Church Sunday schools were at their peak from the mid-19th century until the 1960s. In 1901 there were 68,000 South Australian children attending Sunday schools, with one third of these attending Methodist Sunday Schools. Many churches created Sunday school departments to oversee and assist the operation of the classes. Shortly before the First World War a method of graded classes was introduced and local exponents, such as Lipson Hancock, publishing detailed texts on the subject. Conferences and training courses, sometimes including international experts, were arranged for the teachers, and the interdenominational Sunday School Union ran annual teacher examinations. The Methodist Sunday School yearbook records the organisational details of this movement

Hancock, H. Lipson (Henry Lipson), 1867-1935

Methodist Church of Australasia. South Australia Conference. Sunday School Dept.