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lewes<br />
ragged<br />
school<br />
Educati<strong>on</strong>, educati<strong>on</strong>,<br />
educati<strong>on</strong>,Victorian style<br />
As local historian LS Davey found to his fr<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>trati<strong>on</strong><br />
in the 1970s, informati<strong>on</strong> about the history<br />
of the <strong>Lewes</strong> Ragged School has been difficult to<br />
find, beca<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>e, he c<strong>on</strong>cludes; ‘these ragged schools<br />
were very much family affairs’. But two recent<br />
discoveries have cast a fascinating new light <strong>on</strong><br />
a slice of 19th-century <strong>Lewes</strong> life experienced by<br />
those who were extremely poor.<br />
This year, the East S<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>sex County Record Office<br />
purchased a series of lantern slides, unseen by the<br />
public for over a hundred years, which include<br />
portraits of pupils of the Ragged School from<br />
1895. And Senior Archivist Christopher Whittick<br />
traced a file held at the Nati<strong>on</strong>al Archives at Kew<br />
which tells <str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>, am<strong>on</strong>gst other things, how and<br />
why a heavy s<str<strong>on</strong>g>now</str<strong>on</strong>g>fall in 1916 led to the School’s<br />
eventual closure.<br />
Free, compulsory educati<strong>on</strong> in Britain did not<br />
begin until after 1870, and the parents of impoverished<br />
families in <strong>Lewes</strong>, as everywhere, could<br />
not afford to educate their children. In 1818, a<br />
Portsmouth shoemaker called John Pounds started<br />
teaching poor children without charging a fee,<br />
and the name ‘ragged school’ was coined. Dickens<br />
later wrote a letter to the Daily News describing<br />
ragged schools as being for people ‘who are<br />
too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter<br />
any other place: who could gain admissi<strong>on</strong> into<br />
no charity school, and who would be driven from<br />
any church door’.<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Ragged School, which ran for upwards of<br />
70 years, was founded by a Jireh Chapel member,<br />
but it seems that the Ragged School was run<br />
as a separate entity in a rented schoolroom in St<br />
John’s Street, owned by John Dudeney. In January<br />
1870, an event for the benefit of the school<br />
took place, according to the NA file, ‘at the old<br />
room in which they assemble’. Then, in 1879,<br />
a freehold was acquired for the school <strong>on</strong> the<br />
east side of St John Street, the site of the former<br />
Bethesda Chapel.<br />
The less<strong>on</strong>s mostly took place <strong>on</strong> Sunday evenings<br />
although eventually ‘week-night classes<br />
were sometimes held for instructi<strong>on</strong> in secular<br />
subjects’.<br />
A newspaper article from 1892 refers to ‘... the<br />
Ragged School so energetically c<strong>on</strong>ducted by<br />
Mr Isaac Vinall’ where ‘the teachers, the majority<br />
attending m<strong>on</strong>thly in rotati<strong>on</strong> ... number 179.’<br />
The article goes <strong>on</strong> to say; ‘When we c<strong>on</strong>sider<br />
the difficulties of influencing and reclaiming the<br />
class for whom it is established all praise m<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>t be<br />
accorded to Mr Vinall for his excellent work’.<br />
The lantern slide portraits of <strong>Lewes</strong> Ragged