Ragged school and Working Girls Home doorway, Dantzic Street, Manchester
Formation
1844
Type
Nonprofit
Purpose
Social and educational reform
Headquarters
London, England
Location
Great Britain
Region served
England, Scotland, and Wales
Remarks
Ragged Schools became the Shaftesbury Society, which merged with John Grooms in 2007 and adopted the name Livability.
Ragged schools were charitable organisations dedicated to the free education of destitute children in 19th-century Britain. The schools were developed in working-class districts and intended for society's most impoverished youngsters who, it was argued, were often excluded from Sunday School education because of their unkempt appearance and often challenging behaviour. After a few such schools were set up in the early 19th century by individual reformers, the London Ragged School Union was established in April 1844 to combine resources in the city, providing free education, food, clothing, lodging, and other home missionary services for poor children.[1] Although the Union did not extend beyond London, its publications and pamphlets helped spread ragged school ideals across the country before they were phased out by the final decades of the 19th century.
Working in the poorest districts, teachers (often local working people) initially utilised stables, lofts, and railway arches for their classes. The majority were voluntary teachers, although a small number were employed. There was an emphasis on reading, writing, arithmetic, and study of the Bible, and the curriculum expanded into industrial and commercial subjects in many schools. It is estimated that between 1844 and 1881, about 300,000 children went through just the ragged schools in London alone.[1]
The Ragged School Museum in the East End of London, housed in buildings previously occupied by Thomas John Barnardo, shows how a ragged school would have looked. It provides an idea of the working of a ragged school, although Thomas Barnardo's institution differed considerably in practice and philosophy from the schools accountable to the London Ragged School Union.
Origins
Several schools claim to have pioneered truly free education for impoverished children. They began from the late 18th century onwards but were initially few and far between, only being set up where someone was concerned enough to want to help local disadvantaged children towards a better life,[2]
In the late 18th century, Thomas Cranfield offered free education for poor children in London. Although a tailor by trade, his educational background had included studies at a Sunday school on Kingsland Road, Hackney and in 1798, he established a free children's day school on Kent Street near London Bridge. By his death in 1838, he had established 19free schools offering opportunities and services daily, nightly, and Sundays for children and infants living in the lower-income areas of London.[3][4]
John Pounds, a Portsmouth shoemaker, also provided significant inspiration for the movement. When he was 12, his father arranged for him to be apprenticed as a shipwright. Three years later, he fell into a dry dock and was crippled for life after damaging his thigh. Unable to continue as a shipwright, he became a shoemaker and, by 1803, had a shop on StMary Street, Portsmouth. In 1818, Pounds, known as "the crippled cobbler", began teaching poor children without charging fees. He actively recruited them to his school, spending time on the streets and quays of Portsmouth, making contact, and even bribing them to attend with the offer of baked potatoes.[5] He taught them reading, writing, and arithmetic, and his reputation as a teacher grew; he soon had more than 40 students attending his lessons. He also gave classes in cooking, carpentry, and shoemaking. Pounds, who died in 1839,[4] quickly became a figurehead for the later ragged schools movement, his ethos being used as an inspiration.
In 1840, Sheriff William Watson established an industrial school in Aberdeen, Scotland to educate, train and feed the vagrant boys of the town. In contrast to the earlier efforts of Pounds and Cranfield, however, Watson used compulsion to increase attendance. Frustrated by the number of youngsters who committed petty crimes and faced him in court, he used his position as a law official to arrest vagrant boys and enrol them in the school rather than send them to prison.[4] His Industrial Feeding School opened to provide reading, writing, and arithmetic, as Watson believed that gaining these skills would help them rise above the lowest level of society. It was not confined to the 'three R's', however, as the scholars also received instruction on geology.[6] Three meals a day were provided, and they were taught valuable trades such as shoemaking and printing. A school for girls followed in 1843, and a mixed school in 1845, and from there, the movement spread to Dundee and other parts of Scotland.
On Sunday, 7 November 1841, the Field Lane ragged school began in Clerkenwell, London.[7], and it was the secretary of the school, S. R. Starey, who first applied the term 'ragged' to the institutions in an advert he submitted to The Times seeking public support.[8] Historians have debated how connected the movement was between England and Scotland. E.A.G. Clark argued that 'the London and Scottish schools had little in common except their name'.[9] More recently, Laura Mair has demonstrated that literature, philosophy, and passionate individuals were shared between schools. She writes that 'schools forged significant links across cities and countries that disregarded physical distance'.[10]
In Edinburgh, the first example was the Vennel Ragged School (aka New Greyfriars School) created by Rev William Robertson, the minister of the nearby New Greyfriars Church, in 1846 on the ground on the north-west corner of George Heriot's School. The unassuming Robertson was, however, eclipsed by the self-promoting Rev Thomas Guthrie, who created a parallel Ragged School on Mound Place, off Castlehill in April 1847.[11] Guthrie placed himself at the forefront of the movement in Scotland but was certainly not alone in his aims. His 'Plea for Ragged Schools', published in March 1847 to garner the public's support for a school in the city, laid out his indisputable arguments that proved highly influential. Guthrie was first introduced to ragged schools in 1841 while acting as the Parish Minister of St. John's Church in Edinburgh. On a visit to Anstruther in Fife, he saw a picture of John Pounds in Portsmouth and felt inspired and humbled by the cobbler's work.
Birth of the London Ragged School Union
In 1840, the London City Mission used the term "ragged" in its Annual Report to describe its establishment of five schools for 570 children. The report stated that the schools had been formed exclusively for children "raggedly clothed", meaning children in worn-out clothes who rarely had shoes and did not own sufficient clothing suitable to attend any other school.[1][12] By 1844, there were at least 20 free schools for the poor, maintained through the generosity of community philanthropists, the volunteers working with their local churches, and the organisational support of the London City Mission. During this time, it was suggested that it would be beneficial to establish an official organisation or society to share resources and promote their common cause.
Then, in April 1844, the London Ragged School Union was founded during a meeting of four men to pray for the city's poor children. Starey, the secretary of Field Lane school, was present along with Locke, Moutlon, and Morrison, and they formed a steering committee to address the social welfare needs of the community. On 11 April 1844, at 17Ampton Street off London's Grays Inn Road, they facilitated a public meeting to determine local interest, research feasibility, and establish structure. This was the birth of the London Ragged School Union.[1][4] Mr Locke called for more help in keeping the schools open. Many petitions for funding and grants were made to Parliament to assist with educational reform. He asked the government to give more thought to preventing crime, rather than punishing the wrongdoers and said the latter course only made the young criminals worse.[1][2]
Prominent supporters
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of ShaftesburyCharles Dickens, 1858
Several people volunteered and offered their time, skills, and talents as educators and administrators of the ragged schools. These included Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, one of Britain's most significant social reformers whose broad-ranging concerns included education, animal welfare, public health, and improving working conditions.
In 1844, Lord Shaftesbury became the London Ragged School Union president. He used his knowledge of the schools and refuges and his understanding of low-income families' living conditions to pursue legislation changes. He served as the president for 39 years, and in 1944 the Union adopted the name "Shaftesbury Society" in his honour until, in 2007, the Society was merged with John Grooms, taking the new charity name of Livability. Shaftesbury maintained his commitment to the Ragged Schools and educational reform until he died in 1885.
In 1843, Charles Dickens began his association with the schools and visited the Field Lane Ragged School.[7] He was appalled by the conditions yet moved toward reform.[13] The experience inspired him to write A Christmas Carol. While he initially intended to write a pamphlet on the plight of poor children, he realised that a dramatic story would have more impact.
Dickens continued to support the schools, donating funds on various occasions. He donated funds along with a water trough at one point, stating it was "so the boys may wash and for a supervisor"! (from a letter to Field Lane). He later wrote about the school and his experience in Household Words. In 1837, he used the street called Field Lane as a setting for Fagin's den in his classic novel Oliver Twist.
Charles Spurgeon and the Metropolitan Tabernacle were also supporters. In May 1875's Sword and Trowel Spurgeon recorded:
A most interesting and enthusiastic meeting was held in the Lecture Hall of the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Wednesday, the 17th ult., in connection with Richmond Street Ragged and Sunday Schools. After tea, at which about six hundred persons sat down, Mr. Olney took the Chair, and the public meeting was addressed by Dr. Barnardo, J. M. Murphy, and W. Alderson, Mr. Curtis, of the Ragged School Union, and the superintendents, Messrs. Burr and Northcroft. Mr. J. T. Dunn gave a brief sketch of the rise and progress of this good work. The friends heartily responded to an earnest appeal for help to build new schools, and contributed £128 17s. ld. It is proposed to raise another £100 by 23rd of June. The friends have thus raised in a few months over £350, which, with Mr. Spurgeon's promise of £150, makes £500. At least £300 more is required.[14]
Growth of the organisation
There was a massive growth in the number of schools, teachers, and students. By 1851, the number of educators would grow to around 1,600 persons. By 1867, some 226 Sunday Ragged Schools, 204 day schools, and 207 evening schools provided a free education for about 26,000 students.[1] However, the schools relied heavily on volunteers and continually faced problems finding and keeping staff. Women played an important role as volunteer teachers. A newspaper report on the progress of the schools announced that 'the most valuable teachers in ragged schools are those of the female sex'.[15]
The ragged school movement became respectable, even fashionable, attracting the attention of many wealthy philanthropists. Wealthy individuals such as Angela Burdett-Coutts gave large sums of money to the London Ragged School Union. This helped to establish 350 ragged schools by the time the Elementary Education Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 75) was passed.[16] As Eager (1953) explains, "Shaftesbury not only threw into the movement his great and growing influence; he gave what had been a Nonconformist undertaking, the cachet of his Tory churchmanship– an important factor at a time when even broad-minded (Anglican) churchmen thought that Nonconformists should be fairly credited with good intentions, but that cooperation (with them) was undesirable".[1][17]
Legacy of the ragged schools
Ragged School Museum
The ragged schools' success definitively demonstrated a demand for education among people experiencing poverty. In response, England and Wales established school boards to administer elementary schools. However, education was still not free of fees. After 1870, public funding began to be provided for elementary education among working people.
School boards were public bodies created in boroughs and parishes under the Elementary Education Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 75) following campaigning by George Dixon, Joseph Chamberlain, and the National Education League for elementary education that was free from Anglican doctrine. Board members were directly elected, not appointed by borough councils or parishes. The demand for ragged schools declined as the school boards were built and funded. The school boards continued in operation for 32 years. They were officially abolished by the Education Act 1902, which replaced them with local education authorities.
Barnardo arrived in London in 1866, planning to train as a doctor and become a missionary in China. In London, he was confronted by a city where disease was rife, poverty and overcrowding endemic, and educational opportunities for the poor nonexistent. He watched helplessly as a cholera epidemic swept through the East End, leaving more than 3,000 Londoners dead and many destitute. He gave up his medical training to pursue his local missionary works and, in 1867, opened his first ragged school where children could gain a free primary education. Ten years later, Barnardo's Copperfield Road School opened its doors to children, and for the next thirty-one years, it educated tens of thousands of children. It closed in 1908, by which time enough government schools had opened in the area to serve the needs of local families.
The buildings, originally warehouses for goods transported along the Regent's Canal, then went through various industrial uses until, in the early 1980s, they were threatened with demolition. A group of local people joined together to save them and reclaim their unique heritage. The Ragged School Museum Trust was set up and opened a museum in 1990.
The museum was founded to make the history of the ragged schools and the broader social history of the East End accessible to all. An authentic Victorian classroom has been set up within the original buildings, in which 14,000 children each year experience a school lesson as it would have been taught more than 100 years ago.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was an English Particular Baptist preacher.
Thomas John Barnardo was an Irish-born, Christian philanthropist and founder and director of homes for poor and deprived children. From the foundation of the first Barnardo's home in 1867 to the date of Barnardo's death, nearly 60,000 children had been taken in.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851, was a British Tory politician, philanthropist, and social reformer. He was the eldest son of the 6th Earl of Shaftesbury and Lady Anne Spencer, and elder brother of Henry Ashley, MP. A social reformer who was called the "Poor Man's Earl", he campaigned for better working conditions, reform to lunacy laws, education and the limitation of child labour. He was also an early supporter of the Zionist movement and the YMCA and a leading figure in the evangelical movement in the Church of England.
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually Christian in character and intended for children or neophytes.
Anthony John Mundella was an English manufacturer and later a Liberal Party MP and Cabinet Minister who sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1868 to 1897. He served under William Ewart Gladstone as Vice-President of the Committee of the Council on Education from 1880 to 1885 and as President of the Board of Trade in 1886 and from 1892 to 1894. As education minister he established universal compulsory education in Britain and played the major part in building the state education system. At the Board of Trade he was instrumental in the reduction of working hours and the raising of minimum ages in the employment of children and young people. He was among the first to prove the effectiveness of arbitration and conciliation in industrial relations. He also brought in the first laws to prevent cruelty to children. His political achievements in the late Victorian age are said to have anticipated 20th century society.
Thomas Guthrie FRSE was a Scottish divine and philanthropist, born at Brechin in Angus. He was one of the most popular preachers of his day in Scotland, and was associated with many forms of philanthropy—especially temperance and Ragged Schools, of which he was a founder.
The Elementary Education Act 1870, commonly known as Forster's Education Act, set the framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in England and Wales. It established local education authorities with defined powers, authorized public money to improve existing schools, and tried to frame conditions attached to this aid so as to earn the goodwill of managers. It has long been seen as a milestone in educational development, but recent commentators have stressed that it brought neither free nor compulsory education, and its importance has thus tended to be diminished rather than increased.
Flora Clift Stevenson was a British social reformer with a special interest in education for poor or neglected children, and in education for girls and equal university access for women. She was one of the first women in the United Kingdom to be elected to a school board.
The Likes of Us is musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice, and a book by Leslie Thomas. It is based on the story of Thomas John Barnardo, a philanthropist who founded homes for destitute children.
The Surrey Chapel (1783–1881) was an independent Methodist and Congregational church established in Blackfriars Road, Southwark, London on 8 June 1783 by the Rev. Rowland Hill. His work was continued in 1833 by the Congregational pastor Rev. James Sherman, and in 1854 by Rev. Newman Hall. The chapel's design attracted great interest, being circular in plan with a domed roof. When built it was set in open fields, but within a few years it became a new industrial area with a vast population characterised by great poverty amidst pockets of wealth. Recently the site itself has been redeveloped as an office block, and Southwark Underground Station has been built opposite.
The Ragged School Museum is a museum in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The museum was opened in 1990 in the premises of the former Dr Barnardo's Copperfield Road Ragged School. The school opened in 1877 to serve the children of Mile End with a basic education. It was the largest of its kind at the time. It closed in 1908 when sufficient government/London County Council schools had been established to take over the work. At its height the school had more than 1,000 pupils on weekdays, and 2,400 Sunday school attendees. The team continued to organise events for the local community even after the school closed. The building saw later use as a factory.
Archibald Geikie Brown was a Calvinistic Baptist minister; a student, friend, and associate of Charles Spurgeon; and from 1908 to 1911, pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, the church earlier pastored by Spurgeon.
The history of education in England is documented from Saxon settlement of England, and the setting up of the first cathedral schools in 597 and 604.
Elementary schools were the first schools in England and Wales intended to give a basic education to the children of working class families. At the start of the 19th century, the only schooling available to these young people was run by private concerns or by charities, and was often of a very poor standard. In the first decades of that century, a network of elementary schools was established by societies backed by the Christian churches. In an effort to expand this "voluntary" system, the government made grants available to these societies, initially for new school buildings but later towards their running costs. It became apparent that although this system worked reasonably well in rural communities, it was far less successful in the rapidly expanding industrial cities, and that Britain was falling behind the rest of the developed world. In 1870, an act of parliament established elected school boards throughout England and Wales, which were empowered to create secular "board schools" funded by local taxation where there was no provision by the church societies. Further legislation made school attendance compulsory, and eventually free of charge. The problem of how the education of older pupils should be managed was solved by abolishing school boards in 1902 and passing responsibility to local councils. Elementary schools were eventually replaced in 1944 by the system of primary and secondary education.
Scottish education in the nineteenth century concerns all forms of education, including schools, universities and informal instruction, in Scotland in the nineteenth century. By the late seventeenth century there was a largely complete system of parish schools, but it was undermined by the Industrial Revolution and rapid urbanisation. The Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland and the Catholic church embarked on programmes of school building to fill in the gaps in provision, creating a fragmented system. Attempts to supplement the parish system included Sunday schools, mission schools, ragged schools, Bible societies and improvement classes. Scots played a major part in the development of teacher education with figures including William Watson, Thomas Guthrie, Andrew Bell, John Wood and David Stow. Scottish schoolmasters gained a reputation for strictness and frequent use of the tawse. The perceived problems and fragmentation of the Scottish school system led to a process of secularisation, as the state took increasing control. The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 transferred the Kirk and Free Kirk schools to regional School Boards and made some provision for secondary education. In 1890 school fees were abolished, creating a state-funded, national system of compulsory free basic education with common examinations.
The history of schools in Scotland includes the development of all schools as institutions and buildings in Scotland, from the early Middle Ages to the present day. From the early Middle Ages there were bardic schools, that trained individuals in the poetic and musical arts. Monasteries served as major repositories of knowledge and education, often running schools. In the High Middle Ages, new sources of education arose including choir and grammar schools designed to train priests. Benedictine and Augustinian foundations probably had charitable almonry schools to educate young boys, who might enter the priesthood. Some abbeys opened their doors to teach the sons of gentlemen. By the end of the Middle Ages, grammar schools could be found in all the main burghs and some small towns. In rural areas there were petty or reading schools that provided an elementary education. Private tuition in the families of lords and wealthy burghers sometimes developed into "household schools". Girls of noble families were taught in nunneries and by the end of the fifteenth century Edinburgh also had schools for girls, sometimes described as "sewing schools". There is documentary evidence for about 100 schools of these different kinds before the Reformation. The growing humanist-inspired emphasis on education cumulated with the passing of the Education Act 1496.
Livability is a national disability charity based in the UK and is the country's largest Christian disability charity. The charity was formed in 2007 after a merger between the Shaftesbury Society and John Grooms. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, became President of the organization in 2013 and the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was its vice-president.
The Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa is one of the United Kingdom's oldest children's charities. It has been active since 1843. Its aim, written in its current mission statement, is to support young people in care and need to find their voice, to be healthy, to learn, develop and achieve and to gain an independent and positive place in society.
The Memorial to Dr Barnardo by George Frampton, at Barkingside in the London Borough of Redbridge, commemorates the founder of the Barnardo's children's charity. Born in Dublin into a Sephardic Jewish family, Thomas John Barnardo moved to the East End of London in 1866 where he established a chain of orphanages that developed into the Barnardo's charity. He died in 1905 and, in a move unusual for the time, was cremated; his ashes were interred in front of Cairn's House, the original building of his Barkingside children's village. In 1908, a memorial was raised on the site, the sculpture being undertaken by George Frampton, who worked without a fee. The memorial was designated a Grade II listed structure in 1979 and upgraded to II* in 2010.
George Stringer Bull (1799–1865) was an English missionary and cleric, a social and industrial reformer in the Bradford area.
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Walvin, J. (1982). A Child's World. A social history of English childhood 1800–1914. Pelican. ISBN0-14-022389-4.
↑ E.A.G. Clark, 'The Ragged School Union and the Education of the London Poor in the Nineteenth Century' (unpublished Master's thesis, University of London, 1967), pp. 8-9.
↑ Laura M. Mair '"The Only Friend I Have in this World": Ragged School Relationships in England and Scotland, 1844-1870' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017), p. 60.
Clark, E. A. G. "The early ragged schools and the foundation of the Ragged School Union." Journal of Educational Administration and History 1.2 (1969): 9-21.
Mair, Laura M. "A ‘Transcript of Their Mind’?: Ragged School Literacy in the Mid-Nineteenth Century." Journal of Victorian Culture 24.1 (2019): 18-32.
Mair, Laura M. "Helping Self-Help: The potential of the street-child in ragged school literature. 1844–1872." Scottish Church History 46.1 (2017): 103-129.
Webster, Derek Herbert. "The Ragged School Movement and the Education of the Poor in the Nineteenth Century" (PhD dissertation, University of Leicester, 1973). online
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