The precise role of John Pounds in the history of the Ragged School Movement is obscure. His biographer presents him as the founder of the ragged schools (1. H. Hawkes, The Recollections of John Pounds. 1884, p.295). It was certainly an opinion held by some within a few years of his death (2. E.G. York Herald, 4 May, 1850. ’The origin of this movement commenced with one very humble in life (John Pounds).’ Report of a speech made by the Rev. Canon Trevor).

‘I wants they as nobody cares for.’ – John Pounds

Later historians have perpetuated this view (3. J. H. Brown, Schools in England. 1961, p.53; W. M. Eager, Making Man. 1953, p.120; R. Bennett, The Shaftesbury Story. 1965, p.6; F. Smith, A History of English Elementary Education, 1706-1902. 1931, pp.201-203). J .Scotland has preferred to describe him as a pioneer (4. J. Scotland, The History of Scottish Education. Vol. 1, 1965, p.273), while E.A.G. Clark has suggested that he was an exemplar (5. E. A. G. Clark, ’The Ragged School Union and the Education of the London Poor in the Nineteenth Century’, University of London, M.A.(Ed.),1967).

A problem arises here for two reasons. Firstly, primary source material is lacking. Nearly half a century elapsed before Pounds’ bio­graphy was published. This was a patronising and largely anecdotal ac­count written by a clergyman who met him only four or five years before his death and who was not able to claim close friendship with him (6. Later accounts of the work of J. Pounds either select from or condense H. Hawkes, op. cit. E.g. R. E. Jayne, The Story of John Pounds. 1925; C. J. Montague, Sixty Years in Waifdom. 1904).

Other references to the work and life of the hunchback cobbler in the early annual reports of ragged schools in Britain, in the Ragged School Magazine, the Ragged School Union Quarterly Record and Ragged School Missions, are of little help. They repeat or elaborate the corpus of largely mythical stories which surrounded Pounds from the early years of the movement. Secondly, it is evident that within a couple of years of his death the ex­alted stereotype of the simple, homespun saint had replaced the real human being.

Forgotten were the wit, fun and kisses, the repulsive looks, coarse speech and the crude workmanship of this filthy cripple. Pounds became an example of that evangelical piety which the Victorian Church pro­moted in its efforts to provide England with a social gospel. Alderman Meek, Lord Mayor of York, told the supporters of the York Ragged Schools that Pounds had, whilst earning a scanty livelihood, succeeded before his death in training to be useful members of society no less than 500 outcasts without fee or reward except the testimony of his own conscience, and the approval of his Maker. Let each of us in our station go and do likewise (7. York Ragged School Annual Report. 1850, p.33).

This attitude was crystallised in F.D. Maurice’s concern that all thought shall dwell upon action and express itself in action, that it shall not dwell apart in a region of its own (8. F. D. Maurice, Letters to Ladles on Practical Subjects. 1855, p.60). The facts of John Pounds’ life are simple. He was born on 17 June, 1766, the son of a carpenter. After a few years of indifferent schooling he was apprenticed to the dockyard as a lad of twelve.

Two years later a fall in the dry dock partially crippled him and was responsible for his grotesque gait and appearance. At this point he became apprenticed to a cobbler and continued at this trade for the rest of his life, though he was able to do only rough work. It was in his last sixteen years that he be­gan to teach children. This phase of his life was accidental: ’I’se not think of it at all. It come of itself like’ (9. H. Hawkes, op. cit., p.130). He undertook to look af­ter a lame nephew and invited children into his shop to play with the child. In talking with them he began to teach them.

Soon parents asked if their children might come to listen to him. He agreed and found himself with a group of thirty to forty children each day. The school was situated in St. Mary’s Street, part of the old ghetto area of Portsmouth bounded by Warblington Street, Quay Gate and Prospect Row. It had two rooms, a bedroom and a workshop. The frontage was two yards, the width was five yards and the height on the ground floor was six feet. Children sat on a tiny form, old boxes and the stairs. Those without a seat leaned against the walls or, in the summer, stood outside by the open window of the shop. A visitor commented:

His shop was full to overflowing, some with slates or bits of slates, some with books or a leaf of a book, some looking at flowers, some amusing themselves with playthings (10. H.Hawkes, op.cit.. p.39). Besides the children there were in the shop many cages for birds and animals. Pounds was passionately fond of wild life and kept canaries, linnets and goldfinches, as well as a crow and a raven. There were cats, a dog, some guinea pigs, together with a collection of plants, flowers and leaves.

These latter were taken from a nearby common. It is reported that Pounds said: “An’ while I’s a-sitting all day on my bench, working at my trade, I’s be able to tend all they little rascals. I hears ’em read and say their lessons; and it’s no hindrance to my trade, My work goes on all the same.”  (11. Ibid., p.130)

The education which took place in the tiny cobbler’s shop was varied, humane and often quite humorous. Writing was taught, though there were no exercise books – the children using broken pieces of slate. All the visi­tors to the school commented on the high standard of reading achieved by the children, despite the lack of suitable books. A few Bibles were available, stray leaves from discarded books, handbills and scraps from newspapers. The boys were taught the mathematics which would be most useful to them. It comprised business arithmatic and computations necessary for simple naviga­tion. Pounds’ view was that ’the Book of Nature’s a Divine Book to larn ’em out of’ (12. Ibid., p.140).

He showed the children how to care for all the animals he kept, encouraged them to collect wild flowers and took them on nature rambles to Portsdown. He taught them practical country wisdom about mush­rooms, sheep and rabbits, while extending their local knowledge. The older boys’ interests were directed either to the sea or to cobbling. The life and duties of a sailor were explained and the ships at anchor in the dock discussed. Not surprisingly many of his pupils went to sea when they left him.

The older girls were taught plain cooking – that which they prepared each day John Pounds ate for his lunch and supper! Moral educa­tion was pointed and within the experience of the children. The death of his favourite ’little Polly’ provided him with the theme of mortality, which he summed up as: ‘We’s all to go, Jemmy; some goes first, some follows af­ter’ (13. H. Hawkes, op. cit., p.119).  A passing drunkard gave him the opportunity to discuss the evils of liquor. Religious education was brief, clear and informal. ‘Who made the buttercups and takes care of them?’, ’God.’, ’There’s no end to the good thing’s that God’s always doing for us’ (14. Ibid., p.20).

Sunday school attendance was not compulsory for his children. He took his more able pupils with him once he had managed to find suitable decant clo­thing for them. His methods were dictated by the poverty of circumstances and were mostly interrogative. ‘I questions ’em a good deal I does; on all sorts o’ things.’ (15. Ibid., p.140). It could also be that this method suited his personality. Hawkes suggests that he injected colour, wit, information and love into his teaching.

There was certainly some understanding of children and a degree of common sense in Pounds’ practices. He was sympathetic, too, with the inability of the children to cope with continued academic work. For they poor little things to be kept hard at head work for two or three hours together with nothing to freshen ’em up like – it’s too much of it (16. Ibid., p.137).

He used to say: ’I likes fun and I likes work. A bit of fun makes work go light and easy’ (17. H. Hawkes, op. cit.. p.67). The children he took were ill-clothed, usually hungry and often without enough sleep. Realising this, he let the chil­dren sleep in the school, from his own very meagre resources provided food for the worst cases, and passed on old clothes given to him by neighbours.

Shortly before his death Mr. Sheaf, a journeyman shoemaker, painted a picture of Pounds in the shop surrounded by his children. It was sold to Mr. Edward Charpenter, an engraver and stationer in Portsmouth, for £5. At the death of John Pounds in January, 1839 his obituary appeared in the weekly Portsmouth newspaper, The Hampshire Telegraph, under the headline: ’Philan­thropy and Real Charity in Humbler Life’.

Continued interest in Pounds prompted Mr. Charpenter to have a lithograph made from Mr. Sheaf’s picture. A short pamphlet was produced to accompany it entitled: A Memoir of the Late John Pounds of Portsmouth, Shoe-maker and Gratuitous Teacher of Poor Children. Its text was produced in the March issue of The Christian Re­former. a monthly magazine with a national circulation, which was published in London. Thus the story of the Portsmouth cobbler became common cur­rency, as also did the lithograph from Sheaf’s painting.

Some inaccuracies in the account given to the public stem from this picture. It depicted Pounds as having black hair, a clean skin and a small stature when, in fact, he was grey-haired, with ingrained dirt in his hands and face and was over six feet tall (18. Ibid., where he is described thus: ’His face, neck, chest, arms and hands; all were black as if seldom washed. There was a repulsive coarseness about his features. His voice was harsh and loud as he spoke to the children. What he said, and his manner of saying it, all would have given us the impression of coarse vulgarity.’ p.13. And ’. . . his body from the hips to the shoulders leaned so much forward that his long back was nearly parallel with the ground. One hip bulged largely out.’ p.44).

It showed him working in a coat and a shirt whose collar fastened neatly to the neck, whereas he never wore a coat at work and always left his shirt collar open. His workshop was not as spacious as the picture indicated. It was never as clean nor as bereft of children as Sheaf suggested. The friends of Pounds did not like the portrait. When it was first painted they expressed their dis­approval of the idealised scene (19. H. Hawkes, op. cit., p.172). However, it fitted well with the roman­tic story which was written for the public. Certainly the picture was deeply moving. In 1841 Thomas Guthrie, Minister at Old Greyfriars and Magdalene Chapel, Cowgate, in Edinburgh, and later a powerful advocate of the cause of ragged schools, explained his reactions in his Memoirs.

“My first interest in the cause of Ragged Schools was awakened by a picture which I saw in Anstruther, on the shores of the Firth of Forth. It represented a cobbler’s room; he was there himself, spectacles on nose, an old shoe between his knees; that massive forehead and firm mouth indicating great strength of character; and from beneath his bushy eyebrows benevolence gleamed out on a group of poor children, some sitting, some standing, but all busy at their lessons around him. Interested by this scene we turned from the picture to the inscription below; and with growing wonder read how this man, by name ‘John Pounds’, by trade a cobbler in Ports­mouth, had taken pity on the ragged children, whom ministers and magistrates, ladies and gentlemen, were leaving to run wild, and so to ruin on the streets, how like a good shepherd he had gone forth to gather in these outcasts, how he had trained them up in virtue and knowledge … I confess I felt humbled, I felt ashamed of myself. I well remember saying to ny companion . . . ‘That man is an honour to humanity’ ” (20. D. K. Guthrie and C. J. Cuthrie, Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D. D., and Memoir. 1877, pp.438-439).

Other inaccuracies arose from the elaboration and dramatic heightening of Pounds’ ordinary activities. It was his practice to look out for star­ving children poking about in the gutter and ask them: ‘Will ye have a tatty?’ (21. H. Hawkes, op. cit.. p.128). He would then offer them a boiled potato which he had ready in his pocket. The child would often follow him home for another morsel of food. ‘As sure as he comes once he comes again.’ (22. Ibid., p.129).

By 1841 this was recorded thus: He was sometimes seen hunting down a ragged urchin on the quays of Portsmouth, and compelling him to come to school, not by the power of a policeman, but a potato! He knew the love of an Irishman for a potato and might be seen running alongside an unwilling boy with one held under his nose, with a temper as hot and a coat as ragged as his own (23. D. K.Guthrie and G. J.Guthrie, op. cit., p.439).

It was a scene which proved useful to the Management Committees of the ragged schools in their efforts to raise subscriptions and is a commonplace in their annual reports. John Pounds seems to have inspired Charles Dickens’ portrayal of the schoolmaster in The Old Curiosity Shop (24. J.Manning, Dickens on Education. 1959, p.80, note 31. Manning ob­serves that ‘Dickens was in Petersham and London in 1839 and, because of his interest in ragged children, would have been attracted by the account of Pounds’ work on their behalf’).

If this is so, then the distortion is such that the original becomes unrecog­nisable. The benevolent Mr. Marton, sitting peacefully among the flowers, gazing contentedly at his beehives, reveals more the affectionate and whim­sical humour of his creator than gives any useful information about the mo­del used. There are, however, many correspondences between this gentle and kindly oldman and the popular image of the Portsmouth cobbler. The Ragged School Movement accepted Guthrie’s opinion that John Pounds was a genius (25. D. K. Guthrie and C.J. Guthrie, op. cit., p.439). Its historian reveals the extent of the belief:

“Nearly everything in the operations of the R.S.U. existed in germ in that wonderful little shop. Even the fresh air movement had its counterpart, for the scholars took turns at sitting on the step and form outside. The clothing department was represented by the garments Pounds loaned to the children to enable them to attend Sunday School. The cripple depart­ment was foreshadowed by that curious contrivance of leather he made for his crippled nephew … he taught his girl scholars to cook simple food so that the ragged school cookery class had its origin in the shoemaker’s shanty. To the lads he taught his own trade and this would represent industrialisation, while the reading and writing and arithmetic in which they were thor­oughly grounded stood for education. Being doctor and nurse to his young charges, he may be said to have had a medical de­partment as well. As a maker of bats, shuttlecocks and cross­bows for the youngest, he exhibited an interest in recreation. Even the Robin Dinner was anticipated by the good old man in the plum pudding feast he held for the children every Christmas Day.” (26. C.J .Montague, Sixty Years in Waifdom. 1904, p.41).

This is simply ludicrous adulation by an uncritical disciple. To see, in spontaneous acts of love and the convenience of necessity, a miniature of the whole educational and social service system of the Ragged School Unions is a historical extravagance which goes beyond the facts in two ways. Firstly, it ignores the evidence of the minutes of the Ragged School Move­ment Management and General Committees. These show clearly reasons for establishing the various social agencies. In all of the argument and discussion Pounds and his work are never mentioned. This is odd because these minutes explore minutely the theories concerning the relief of the des­titute and examine closely the Unions’ motives for their actions. Secondly, it takes no account of the Annual Reports and Management Committee Minutes available for individual schools in Great Britain.

The early reports are particularly valuable because they frequently point to the model on which the school is to be based. Montague says: ’When the workers sought for the nearest corresponding agency in the history of the past to that which they were forming, they found the type in the work of John Pounds.‘ (27. C. J. Montague, op. cit.. p.36). In fact, these reports make no reference to Pounds in this respect. The early schools looked to the example of Scotland, particularly to the insti­tutions set up by Sheriff Watson in Aberdeen or, less frequently, to those founded by Dr. Guthrie in Edinburgh. The later ones usually referred to the system worked by the London ragged schools and occasionally to the me­thods of the Manchester or Liverpool Ragged School Unions.

It is not difficult to see why this should have been so. Even if Pounds deserved ’the tallest monument ever raised on British shores’ (28. D. K. Guthrie and C. J. Guthrie, op. cit.. p.439), there was nothing in his practice which could help the managers of a ragged school. They were faced with the problem of making some educational pro­vision for and giving some material relief to a large group of destitute and wild children. Pounds’ individual solutions could not be extrapola­ted to these new situations.

Yet advocates of the ragged school, particularly the journalists, in­sisted on systematising the individual kindnesses of Pounds and institu­tionalised his informal generosity. They saw, in ordinary neighbourly acts, evangelical fervour in action. The real achievement of Pounds is difficult to assess. The evidence points to a kindly, old eccentric whose posthumous fame was completely accidental and largely ill-founded. That five hundred were educated by Pounds is difficult to believe.

There was no register of attendance and the number is obviously an estimate. The impression given by the Ragged School Movement is that these children were sufficiently educated to enable them to take up positions as responsible members of society. Yet the history of these schools shows the enormous problems created by absences. Reports issued annually continually com­plained that children were not able to attend frequently enough to gain from the teaching. Nor were they able to remain long before being put to work by their parents or friends, or before they simply ran away.

It is beyond belief that Pounds was not troubled by the same problems and that, while continuing his work and attending to his customers, was able to educate the children to the standards claimed. Some of the ragged schools themselves, with better finance, more materials, full-time personnel and a higher teacher/child ratio, found the problem difficult enough. In all the recorded instances of visitors listening to Pounds’ children reading or testing their mental arithmetic, it is significant that he always picked out the children to be heard. It is understandable that sympathisers should have generalised from his specific and perhaps limited successes.

The John Pounds myth was a stimulus to the charity and social concern of the middle and upper classes. The lonely, old cobbler who took chil­dren into his shop and talked to them was not the founder of the ragged school movement. His was an isolated and individual venture which occurred at an opportune time and yet which bore no real relation to the subsequent schools. Even the free institutions at Portsea, erected as direct Memorials to him and ’designed to carry forward gratuitously the same good work’ (29. H. Hawkes, op. cit.. p.274), operated on entirely different principles from his own (30. The plans of this school show it to be a very substantial, spacious and well-conceived building. It comprised ten classrooms, separate play­ing area for the boys and girls, a gallery, as well as floor with three bedrooms, parlour, kitchen and scullery for the use of the master).

He had no programme of constructive reform and no opportunity of catching the ear of any­one more important than the minister of his chapel. He was hardly the exemplar of the movement. His achievements are uncertain, his theory neg­ligible, and his practice was probably worse than the prevailing pedagogy of the time. What attracted those working for the establishment of ragged schools to him was his compassion for the poorest, most neglected and desti­tute children, and not particulars of his activity or work. These played no significant part in the founding and development of the schools.

It seems likely that his compassion was rooted in his Christian reli­gion. The Ragged School Movement overplayed this and read back into Pounds’ life their own efforts to give to the commercial classes an ethic of service and duty. It hardly noticed that the foundation of his curriculum was not Scriptural Instruction, and it always conveniently glossed over the fact that he was a Unitarian. It is likely that Pounds’ own religious be­liefs were very simple and there is no evidence to show that he thought very deeply or very often about them. His biographer, a clergyman, has very little to say on the subject, which is surprising in view of the evangelical foundation on which the Movement stood.

Although the accolade of history has fallen upon John Pounds, to some extent this was fortuitous. The love of the ghetto populace for the old man who looked after their children; who brought them soup in the dreadful winter of 1837-8; who made crutches for them when they broke their legs; who made splints for injured birds and who talked to his cats, was the love of a group for a generous and well-meaning eccentric.

Some local publi­city taken up at national level, popularisation by Lord Ashley, misinforma­tion by Dr. Guthrie, and an inaccurate painting by Sheaf gave rise to ex­travagant claims for him. Yet, in association with the Sunday school movement or the evangelical revival, efforts similar to Pounds’ have been recorded in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Somerset and Buckinghamshire. Credit for prompting the ragged schools could go to Jimmy o’ the Heys, the old bobbin winder who taught children gratuitously while still pursuing his trade at Little Lever in Lancashire, with as much justification as to John Pounds (31. J. H.Turner, Idle Upper Chapel Sunday School. 1907, p.35).

Listed Bibliography:

1. H.Hawkes, The Recollections of John Pounds. 1884, p.295.

2. E.G. York Herald, 4 May, 1850. ’The origin of this movement commenced with one very humble in life (John Pounds).’ Report of a speech made by the Rev. Canon Trevor.

3. J.H.Brown, Schools in England. 1961, p.53 W.M.Eager, Making Man. 1953, p.120 R.Bennett, The Shaftesbury Story. 1965, p.6. F.Smith, A History of English Elementary Education, 1706-1902. 1931, pp.201-203.

4. J.Scotland, The History of Scottish Education. Vol.l, 1965, p.273

5. E.A.G.Clark, ’The Ragged School Union and the Education of the London Poor in the Nineteenth Century’, University of London, M.A.(Ed.),1967.

6. Later accounts of the work of J.Pounds either select from or condense H.Hawkes, op.cit. E.g. R.E.Jayne, The Story of John Pounds. 1925; C. J. Montague, Sixty Years in Waifdom. 1904.

7. York Ragged School Annual Report. 1850, p.33.

8. F.D.Maurice, Letters to Ladles on Practical Subjects. 1855, p.60.

9. H.Hawkes, op.cit.. p.130.

10. H.Hawkes, op.cit.. p.39.

11. Ibid., p.130.

12. Ibid., p.140.

13. H.Hawkes, op.cit.. p.119.

14. Ibid., p.20.

15. Ibid., p.140.

16. Ibid., p.137.

17. H.Hawkes, op.cit.. p.67.

18. Ibid., where he is described thus: ’His face, neck, chest, arms and hands; all were black as if seldom washed. There was a repulsive coarseness about his features. His voice was harsh and loud as he spoke to the children. What he said, and his manner of saying it, all would have given us the impression of coarse vulgarity.’ p.13. And ’. . . his body from the hips to the shoulders leaned so much forward that his long back was nearly parallel with the ground. One hip bulged largely out.’ p.44.

19. H.Hawkes, op.cit., p.172.

20. D.K.Guthrie and C.J.Cuthrie, Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D.D.,and Memoir. 1877, pp.438-439.

21. H.Hawkes, op.cit.. p.128.

22. Ibid., p.129.

23. D.K.Guthrie and G.J.Guthrie, op.cit.. p.439.

24. J.Manning, Dickens on Education. 1959, p.80, note 31. Manning ob­serves that ‘Dickens was in Petersham and London in 1839 and, because of his interest in ragged children, would have been attracted by the account of Pounds’ work on their behalf’.

25. D.K.Guthrie and C.J.Guthrie, op.cit., p.439.

26. C.J .Montague, Sixty Years in Waifdom. 1904, p.41.

27. C.J.Montague, op.cit.. p.36.

28. D.K.Guthrie and C.J.Guthrie, op.cit.. p.439.

29. H.Hawkes, op.cit.. p.274.

30. The plans of this school show it to be a very substantial, spacious and well-conceived building. It comprised ten classrooms, separate play­ing area for the boys and girls, a gallery, as well as floor with three bedrooms, parlour, kitchen and scullery for the use of the master.

31. J. H.Turner, Idle Upper Chapel Sunday School. 1907, p.35.

This is the work of D.H. Webster who wrote a thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Leicester, 1973. It remains an important historical document and analysis of the Ragged School and free education movement in Britain. It will be reproduced and published verbatim in installments for educational purposes to facilitate review and discussion about education. This post is the first part of section one of the thesis where the references have been reproduced inline within the text.

You can see the thesis overview and contents here:

The Ragged School Movement and the Education of the Poor in the Nineteenth Century