Ragged school

Ragged schools is a name given to the 19th century charity schools in the United Kingdom which provided education and, in most cases, food, clothing, and lodging for destitute children. They received no government support.

The movement had its beginning in the magnanimous efforts of John Pounds (d. 1839), a shoemaker of Portsmouth, but the zeal and eloquence of Thomas Guthrie greatly furthered the development and spread of these schools throughout the United Kingdom.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopaedia.