I work about 5 minutes' walk from the Ragged School Museum in Stepney, some days of the week.


http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REbarnardo.htm

While a student at the London Hospital, Barnardo opened his own Ragged School in Stepney

Ragged School Museum 46-50 Copperfield Road TOWER HAMLETS


http://www.londontown.com/LondonStreets/stepney_high_street_36c.html
Based in canalside warehouses which once housed Barnardos largest ragged school, this museum focuses on the history of the East End and, in particular, the Copperfield Road Ragged School

http://www.raggedschoolmuseum.org.uk/nextgen/history/schoolhistory.shtml
The Ragged School Museum


The Ragged School Museum is housed in a group of three canalside buildings which once formed the largest “ragged” or free school in London.



When Thomas Barnardo came to London from his home city of Dublin in 1866, intending to train as a doctor and then become a missionary in China, he was confronted by a city where disease was rife, poverty and overcrowding endemic and educational opportunities for the poor were non-existent. He watched helplessly as a cholera epidemic swept through the East End, leaving over 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 basic education.



Ten years later, Barnardo’s Copperfield Road School opened its doors to children and for the next thirty-one years 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 a variety of industrial uses until, in the early 1980s, they were threatened with demolition.



It was then that a group of local people joined together to save them and reclaim their unique heritage. The Ragged School Museum Trust was set up and the museum opened 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. Within the original buildings, an authentic Victorian Classroom has been set up where each year some 14,000 children experience a school lesson as it would have been taught more than 100 years ago.



We have also recreated a Victorian East End Kitchen from the 1900s, where younger children listen to stories and join in rhymes and games of the period.



The museum has several gallery areas, a reconstructed Victorian Classroom and a Victorian East End Kitchen displaying its own collection of historical artefacts, all designed for hands-on inspection. This is a museum where you can sit at the school desks, use the tin bath and experience what life was like for the Victorian poor of the East End of London.



Special exhibitions are presented throughout the year about the unique cultural history of the area.



Click here for information regarding venue hire.

http://www.pats-towerhamlets.ch/museums/ragged.htm
The Ragged School Museum




The purpose of the Ragged School Museum is to make the unique history of the East End of London, and in particular of the Copperfield Road Ragged School , accessible to everyone.



The Museum was opened in 1990 in three canalside warehouses in Copperfield Road, East London . These buildings were previously used by Dr Barnardo to house the largest ragged school in London . In a re-created classroom of the period, visitors can now experience how Victorian children were taught. There are also displays on local history, industry and life in the East End and a varied programme of temporary exhibitions.



The Museum runs a variety of different activities for all ages. These include workshops, history talks, treasure hunts and canal walks. These are open to all.



In 1983, a group of local people joined together to save Nos 46-50 Copperfield Road from demolition. This led to the formation of the Ragged School Museum Trust, which governs the Museum. The Trust is now run by a Council of Management, which is elected from among the members of the Trust.



These canalside warehouses, built in 1872, were once used to store lime juice and general provisions. They are now the only mid-Victorian canalside warehouses left in Tower Hamlets.



In 1868, Thomas Barnardo started a ragged school at Hope Place , Limehouse. Ragged schools were free schools for poor children. The pupils' plight prompted Barnardo to open his first home for homeless boys in 1870 at Stepney Causeway. This charity cared for children regardless of their age, faith, colour or disabilities which was very unusual at the time. Between 1880 and 1900, children from China , the West Indies , Africa , India and America were cared for.



By 1875, Hope Place and another ragged school he had opened were condemned due to overcrowding so he needed to rent larger buildings



In 1876, Dr Barnardo rented 2 warehouses (now 46 Copperfield Road ) and converted them into the Copperfield Road Ragged School for children aged 5-10 years. Here poor local children received a free education, breakfast, dinner and help finding their first job.



Each floor was made into a big classroom with a fireplace, and the loopholes (warehouse doors) were replaced by windows. The basements became the playgrounds. A pediment (triangular structure) was added to the top of the building to make it look more imposing. The separate boys', girls' and infants' schools opened in 1877. By 1879, this building housed the largest ragged day school of the 144 in London .













Web Design: Pat Gerber-Relf, Feldbrunnen, Switzerland





http://www.englandschristianheritage.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=80
STEPNEY - Dr Barnado's Homes






Contemporary with Booth, but called to a different ministry was Thomas Barnado (1845-1905), who came from Dublin to train as a doctor at the London Hospital, intending to go to China as a missionary. What he saw of the condition of homeless children transformed his life.



In 1866, he hired a donkey shed in Hope Place, Stepney, for use as a "ragged school". One evening he challenged a small boy who wanted to stay the night. The lad, Jim Jarvis, showed him places where dozens of other homeless children huddled together for warmth at night. Barnado rented two houses close by and took in twenty-five boys. He described his work as the East End Juvenile Mission, but it soon became universally known as Dr Barnado's Homes. By the time of Barnado's death in 1905, there were more than eight thousand children living in his homes, and eighteen thousand had found new lives in Canada and Australia.



Hope Place no longer exists, but the site in Ben Jonson Road is marked by a blue plaque on the wall of 58 Solent House. Today it is in the heart of London's Bengali community. When Barnado published his first East End Juvenile Mission report in 1868, he was living at 47 Barnes Street, near York Square, not far from Hope Place. Today it is an attractive end-of-terrace private house in an area which has survived bombs and redevelopment.



In 1870, a boys' home was opened in Stepney Causeway, off Commercial Road, which bore the famous slogan "No destitute child ever refused admission". This was adopted after Barnado was distraught to find that a boy he had casually turned away one night because he had no space had died later of hypothermia. At one time, various Barnado establishments lined both sides of the Causeway as far as the railway bridge. Barnado's closed their offices here in 1968 and the buildings were demolished to extend the Pitsea housing estate. A bronze plaque on Ogilvie House, on the east side, records that "Dr Barnado's first home for boys stood on this site 1870-1970". The name of an adjacent street was changed from Ann Street to Barnado Street in 1911.