Two hundred years ago, in a small town in Scotland, a man hailed ‘the father of British socialism’ set up the world’s first infant school and workplace crèche, providing childcare and education for children whose parents worked at his mill.
From the moment the children in the village of New Lanark could walk, they were sent to Owen’s School for Children and looked after by two young village girls. Toys were rarely seen in the nursery and children were ‘not to be annoyed with books’ but were to be taught the ‘uses and nature or qualities of the common things around them’ by familiar conversation when the children’s curiosity ‘was excited’, according to Owen’s instruction.
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