Difference between revisions of "Blue Coat School"

Latest revision as of 11:34, 26 June 2024

Initially in rooms at the entrance of Sandes Hospital Yard behind 80 Highgate it later moved to larger buildings at the rear of the yard and the schoolmaster had his lodgings in the house at the front (now a tea room/cafe). The charity that ran it was merged with the Kendal Grammar School (later Kirkbie Kendal School and still benefits the school.

Curwen, 1900 p137

Blue Coat School

In the Boke of Recorde there is an entry of an order made at a Court of the Mayor and Aldermen, on the 25th day of March, 1641, “ Whereby on consideration of the great number of children resorting to the free school, which doubtless did hinder the perfecting of many and that the Usher was much burdened and surcharged, it was ordered that the Usher should not teach or admit any child not capable to read the psalter, or that could not read some English, but should disallow such as learnt in the Horn Book, A.B.C. and Primer.”

It would seem therefore that it was in consequence of this order that our worthy Thomas Sandes founded this school to teach and instruct poor children gratis that should come to the master to be taught, at such times as other schoolmasters did teach, until they should be fitted for the Free School or elsewhere. Soon after the school was thus commenced in 1670, there is an item in the churchwardens’ books of money being spent “for formes whereon to seat the sixteen charity children.” No doubt at first the school would meet in one of the front rooms, but as time went on and the numbers increased, it was removed to the “ Great Room ” where was the library. The instruction seems also to have been extended to girls, for in a memorandum it is stated that “ nine poor girls were taught there in 1714 by Isabel Fisher.”

It was in this year that Vicar Crosby and a highly public spirited body of subscribers commenced to clothe the scholars in blue, and by the year 1723, the donation list was so extended as to enable the number of children to be greatly increased.

We have no information as to who filled the post of first schoolmaster, but the Newcastle Journal for January 10th, 1747, gives a most eulogistic reference to Enoch Le. Tousey, master of the Charity School at Kendal, who had suddenly died during the previous week. His successor was Thomas Mackreth, of whom it is recorded on his gravestone in the churchyard, that he was 40 years master of the Hospital and Charity School and that he died in 1787. The next master was the Rev. Thomas Airey, who was here only for a short period, prior to his incumbency of Selside, and he was followed by a little deformed man named John Briggs, who died in early life. In the year 1795, a slip of ground was taken off the master’s garden and a building erected thereon at a cost of some £200, for the boys to learn weaving and card setting in. The work was done for the boys own benefit, some of them earning thereby from 2S. 6d. to 3s. a week. The Rev. John Hudson, however, being treasurer to the school, put a stop to the custom, and one can only suppose, for some financial reason. John Taylor followed as schoolmaster, a useful man, who continued Wharton and Pennington’s Table of Chronological Events from 1802 to 1823. His gravestone records that he died in 1827, aged 54 years. His successor, William Lewthwaite, held the mastership for ten years, and then James Whitaker followed for a period of more than forty years.

When the Commissioners made their report in 1815, there were 40 boys and 30 girls all clothed in blue, at an expense of £150 a year. After the year 1838, by reason of a bequest of 500 guineas from Edward Burrell, a poor Fellside lad, who became a partner in a Liverpool bank, the trustees were enabled to increase the number of boys to 45. In the year 1849, the school was once again taught in the “Great Room,” when the building higher up the court was greatly improved by the removal of the weaving shop floor, the introduction of new lancet windows and an entrance porch.

In the year 1886, under a scheme of the Charity commissioners, this school and the Grammar School (founded in 1525) were merged into one trust, and a number of free scholarships established in lieu of the clothing and former education.