Time team digs into the Ragged School site
Last updated 05:38, Friday, 26 September 2008
In a letter to The Cumberland News in February 1964, Margaret Scott wrote: “I think it was a great pity that the old Ragged School, a worthy memorial to the Head family, should have been so ruthlessly destroyed... this school was a pioneer in creating education for the poor and should have been preserved.”
Now an excavation by North Pennines Archaeology on the former Shaddongate car park, behind the John Street Hostel, may reveal the remains of the building.
Coincidentally, in an article on the history of such schools in the September issue of Ancestors, Emma Hatfield and Nicola Lisle explain that the movement started in 1818 and Charles Dickens’s visit to a London Ragged School in 1841 inspired A Christmas Carol.
The cause was advanced by the publication in 1847 of Thomas Guthrie’s Plea for Ragged Schools.
Philanthropist George Head Head – yes, that really was his name – needed little encouragement to buy the necessary land in Shaddongate and fund a building in 1851.
Although shown on the OS map as ‘Ragged and Industrial School,’ it was affectionately called ‘Head’s School’.
On a visit to Caldewgate in January 1852, a Carlisle Patriot reporter stated: “We stepped into a handsome and commodious building of the Elizabethan style... about to be employed as an industrial school.”
It was then being used as an adult evening school but the reporter said that, “when the necessary arrangements are fully completed”, it was intended as a “juvenile educational and training establishment”. Most importantly, admission was free.
There was a main room, said the Patriot “25 by 50 feet, airy and fitted up with all the necessary apparatus for the accommodation of about 150 pupils, ample provision having been made for regulating the temperature of the building”.
The master’s room was “so situated”, said the newspaper, “that he can see at a glance all that is going on”.
There were a number of rooms adjoining, “exclusive of the superintendent’s house, designed for workshops and baths”.
One was a “commodious reading room, the library already numbers 500 or 600 volumes, the gift of Mr Head”, said the reporter.
A ‘rice room’ was also fitted up, “with the requisite apparatus for boiling large quantities of that nutritious food, which is twice a week distributed, without price, to the poverty-stricken and the destitute, of whom, it is to be lamented, there are far too many in this city”, ended the report.
The Carlisle Journal reported in August 1854 on progress: “It is gratifying to find that this excellent institution – wherein the poor, the neglected and the vicious among the rising generation are taken in, clothed, educated and reclaimed from bad courses – is in a most flourishing condition, its benefits being extended to between 200 and 300 children of the poorer classes of this city.”
It had been provided, said the newspaper “through the benevolence of the founder and chief supporter, GH Head of Rickerby House”.
Each year Mr Head organised a treat at Rickerby and 1854 was no exception.
“The scholars, the shoemakers, tailor and others connected with the working of the schools,” reported the Journal, “were regaled with cakes and milk, supplied in profusion, in the park adjoining the house.” This was “much enjoyed by the children, who did not fail to do justice to it”.
Once the school was well established, the Patriot returned in 1856 and the reporter was in for a surprise. “The discipline maintained amongst such a host of children is perfectly astonishing and the facility for learning is contagious.
“Engaged in repeating their various lessons, in spelling, in reciting, the hum of hundreds of voices is instantly silenced by the uplifting of the finger of authority and not a whisper is heard throughout the school until the counter-sign is given.”
Boys, girls and infants were taught and there was also an evening department and Sunday school.
A census of schoolchildren showed in 1878 that numbers had risen to 432 at Head’s School. By then GH Head had died and his successor, Miles MacInnes continued the school.
Annual treats were still held at Rickerby and 400 children and teachers were entertained in 1885.
The date of closure is vague. The Journal reported in 1893 that “the Ragged Schools had closed by 1891”.
Other uses were found for the building – the Church Army held nightly services and temperance lectures there.
The Sunday School still flourished in 1893 and a distribution of clothing was organised at the school in 1895 by the Carlisle Children’s Aid Society.
With the death of Miles MacInnes a decision on the future was made in 1910. The Journal reported: “The parish of Holy Trinity has benefited materially during the year by the gift of the old Ragged School by the MacInnes family as a memorial to the late GH Head.”
Adaptations were made “for parochial purposes and a social gathering held there in November to celebrate the gift”.
But in December 1927 Head’s School was offered for sale by the Charity Commissioners with ‘vacant possession’.
No bids were forthcoming and while it may have remained empty for a short period, Mr Couch later stated in the newspaper: “In recent years this building was used as a recreation room by Messrs Carr’s workers.”
In the Carlisle Official Guide in 1972, the compiler stated: “The Border Dairy Company was founded in 1896... their present site in Shaddongate was acquired in 1934 at which time around 350 gallons of milk were being handled daily.”
Plans submitted for the new creamery in 1935 showed the inclusion of the school building, their address in 1952 being given as ‘Head’s School’.
While the school was then intact, managing director, James McQuillan revealed in The Cumberland News in November 1966, a £100,000 extension scheme for the Border Dairy site, but the school had already gone.
