46-50 Copperfield Road, London E3 4RR
Thursday February 27 2015
We hoped Mary was safely in Hong Kong and well away from the
persistent drizzle that accompanied us today on our trip to Tower Hamlets (Overground
to Shadwell and the 339
We stopped to admire the contrast between the impressive newish
builds now lining the canal sides and what looked like an old warehouse or
factory on the opposite bank not knowing until we got round to the front – that
is the Copperfield Road not canal side – that this older building is in fact The Ragged School Museum.
Staffed by enthusiastic volunteers, the Museum is only open two
days a week and its displays fall into three distinct sections. The ground
floor deals with the history of the building which has seen many uses, each in
its own way indicative of the times. The building started life as a depot or
warehouse for lime – although Limehouse down the road got its name from lime
oasts or kilns as in quicklime/cement it appears we are here talking about
limes, those little green citrus fruits that were ‘prescribed’ as the antidote
to scurvy so prevalent amongst sailors. When it seemed easier to ship the limes
straight out again (and Jo remembered the canal boats on the Grand Union
heading for Roses’ Lime Factory) the building was taken over by Dr. Barnardo.
An Irishman who was training to be a doctor and hoped to become
an overseas missionary, he was so appalled at the poverty he saw around him in
Victorian London he concentrated on trying to better the life-chances of the children
of the poor, many of them resident in this part of London. When the Copperfield
Road warehouse building became vacant he set up the eponymous Free School in 1877,
having already run two other ‘free schools’. The 1870 Education Act, the first
legislation to address and enshrine the right to primary education, put a duty
on local school boards to provide schools where none existed. It would be some
years yet until these duties were passed to firstly the London County Council
(in 1904) and then the Inner London Education Authority – two wonderful bodies
which surely deserve a museum of their own in one of the London School Board
buildings.
But back to the Ragged School which used this triangular shaped
site for both infants (the part where the museum is now) and – where the angle
opened out – for separate boys and girls Junior departments. To say they were
oversubscribed is an understatement, with classes regularly topping 100-200
pupils. The curriculum was restricted to reading, writing and arithmetic with
possibly a little history or geography, but certainly stuff that could be
learned by heart and not up for discussion.
The school ran until 1908 when an inspection declared the premises
inadequate (by now the LCC was building school to a design). The building
reverted to factory use – eventually for the manufacture of very smart
motorcycle leathers (what today would call a niche market) until the Museum
began restoration in the Eighties.
It is the first floor display that most visitors come to admire.
Here you will find the recreation of an old-fashioned classroom complete with
chalk blackboard and two-seater wooden desks with inkwell holes. I hesitate to
put a date on these as frankly my entire Primary School Learning (1950s) was
done in a class of 49 in exactly such a setting and Jo remembered starting her
teaching in a similarly furnished classroom. (The link is a short film.)
– I thought life had moved on when the white
board replaced the ‘chalk and talk’ stage but doubtless nowadays one teaches
through a computer. We reminisced about being the ‘ink monitor’ – allowed to
refill the inkwells from the little metal watering can and go home with blue
fingers. Or you could be the Register monitor and ‘lose a few minutes’ in the
corridor between class and staff rooms (Jo) or not (Linda), or as chalk monitor
you could get to lay out the new chalks
and admire them before they broke
(or were chucked at inattentive pupils) or even sneak one home.. The educator
was preparing to settle a real primary age class to give them the whole
experience (boys separate from girls) so we did not linger but did admire the
other artefacts they had collected to give the Ragged School a home context as
well. There was a tiny ‘range’ kitchen complete with dresser, rag rug and
mangle and washboard for the weekly wash (remember all the water had to be
heated). Cupboards boasted old-fashioned pre-electric kitchen gadgets and a few
favourite branded goods.
Talking of monitors as we were, the school would have had over
100 pupils per class and only 1 teacher – in order to get through the
curriculum the teacher would have selected some brighter students and put them
to work teaching in smaller groups. Not ideal but better than no education at
all.
Back downstairs, where the first room looks at the history of
the building and the early days of universal education, the back room is
devoted to a history of Tower Hamlets and its constituent areas – called of
course Tower Hamlets because it houses the Tower of London (see November blog) at its heart and the rest
were small hamlets scattered around – doubtless to serve the court and garrison at the Tower. The room devotes a
couple of display boards to each of the different parts of the borough: Bethnal
Green, Whitechapel and Spitalfields, Stepney & Mile End, Bow and Bromley by
Bow, Wapping to Limehouse and Poplar and the Isle of Dogs – many of them now
stops on the Central line and very familiar to us from our bus travelling days.
Each area has played and continues to play a vital part in the development of
London – the old docks with their refuges for seamen now changed into the new
financial district, the old Jewish East End of the Rag Trade now home to different
incomers still using the old markets, the Old Bryant & May factory which
saw the match girls’ strike now a trendy housing development, the back streets
of Spitalfields once home to weavers and a hospice now a destination for
trendsetters. And not forgetting the politicized people of Cable Street…
The poverty and dense population of the East End /Tower Hamlets
has likewise attracted a large number of philanthropists and do-gooders, all
intent on bringing enlightenment, relief, art and sometimes religion to the people
– these have included the Barnetts of Toynbee Hall , Maria Dickin of the PDSA Sylvia
Pankhurst who fought for women’s rights,
the Booths of the Salvation Army and of course Dr Thomas Barnardo who had a
truly integrated and far-sighted vision – not only did he provide education for
many through this and other Ragged Schools, he looked after the orphaned and
destitute children foreshadowing today’s children’s social care, and even saw
that once educated the young people needed meaningful employment and guided
them towards ‘service’ or a range of manual occupations. The school even hosted
evening club sessions for the many local factory girls. A true pioneer.
While the section covering the History of Tower Hamlets has less
space and exhibits at its disposal than the more spacious Hackney Museum (see
January) we were overall very impressed with the rich heritage of Tower Hamlets
and the enthusiasm with which the staff shared this with visitors, children and
adults alike.
The Collecting boxes..
The downstairs cafe...
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