EDUCATION.

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Regulations for the Establishment and Government of the Royal Military Asylum. First edition of this detailed record of the founding warrant and regulations of this remarkable institution, Britain's "first large-scale system for the education of working class children" (Cockerill), nearly 70 years before the Elementary Education Act. Instigated by the commander-in-chief, Frederick, duke of York, the RMA offered co-educational facilities for orphans and the children of destitute enlisted men. Rare, just two locations world wide, British Library and Koninklijke Bibliothek.Set up in 1801, the institution was modelled on the Royal Hibernian Military School, Dublin, established in 1765, and at the height of the "Great War" against France (1793-1815) the RMA was caring for over 1,000 boys and 500 girls in its grand purpose-built home in Chelsea, now widely known as the Duke of York's Barracks and home to the Saatchi Gallery. "To govern the new Asylum, the commander-in-chief formed a board of commissioners from among his most senior generals at the Horse Guards, officers who had been under his command when campaigning against the revolutionary army of France in the Low Countries [these included David Dundas, Harry Calvert, John Whitelocke, and Robert Brownrigg]. The RMA was intended to replace the dependence of military families on regimental depots and the charity of the officers. Alternatively, destitute families of soldiers had to rely on the workhouse system, which meant that fa

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