Anthony John Mundella (24 September 1859 — 31 March 1933), known as Anthony Mundella, was an English journalist, education reformer and campaigner for child welfare. After working as Private Secretary to his namesake uncle, Rt Hon Anthony John Mundella, a Liberal Party Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister, he became a journalist and parliamentary sketch writer for The Manchester Guardian. He was elected Chairman of the Press Gallery. Subsequently, he was for 35 years Secretary of the National Education Association, and campaigned for a free progressive system of national education, publicly controlled and free from sectarian interest. He was well known in the House of Commons and much sought after by MPs and government ministers for his wide knowledge and expertise in educational reform and child welfare. It is said that he was responsible more than any other for the abolition of the injurious employment of children of school age.

Early life

Anthony Mundella was born in Nottingham, England,England and Wales Civil Registration, 1859 Births the second of a family of eight children.Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861 and 1871 His father, John Mundella, a hosiery manufacturer in the family firm of Hine & Mundella, died when Anthony Mundella was 13.England and Wales Civil Registration, 1873 Deaths His uncle was Anthony John Mundella, a Liberal statesman and a member of William Ewart Gladstone's Cabinet.Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 Supplement, Smith, Elder and Company, London, 1901, Vol 3, pp 209-212 His grandfather, Antonio Mondelli, was an immigrant of uncertain background from Monte Olimpino, near Como in Lombardy. His mother, Emma Wright, was the daughter of William Wright, a Nottingham lace, thread and silk commission agent.Register of Baptisms, Parish of St Nicholas, Nottingham, 20 April 1834 His upbringing was Unitarian and his family was politically Liberal with a strong leaning amongst his surviving siblings towards education and its reform.The Inquirer, 22 April 1933, London

Mundella's general education was at the non-sectarian school attached to the Unitarian High Pavement Chapel in Nottingham, and then at Nottingham High School. At 13 he was sent to Paris to be educated at a lycée there. However, within a year of going to Paris his father's death caused the family income to be drastically reduced and as a consequence Mundella was brought back to Nottingham to be apprenticed.Biographical note, Theresa Hastings née Mundella, a sister of Anthony John Mundella, Mundella family archive

He signed up for seven years to train as a commission agent with the firm of William Wright & Son, owned by his grandfather and his uncle.Indenture of apprenticeship to Messrs. Wm. Wright & Son, Commission Agents, Nottingham, October 1873 The company were lace, thread, and silk commission agents and dealers. Mundella served his apprenticeship for the full seven years, until his 21st birthday.

While apprenticed, Mundella continued to follow the family tradition of Unitarianism, inherited from his mother's family, and took a keen interest in the activities of the High Pavement Chapel in Nottingham which the family attended. He went to the weekday Bible class, belonged to Chapel societies, and was a frequent speaker at the debating society. As he grew older he led a class of young men, in whose progress he took a keen interest. He also followed his uncle A. J. Mundella, a captain in the Robin Hood Rifles, as a cadet, later progressing into the corps itself.

At the same time he became interested in politics, becoming Secretary of the Newark Division Liberal Association,Sir Richard Winfrey, Great Men and Others I Have Met, Northamptonshire Printing and Publishing, Kettering (England), 1943 and also started writing journalism, and contributing to local newspapers.

His lifelong interest in education was sparked as a young man in family discussions. Towards the end of his life he recalled: "The vision I learned to look for, from the talk of the elders around the domestic hearth, was a vision of Schools for all; provided by the rates; compulsion of the unwilling to attend; relief from the prohibitory fee; local elected Boards; and salaried officers for the administration, to set the teachers free for their great work of teaching."Anthony Mundella, Visions of the Past and the Future, Jubilee of National Education, Somerset and Wiltshire Journal, 27 January 1922

Private Secretary to A. J. Mundella

In 1880, Mundella's uncle, A. J. Mundella, a Liberal MP for Sheffield, became Vice-President of the Privy Council Committee on Education (in effect the Victorian equivalent of Secretary of State for Education) in William Gladstone's government. He invited his nephew, then 21, to come to London to serve as his private secretary.

Mundella moved to London to work for his uncle and began a life-long close connection with Westminster and its affairs, particularly in the fields of education and the welfare of children. He was well-placed to learn how Westminster, Whitehall, Parliament, politics, and politicians worked. He supported A. J. Mundella in the introduction of his Bill to complete the system of compulsion to attend school which became known as the Mundella Act (properly known as the Elementary Education Act 1880), which finally established the means to enforce all children being sent to school. He further supported his uncle in his work to reorganise technical education, including forming a single institution of the scientific schools at South Kensington in London, establishing the Normal School of Science and Royal School of Mines in October 1881 and in improving higher education in Wales. Mundella also aided his uncle in the further development of the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum), and the introduction of the educational code of 1882, which became known as the "Mundella Code". Improvement in the inspection of schools, including employing some female inspectors, and insisting that the health and mental capacity of children should be taken into consideration when examining their learning progress proceeded apace, as did beneficial change in teacher training.A.J.Mundella 1825–1897 – The Liberal Background to the Labour Movement, WHG Armytage, Ernest Benn Limited, London, 1951 Mundella also supported his uncle in the determination to urge local government to provide cheap meals for children.

Gladstone's government fell in 1885, but Mundella continued by his uncle's side, through the General Election of October 1885, a brief period in opposition when his uncle remained on the Liberal front bench, and then the subsequent General Election in January 1886 which returned the Liberals to power. Gladstone appointed A. J. Mundella President of the Board of Trade with a place in the Cabinet. Mundella stayed working for his uncle in his new position until the Liberal government fell once again at the end of July 1886. Though A. J. Mundella continued to be an MP and later served a second, longer, term as President of the Board of Trade, Mundella junior left his uncle's service at this point, after 6 years in Westminster, and returned to Nottingham.CH Grinling, The School Child and Juvenile Worker, Vol XII, No 33, May 1933 In his time in Whitehall, Mundella had undoubtedly laid the firm foundation for his later campaigning and political lobbying in the field of education reform and the welfare of children.

Nottingham

On his return to Nottingham at the age of 27, Mundella shared a house with a lively group of young men at 4 Upper College Street, which they called "The Chapter House". Among those living there with Mundella was the Rev Arthur Hamilton Baynes (who later became chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and then Bishop of Natal), solicitor Alfred Robinson, accountant W. R. Hamilton, Fabian socialist C. H. Grinling, and others.

Like-minded visitors to Nottingham were encouraged to stay at Upper College Street. Preachers of all kinds stayed there, and most of the original Fabians, including George Bernard Shaw on a number of occasions.

Mundella had ambitions to become a professional, full-time journalist, and he returned to casual reporting and writing for newspapers. The Unitarian minister of the High Pavement Chapel, Rev Richard Acland Armstrong, wrote a letter of introduction and recommendation for Mundella to C. P. Scott, the Editor of The Manchester Guardian, stating that Mundella had a desire to be a political journalist for the paper.Correspondence with Anthony J. Mundella, 15 Jul 1888-25 Sep 1925, Editorial Correspondence of C.P. Scott, University of Manchester Library, GB 133 GDN/A/M108 Mundella's work had already attracted the attention of Scott, and in 1889 he invited Mundella to report full-time for the paper from London, and more particularly, from Westminster.

The Manchester Guardian

Mundella returned to London and for the next 12 years reported on the doings of Westminster, in the Press Gallery and in the Lobby, notably contributing for much of this period the "brilliantly written"Sir Richard Winfrey, The School Child and Juvenile Worker, Vol XII No 33, May 1933 nightly sketch of the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament. He also wrote a wide range of other contributions for the newspaper, including reporting on parliamentary by-elections, Labour Day in London and the funeral of WE Gladstone in May 1898, though, as was usual in newspapers of the time, his contributions were uncredited in the paper. His interest in education, aroused during his time serving as his uncle's Private Secretary, also led to Mundella covering matters such as the Poor Law Schools Committee and the London School Board.AP Derrington, "Anthony John Mundella — Uncle and Nephew", History of Education, 4:1, 1975

Mundella's relationship with Scott was not always smooth. On one occasion the Editor complained that a parliamentary sketch Mundella had written was deemed to be unsuitable for publication. Scott also proposed that Mundella should be employed at the Manchester office of the newspaper during the parliamentary recesses, but Mundella refused, saying that he preferred to remain in London. Mundella's wages were also discussed between them, Mundella writing a statement entitled "The Standard Rate of Wages in the Parliamentary Gallery" outlining how much less he was receiving than parliamentary journalists on other newspapers.

During his time reporting from Parliament, his journalist colleagues elected him Chairman of the Press Gallery, and as such he was viewed as "the equal of anyone there, for his shrewd judgement and knowledge of affairs. As a result of this acumen his column in the paper was always worth reading by politically minded people."Alfred E Hutton,The School Child and Juvenile Worker, Vol XII, No 33, May 1933 When he resigned from the Manchester Guardian he was allowed to retain permanently his parliamentary lobby ticket which afforded him privileged access to Ministers, MPs and Lords, which was notably beneficial while he pursued his subsequent activities as a reforming educationalist.

The School Board for London