This Week in Christian History: Mother Teresa, Harvard and Founding of the Sunday School Society
William Fox Founds Sunday School Society — Sept. 7, 1785
This week marks the anniversary of when British merchant William Fox founded the Sunday School Society, an influential organization aimed at educating Christian children.
A deacon at London's Prescott Street Baptist Church, Fox sought to create what one historian called "a plan for the universal education of the poor."
An organization that included other denominations, the Sunday School Society's work soon spread throughout other parts of the British Empire and inspired the creation of a similar group in the United States.
"In twenty-seven years it formed or aided 3,730 Sunday schools, having a membership of 303,981; gave away 8,001 Bibles, 70,537 Testaments, and 329,695 spelling and reading books," wrote Sunday School Society leader Edwin Wilbur Rice.
