those who needed childcare most were in the worst situation to afford it.

Thanks to social reform and a few pioneering figures, nurseries are more accessible than ever before.

Staff of the household nursery

In nurseries of old, different staff members took on different aspects of a child’s care.

Before the days of baby formula, breastfeeding was an essential part of a baby’s survival. A wealthy mother couldn’t, or chose not to, breastfeed, would hire a wet nurse to feed her child. Unfortunately, as with dairy cows today, in order to produce milk, the wet nurse had to have a baby herself. Sometimes there enough milk to go around, or the paying mother simply refused to let her baby share. Then, the wet nurse could risk malnourishment for her own baby or have to give it away.

Once ready to leave the breast, a child would become solely under the care of a nursery maid, nurse, or nanny. Much like Mary Poppins but with fewer magical powers, this woman was in charge of childcare within wealthy homes. She would live with the family but had higher status than many other staff. Her job was tending to the children’s physical needs, like feeding and toilet training. The word ‘nanny’ came into use in the 1700s, but they are essentially the same job.

Despite having been around for centuries in upper-class houses, governesses really came into fashion in the nineteenth century, when they caught on in the newly emerging middle class. It was a respectable position for a woman to have, and she need a good education herself. The governess was in charge of a child’s education. She taught them to read and write, as well as essential subjects for them to enter society, such as history, French and piano.

Robert Owen and the first nursery school

The first real nursery school on record was set up by a Welshman named Robert Owen in the early nineteenth century. Owen was an extremely wealthy mill owner who harboured strong beliefs about morality. He believed that a good environment made good people, so went to great efforts to provide such an environment for his staff. The Industrial Revolution had resulted in huge amounts of people flocking to towns and cities in search of work. Here, children couldn’t safely play in fields and gardens, and often lived in filthy, overcrowded tenements.

At that time, years before the Factory Act of 1833, thousands of very young children worked long hours in factories to help provide for their families. The machinery was highly dangerous, with lost limbs and fatalities being common. Owen refused to let any child under the age of 10 work in his mill. As part of his ideas about a nurturing environment, he believed children with uneducated parents should have the chance to grow away from their influence if social reform was to happen.

In 1816, he opened his School for Children where children of his workers could attend from the age of three. The nursery school, in New Lanark, Scotland, remained open until 1968.  

The McMillan sisters and the nursery school revolution

Rachel and Margaret McMillan were born in 1859 and 1860, respectively. They moved from America back to their parents’ native Inverness as children. Enthusiastic Christian Socialists and members of the Labour Party, the sisters were horrified by the conditions they saw poverty-stricken children growing up in when they moved to London. In these households, both parents usually worked to try to make ends meet, and children could be left.

The sisters campaigned extensively for change and in 1914 opened the first open-air nursery in Debtford, London. Margaret named it The Rachel McMillan School after the death of her sister. The nursery still exists today and at the time contributed to the war effort as mums who now worked while their husbands were away fighting had somewhere for their younger children to go during work hours. 

The philosophies of that nursery were revolutionary, and many are still practised today. Ideas including children spending time both in and outdoors, promoting independence, combining free play with organised activities, and providing meals, were all thanks to the McMillan sisters’ tireless work to reform childcare.
At this time, others were transforming nurseries around the world. 

Dr Maria Montessori opened her first Casa dei Bambini in Rome for low-income families in 1906. Her teaching method, known as the Montessori method, allows children at Montessori nurseries to this day to make their own choices and thereby develop confidence, social skills and improve their emotional and cognitive development.

The first Steiner school was founded in Germany in 1919 by Rudolf Steiner. Its kindergarten following in 1926. Steiner schools and kindergartens aim to teach children independence through practical skills and independent thought.

Modern changes

In 1989, a managing director named Sue Harvey introduced the first childcare voucher scheme. This was where some of her employees’ wages could be used to pay towards their childcare. This scheme became hugely popular and was replaced by the Tax-Free Childcare scheme in 2018.

Childcare demand has grown hugely over the last 20 years. The Institute of Fiscal Studies says: “The early years has been one of the fastest-growing areas of education spending in England. Our ‘report on education spending found that spending on early years education and childcare has grown from almost nothing in the early 1990s to stand at £5.4 billion in England last year.”

In 2006 the Government passed the Childcare Act 2006, to create a national standard of early years education. The law introduced the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This brought together three older frameworks to create one, accessible piece of guidance on childcare for 0-5-year-olds. Changes are being made to the EYFS framework in 2021. Scotland has Early Learning and Childcare (ELC). Wales has Foundation Phase Nursery and Northern Ireland has Curricular Guidance for Pre-School Education.

In 1997, the Labour Government introduced the idea of free childcare. This move allowed parents the freedom to work more and opened nurseries up to families who previously couldn’t afford them. It was hugely beneficial for women as they could go back to work from maternity leave earlier.

Modern nurseries have been keeping up with the times as we live through the digital age. Teaching basic use of computers is already part of the EYFS framework. Nursery staff increasingly use phone apps to manage their workload and communicate with parents.

Perhaps most surprisingly but certainly sensibly, there are now 24-hour nurseries around the country. These cater for parents who work shifts and struggle to drop off or collect their child at a regular time. Children can stay overnight at these nurseries and parents can even watch their child sleep via a webcam connected to their phone.