‘Private sollicitations’: Educational Reform, Parliamentary Committees, and the Visitation of Winchester College, 1649–50*

Abstract This article offers a new angle for analysing educational reform during the English Revolution. Although many aspects of the advancement of learning between 1640 and 1660 have been discussed, this article examines its hitherto underexplored parliamentary nature. It argues that the structures of parliamentary rule, specifically the use of committees, influenced the reform of England's educational apparatus to a degree unappreciated by previous historians. To make its arguments, this article uses an unusually well‐documented case‐study of a parliamentary visitation of Winchester College in 1649–50.