Educating Deptford: the Deptford Ragged School and its Place in the Community.

The Deptford Ragged School Archive is currently advertising vacancies for its National Lottery Heritage Fund project, ‘Educating Deptford: the Deptford Ragged School and its Place in the Community’.

• Research Coordinator.
• Archive Consultant.
• Community Researchers (nine positions available).
• Project Administrator.

Job descriptions and application details at https://www.thebear.tv/#/job-vacancies-at-the-bear

The Deptford Ragged School Archive is a heritage outreach project with a collection of objects which tell the history of the Deptford Ragged School and the part it played in the community of Deptford since 1844. 

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.

In 1851 the school expanded to teach adults as well as children. In 1855 it got its first building after a running from a few different locations. From it’s beginnings in a loft over the cowshed to a stable and another over a skittle alley, the Deptford Ragged School finally settled in a disused chapel on Giffin Street. By 1862 attendance averaged 160 at the day school, 64 at the night school and 140 each Sunday.  

In 1886 the ‘New’ Deptford Ragged School was opened on Giffin Street, and the then Earl of Shaftesbury wrote “there is no institution in England more worthy of support than the Deptford Ragged School”.   

By 1914 H.R.H. Princess Louise had become a patron and, as part of the opening of a building on Hales Street, The Deptford Ragged School was renamed ‘The Princess Louise Institute’.  Following her death in 1939 Princess Louise bequeathed £1000 towards another building:  the ‘new hall’ which was to be built next door, facing Frankham Street. This hall was completed in 1953 and is still in use today.

The Hales Street building was sold to developers in 2004 but the ‘new hall’ is still occupied by The Deptford Ragged Trust and home to The Bear Church whose aim is to see it kept and used for the people of Deptford.