Age guidance: All welcome

The Deptford Ragged School was founded in 1844, twenty-seven years before the State began providing education for all children. It was started in a loft over a cowshed by eight Christian men and women as a Day School and Sunday School.  As many children as possible were crammed into the rented room to learn how to read and write, and very often to be fed too. It was one of the first twenty ragged schools exclusively run for ‘ragged children’, so called because they were ‘dressed in rags’ with bare feet in all weathers.

This talk – presented by Dr Katharine Alston and Dr John Price –  is related to the National Lottery Heritage Fund project, “Educating Deptford: The Deptford Ragged School and its place in the community”. The project will increase knowledge and understanding of the history and heritage of the Deptford Ragged School, and of the lived experiences of those in and around it, as well as examining continuities between lives in the past and the present. The project’s legacy will be continued knowledge-exchange through a digitised archive, exhibitions, performances, education resources for schools and local organisations, and research into links between education, schooling, wellbeing, the environment, and social mobility.

Length: 1 hour