DEN ANSPRÅKSFULLA SOCKENSKOLAN En mikrohistorisk studie av skolbyggande på 1700-talet

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the school building process in rural Sweden prior to the Swedish Elementary School Act of 1842 through the history of a specific brick schoolhouse called Silvii School. Three research questions have guided the research. What did the process of planning, building and inaugurating Silvii School during the late 18th century entail? What can the design and form of the schoolhouse reveal about its intended function and possible agency? What ideas and ambitions do Silvii School embody in a local and a national context? To answer these questions a microhistorical perspective have been adopted. It is a research approach that seeks to understand and nuance broad historical processes by focusing on something particular. In this case school building processes in the Swedish countryside is explored through the unique history of Silvii School. The thesis methodology draws inspiration from Lars-Eric Jönsson’s spatial and building historical approach. For this thesis this entailed using the building itself as a source of research material alongside archival sources such as memoirs, building process accounts, estate inventory, parish meeting proceedings, letters, design drawings and maps. The findings show that organised schooling had existed in Tun for two decades before Silvii School was built. It had been initiated and led by the parish priest Jonas Silvius. He formed an administrative and financial organisation around Tun’s early school that later would enable the establishment of a durable brick schoolhouse. Beside Silvius there was several other people that engaged and in one way or another sponsored the school organisation in Tun. Not least the parish estate owners, the schoolteachers and residents. The planning and construction of Silvii School was a complex and expensive enterprise involving numerous actors and a large amount of building materials from a vast geographical range. The new schoolhouse provided space for several different functions connected to the school. Ultimately, Silvii School reflects a strong local ambition to create a lasting educational institution with a confident architectural and constructional presence during the late 18th century