Devon County Council

This is a term covering a wide range of schools, but all of them were originally set up to provide free education for the poor. Usually a wealthy person who wanted to benefit his home town and create a memorial to himself, would leave money in his will to be invested by trustees and the profits used to finance a school. The subjects taught and the number of pupils to benefit would be specified in the will. Often pupils would be provided with clothing or some kind of uniform. Some of these schools also took paying pupils, and have now become private schools, taking a few scholarship children. Other charity schools merged with parish schools when the National School movement began in the early 19^th century, or later, with Board Schools.

Blue Coat Schools

These are named after the distinctive uniforms of the pupils. The oldest one was Christ’s Hospital in London. It was founded in 1553 by Edward VI as a school for poor children, and was later rebuilt in the 1820s. Its system of education was censured in 1854 and reforms were made. The school was moved to Horsham in Surrey in 1890’s and is now a co-ed boarding school. It holds details of pupils dating back to 1563.

Web site: http://www.christs-hospital.org.uk/

Exeter had its own Blue Coat School, known as the St John’s Hospital School, which stood by the East Gate. This area was blitzed in 1942 and the school records were destroyed.

The statue of the Blue Coat boy now stands in Princesshay on the site of the school.

There are a small number of records in other collections relating to the school, and reports of the school can be found in the Exeter Flying Post newspaper, held on microfilm in Westcountry Studies Library newspaper collection.

Relevant printed sources in Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter:

Endowed Schools Acts : scheme for the management of St. John's hospital...and of certain other charities and endowments, Exeter : William Pollard, 1876

St. John's Hospital School, Exeter, Old Boys' Society : memorial year 1957 [Exeter : The Society, 1957]

Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK)

This was an Anglican organisation, begun in 1699, to encourage the foundation of parish charity schools. From 1704 the Society published annual accounts which listed the schools connected with the SPCK and gave brief details of them. The archives of the Society, including minute books and correspondence, date back to its origin in 1698 and are now kept at the University of Cambridge.

The Manuscripts Department holds all non-printed materials, including the following:

• Minutes, including various Committees and Sub-Committees.
• Annual and monthly reports.
• Accounts books.
• Legacies and grants.
• Correspondence, mostly in the 18th century, as later correspondence has unfortunately been destroyed.
• District committees.
• Foreign missions and bishoprics.
• Charity schools.

Web site: http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/5/1030.htm - part of the website for Mundus, the gateway to missionary collections in the United Kingdom.

Ragged Schools

The Ragged School Union began in 1844 to provide free education for the very poorest children. The 7^th Earl of Shaftesbury was the first president and the Union was renamed the Shaftesbury Society in memory of him in 1914. The Union published annual reports from 1844, and also a magazine (with various titles) from 1848. The Shaftesbury Society holds unpublished records including minute books of Annual General Meetings from 1844.

for more information see the following websites:

The History of Ragged Schools

The Ragged School Museum

Exeter had two ragged schools, one in Rack Street and one in Blackboy Road.

For a list of the records of Rack Street School held in Devon Record Office, search the catalogues of school records on the Access to Archives website.