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Cornell University Library 
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 Robert Raikes. The man and his work. Bio 
 
 Clin 
 
 3 1924 029 337 700 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029337700 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
/'^-^^ 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 tlbe flDan anb Ibis Wlorf?. 
 
 Biographical Notes collected by JOSIAH HARRIS. 
 
 Unpublislied Letters by Robert Raikes. 
 
 Letters from the Raikes Family. 
 
 OPINIOJSS ON INFLUENCE OF SUNDA Y SCHOOLS. 
 
 (SPECIALLY CONTRIBUTED.) 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 J. HENRY HARRIS. 
 
 Introduction by DEAN FARRAR, D.b. 
 
 IFUustrateO EOitfon. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 BRISTOL, ENGLAND, J. W. Arrowsmith 
 
 1899 
 
 ■2(^1 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY DEAN FARRAR, D.D xiii 
 
 THE EDITOR S NOTE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHY THESE MATERIALS WERE GATHERED 
 
 Some Early Influences of Sunday Schools — The Author's 
 Visits to Gloucester in 1S62-3 — Robert Raikes's Sunday 
 School — Interviews with Teachers — The Rev. Thomas Stock's 
 Sunday School : Its Condition — State of Public Opinion in 
 Gloucester on the Raikes Traditions — Effect on Author. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HUMAN DOCUMENTS I3 
 
 The Line of Inquiry — Rival Claims — Statements of Aged 
 Persons: Arabella Herbert, John Oakley Packer, Sarah 
 Packer, Caroline Watkins, Charles Cox, Priscilla Kirby, 
 
 Eycott, and Anne Hannam — Some Results of Evidence 
 
 of First Scholars and Teachers in Sunday Schools. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHOM NO MAN CARED I'OR ...... 36 
 
 Why Raikes Interfered — Some First Scholars— Punish- 
 ments in Sunday Schools — Statements by William Brick, 
 Cooksey, Samuel Pitt and Bourne, Respecting Con- 
 dition and Behaviour of Children at School and in Church — 
 Some "Terrible Bad" Boys — Language of the Children of 
 the Lower Orders in Raikes's Day, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Page 
 
 AS SEEN OF MEN ........ 48 
 
 Robert Raikes Described — His Business and Places of 
 Residence — Opinions Respecting Him by Paul Hawkins 
 Fisher, of Stroud, and John ]. Powell, Q.C., M.P. for 
 Gloucester — Raikes a Vain and Benevolent Man, but not 
 Actuated by Religious Motives — Further Investigation 
 Necessary. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AT WORK 
 
 57 
 
 Raikes's Experiment Commenced 1780 — Some Social 
 Conditions amongst Working Population — Experiment 
 Successful — Allegations that Raikes "Borrowed" his Idea — 
 Some Influences of Newspaper Press — Co-operation of Rev. 
 Thomas Stock and Rev. Richard Raikes — Raikes's First 
 Announcement in Gloucester Journal, November 3rd, 1783 — 
 Advocacy of the Gentleman's Magazine — The True Founder of 
 Modern Sunday Schools — First Rules — The Sunday Scholar's 
 Companion — Necessary Admonitions against Cursing — Mrs. 
 Trimmer's Experiences. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NEW LIFE ........ 71 
 
 Raikes in Advance of his Time — The Slow Evolution 
 of his Ideas — Studies from the Gloucester Journal — His Letter 
 in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1785 — Testimonies in Favour of 
 the "Scheme" from Various Quarters — Raikes's Letters to 
 Rev. William Lewelyn, Leominster : Anecdotes and Expe- 
 riences—A Sunday School Lesson with the Magnet — He 
 Complains that he is Allowed to "Walk Alone" — Signs of 
 the New Life. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OPPOSING FORCES ........ 86 
 
 First Sunday School Board of Management — Sunday 
 Schools Conceived as " Charity " Schools and Conducted 
 as such — Sermons Preached, Large Sums Collected, and 
 Donations Given for their Support — Reaction Against Sunday 
 Schools— Hannah More's Experiences — What People Said 
 Against Educating Lower Orders — Philippic in Gentleman's 
 Magazine Against Sunday Schools and their Founder — The 
 
 Bishop of Rochester Defends Himself — Anecdote by Raikes 
 
 His Love for the Ps.ilms of David — Opposition in Scotland 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Burns's Sermon, 1798 : Fears Sunday 
 Schools will Destroy all Family Religion. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Page 
 WHERE RAIKES WAS TAUGHT ..... gg 
 
 The Institution not an Inspiration — Rail<es Twenty-five 
 Years at Work on Social and Prison Reforms before Com- 
 mencing Sunday Schools in 1780 — His One Object to 
 Prevent Criminals Being Made — Learnt His Lesson First 
 from His Own Father — Robert Raikes the Elder — Prison 
 Reforms : Extracts from Gloucestev Joiiynitl — Raikes Fore- 
 stalled Howard, but Worked with Him — Mastiffs Kept to 
 Hunt Down Escaped Prisoners — Special Letters from Con- 
 victs to Botany Bay — Pages from a Closed History of 
 England — Raikes a Student in Moral Pathology and a 
 Practical Worker. 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 MR. RAIKES THE SABBATH-BREAKER . . . • I-^B 
 
 Prejudices Against Raikes in Gloucester — Printed the 
 Journal on Sundays — The Whole Question Stated — Evidence 
 of William Whitehead and James Whitehead, two Office 
 Boys— Public Opinion with Reference to Sunday Work and 
 Trading, End of Last Century— Note by Dr. Charles Cooke. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FIFTY YEARS IN THE VINEYARD . . . . .125 
 
 Some Results of Mr. Raikes's Labours — Grand Moral 
 and Social Reforms in Ten Years— Mr. Raikes's Own 
 View of Himself — His Interview with Queen Charlotte at 
 Windsor— Two of his Daughters Sunday School Teachers — 
 The Duke of Gloucester Visits Him— The Empress Catherine 
 Invites Him to Russia — Elected Honorary Member of Sunday 
 School Society— Copy of Minute, June nth, 1787— Raikes 
 a Temperance. Advocate ; He Anticipates Hoyle — Gloucester 
 Journal an Advanced Temperance Paper from 1757 — Sunday 
 Schools Unsectarian and Voluntary — Work of Sunday School 
 Society in Ten Years— Raikes Lived to See Success of 
 Sunday School System. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SOME PIONEERS 
 
 The Rev. John Marks Moffatt, Nailsworth, Established 
 Sunday School about 1772— Biographical Notice— Miss 
 
 138 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Moffatt's Statement to the Author in 1863— Mr. Raikes's 
 Letter to Mr. Moifatt in 1784 — Mrs. Bradburn, nee Sophia 
 Cooke — Samuel Webb — Wilham King, of Dursley — Adam 
 Crompton, Little Lever — Catechising in Churches — Duty of 
 Clergy Laid Down in Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, 
 1603 — Cardinal Borromeo's Schools — Differences Between 
 Raikes and All Who Preceded Him. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 THE PLACE OF MR. STOCK ...... 161 
 
 His Claims to be Placed Before, or Bracketed with, 
 Robert Raikes Considered — His History and Qualifications 
 in 1780 — Differences Between Raikes and Stock — Biographical 
 
 Notes. 
 
 CHAPTER XHL 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN GREAT BRITAIN .... 170 
 
 Article Specially Contributed on Wales by Rev. David 
 Charles — Sunday Schools in Scotland, Ireland, and the 
 Channel Islands — Victor Hugo's Weekly Festival of Poor 
 Little Children. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MR. RAIKES AT HOME . 
 
 The Domestic Instinct Strong — His Love of Family His 
 
 Will— The House in Bell Lane— Domestic Appointments 
 
 Statements by Servants, James Whitehead, William White- 
 head, and William Redding, as to his Character and Habits 
 — His Daughters' Marriages— Elected, with Dr. Jenner, Vice- 
 President of Gloucestershire Society — His Religious Views 
 
 Given in his Own Letters, from 1790 to 1794 His Politics 
 
 Fined £50 for Inserting an Advertisement : Story Told bv 
 Himself. ^ ' 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MRS. WELLER-LADBROKE's LETTERS .... 
 
 The Youngest and Last Surviving Daughter of Robert 
 Raikes Tells the Story of her Father's Life. — Her Apprecia- 
 tion of his Character: His Habits and Studies — His Sudden 
 Death — The Rev. Mr. Read's Appreciation of Mrs. 
 Ladbroke. 
 
 185 
 
 203 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Page 
 THE MOVEMENT WEIGHED ...... 215 
 
 The Growth of Sunday Schools in England and Wales — 
 Present Number of Schools, Teachers and Scholars in Great 
 Britain and A.merica— Letters from Elihu Burritt, Richard 
 Cobden, M.P.,Dr, H. Clay Trumbull, and Bishop Vincent on 
 American Sunday Schools — Letters from Rev. Morley 
 Punshon, the Right Hon. Sir John Packington, M.P., Rev. 
 C. H. Spurgeon, Dr. John Cumming, and the Rev. Hugh 
 Price Hughes on Raikes and Sunday Schools— The Opinions 
 of Anglican Prelates on Some Influences of Sunday Schools, 
 including : Dr. Tait (Archbishop of Canterbury), the Bishops 
 of London, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Chester, Carlisle, Ripon, 
 Down, Meath, Tuam, Quebec, and Adelaide, all written in 
 1870. Dr. Barry, formerly Primate of Australia, and Dr. 
 EUicott, Bishop of Gloucester, written in 1898. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE RAIKES FAMILY ....... 24O 
 
 Yorkshire Roots. History of the Family from 1507 — 
 The Gloucester Branch — Robert Raikes the Elder — Three 
 Times Married — His Business Career — Robert Raikes the 
 Younger — His Birth and Education — Correspondence with 
 University OiHcials — His Trade and " Composing Stick " — 
 The Gloucester Journal under His Editorship — His Marriage 
 — Removal from Blackfriars to Southgate Street — His 
 Family — Received Honorary Freedom of City of Gloucester, 
 1804 — His Sudden Death and Funeral — Mrs. Raikes : 
 Some Personal Recollections of Her — Early Popular Street 
 Ballad on Raikes — Rev. Richard Raikes, Scholar and 
 Christian. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 iAST WORDS 286 
 
 True Birth of Modern Sunday Schools, 1783 — Raikes's 
 Methods Slowly Matured — Their Universal Application— 
 "Very First" Sunday Schools Numerous in Gloucester — 
 Absence of Reliable Testimony — Many Legends — Mrs. 
 Critchley and Mrs. King's Schools— Illustrious Visitors to 
 Raikes's Own School, Gray Fryars— Decadence of Raikes's 
 and Stock's Historical Sunday Schools — Improved Con- 
 dition of Things in 1898 — Unsympathetic Gloucester — 
 Weakness of the Raikes Tradition since Centenary — 
 Removal of Robert Raikes's Mural Tablet in St. Mary 
 de Crypt Church — Pilgrims to the Raikes Tomb Deceived — 
 Mr. Taylor's Opinion of a Simonical Transaction — The 
 Raikes Memorial Hall and Tower— Reliability of Testimony 
 of Aged Witnesses— The Editor's Sole Aim : to Make this 
 History as Truthful and Profitable as Possible. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Pags 
 
 A. RAIKES'S OWN STORY TOLD IN THE PRESS . . 3O3 
 
 B. SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN FRANCE 327 
 
 C. THE "SUNDAY SCHOLAR'S COMPANION" . . . 329 
 
 D. BREACHES OF PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT . . 33I 
 
 E. A ROYAL ANECDOTE . 333 
 
 F. SIR THOMAS B. THOMPSON ..... 334 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 MR. WILLIAM KING 
 
 Page 
 19 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES'S PORTRAIT . . . Froiitisfuce 
 MRS. SARAH PACKER 
 
 MR. CHARLES COX . 24 
 
 MISS PRISCILLA KIRBY . . 26 
 
 149 
 
 THE REV. THOMAS STOCK ... 161 
 
 MRS. SUSAN PERROT . i8i 
 
 FACSIMILE OF ROBERT RAIKES'S MARRIAGE 
 
 CERTIFICATE 267 
 
 THE REV. RICHARD RAIKES 280 
 
 JAMES KING'S HOUSE . 289 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES'S "OWN" SUNDAY SCHOOL 292 
 
 MEMORIAL TOWER TABLET 298 
 
 FACSIMILE OF LETTER WRITTEN BY MR. RAIKES 
 
 IN 1784. (Bound np in ths Volume.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I HAVE been asked to say a few words by way of 
 Preface to these new inquiries respecting the life 
 and work of Robert Raikes, who is regarded, and 
 justly regarded, as the main founder of the system of 
 Sunday schools. Some very interesting records and 
 reminiscences of his work will be found in the 
 following pages ; and the life of a man who was so 
 kind, so good, and so richly blessed by the fruitfulness 
 of his endeavours on behalf of his fellow-men cannot 
 but contain valuable lessons. 
 
 The son of a Gloucester printer, and editor of the 
 Gloucester paper, Robert Raikes inherited the position 
 and trade of his father. The station which he occupied 
 was, therefore, a comparatively obscure and humble 
 one. But he had, nevertheless, been " anointed by the 
 hands of invisible consecration" to achieve a great 
 and blessed result, of which the effects have been 
 fruitful throughout the whole world. Many might say, 
 with the St. Paul of the modern poet : — 
 
 "This is God's will: He takes, and He refuses, 
 Finds Him ambassadors whom men deny. 
 Wise ones nor mighty for this work He chooses ? 
 No; such as John, or Gideon, or I." 
 
 13 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is remarkable in how many instances those who 
 have profoundly influenced the whole Church of God 
 have been men who would otherwise have been utterly 
 unnoticed in the world's annals. They listened to the 
 Divine Voice which summoned them to a service of 
 which they could neither estimate the importance nor 
 measure the result. That voice of summons perhaps 
 comes to thousands, and remains unheeded. Is not 
 the biography of a simple citizen like Robert Raikes, 
 and the fact that his life's work has produced an 
 effect throughout the whole Christian world, at once 
 an incentive to every . one of us to neglect no duty 
 to which we are called, and an encouragement also 
 to believe that the simplest seedcorn of duty thus 
 cast into the furrows of the world, may spring up 
 in harvests of blessing more immense than we could 
 have conceived to be possible ? Just as one bad man 
 may do incalculable mischief, so one good man may 
 profoundly influence a whole generation — if not in his 
 single person, yet by the combination of his work with 
 that of others like-minded with himself. 
 
 " The healing of the world 
 Is in God's nameless saints. A single star 
 May seem to give faint light ; but countless stars 
 Break up the night, and make it beautiful." 
 
 Any who work in Christ's vineyard for Christ's sake 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 may be influenced by numberless examples to work 
 with the certainty that their efforts can never be in 
 vain. 
 
 Let me give one or two instances, analagous to that 
 furnished by the success of Robert Raikes, of the 
 vast extension given, by God's blessing, to small and, 
 apparently, humble efforts. 
 
 Take for instance the abolition of the slave trade. 
 
 The conscience of Christian England was amazingly 
 dead to the enormous iniquity of buying or stealing 
 men from their native country, and transporting 
 them, often under circumstances of revolting cruelty, 
 to toil as unpaid slaves in distant climates. The 
 stirrings of doubt in men's minds upon this subject 
 were stilled by various plausible sophistries of self- 
 interest; and, most of all, because it is the tendency 
 of custom to lie upon us 
 
 " With a weight 
 Heavy as frost, and deep almost as Life." 
 
 Familiarity with wrong deadens and paralyses the 
 activities of conscience. In the year 1785, a young 
 man, named Thomas Clarkson, had gained the 
 Members' Prize for a Latin essay in the University 
 of Cambridge. The subject of the essay had been 
 " Is involuntary servitude justifiable ? " The question 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was then regarded as an open one, so that either 
 side mjght be advocated by the competitors. 
 Clarkson, in his prize essay, had argued that the 
 slave trade was morally unlawful. He recited his 
 essay in the Senate house, and as he rode back 
 to London his mind was agitated by the question : 
 " If the slave trade be an iniquity, is it not my 
 duty to fight against it ? " Many would have been 
 tempted to dismiss the thought as a chimsera. Thej' 
 might have contented themselves with the answer : 
 " Here is a whole nation involved in the sanction of 
 this trade, and of what possible use can it be for 
 an unknown youth of the middle classes, like myself, 
 to combat it ? " But Clarkson was not content with 
 this, and at last got off his horse near a little 
 country inn, and sat down by the roadside to argue 
 out the question with himself and his own con- 
 science until the end. When he rose from his seat 
 he had decided that, since he had a small independent 
 fortune and was not called upon to follow a profession, 
 it was his distinct duty to obey the call of God, 
 and to devote the efforts of his life to put an end 
 to this national iniquity. He did so; others joined 
 him, especially Granville Sharpe, William Wilberforce, 
 and Zachary Macaulay. Before their lives were over 
 they had the high blessing of knowing that they 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 had extended a nation's mercy to the most miserable 
 and helpless of mankind, and had been enabled to save 
 England from " the guilt of using the arm of freedom 
 to rivet the fetters of the slave." Upon the spot where 
 he alighted from his horse and sat down to think, 
 has been erected a deeply interesting little monument 
 commemorative of the event. 
 
 Or, take the case of John Howard. He was 
 a private gentleman of quite humble rank, and a 
 dissenter. " God's unseen Providence, by men nick- 
 named ' Chance,' " had brought him into a position 
 which forced upon his notice the intolerable cruelty 
 of the system maintained in our gaols. His sympathies 
 were aroused. "The sorrowful sighing of the prisoners "^ 
 which was ever entering into the ears of the Lord God 
 of Sabaoth, stirred his inmost compassion. He did not 
 say, " I am a mere nobody, and can do no good in this 
 national matter." He simply devoted himself to the 
 work of amelioration, leaving the results in the hand 
 of God. What was the result ? The foul prisons, not 
 only of England but of all Europe, were purified. 
 The tears of the rescued, which fell on his outstretched 
 hand, were to him as jewels which were worth an 
 Empire's ransom. And it was said of him at last :- 
 " For departed kings there are appointed honours, and 
 the wealthy have their gorgeous obsequies. It was 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his nobler destiny to clothe a nation in spontaneous 
 qiourning, and to go down to the grave amid the 
 benedictions of the poor." 
 
 I will take but one more instance : Antony Ashley- 
 Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, might, had he so chosen, 
 have spent his life in ease, luxury, and amusement, as 
 thousands of other young noblemen have done. But 
 while he was yet a boy at Harrow, he was witness of the 
 brutal levity with which two drunken peasants were 
 conducting a pauper's funeral; and then and there he 
 vowed his life to the amelioration of the lot of the poor. 
 Ere he died he had become the strongest living link of 
 sympathy and unity betv/een the rich and the destitute. 
 Thousands of factory children, thousands of poor little 
 "climbing boys," myriads of the neglected waifs and 
 -strays who thronged the ragged schools, the coster- 
 mongers, the lunatics, and almost every class of the 
 " sons and daughters of misery, and the multitude ready 
 •to perish," had reason to bless and perpetuate his name. 
 His statue stands at the western door of Westminster 
 Abbey, in marble not whiter than was his humane and 
 noble life, and the two monosyllables carved upon the 
 pediment — love, serve — are a national lesson to which 
 his example may help to give an eternal validity. 
 
 Such, too, was the characteristic of the life-work of 
 Robert Raikes. He saw the little, dirty, neglected 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 children — with the pitiable " slum-born " look written 
 on their faces — singing lewd or brutal songs, and rioting 
 in vice and ignorance, on Sundays, in the streets of the 
 Cathedral City. Was he to be content with the faithless 
 acquiescent plea that " What is everybody's duty is 
 nobody's duty?" On the contrary, he asked himself, 
 "Can nothing be done?" A voice within him said, 
 *' Try." " I did try," he says, " and see what God has 
 wrought ! " An experiment which now looks so simple 
 and so humble as that of trying to lure these ragged 
 children of wretchedness to the Cathedral service, and 
 paying some poor women a shilling a day to teach 
 them, resulted not only in a marked improvement in 
 morals among the children of Gloucester, and a general 
 amendment of the condition of the city, but in the 
 gradual imitation of his example in thousands of other 
 places, and in the founding of Sunday schools throughout 
 this and many other countries. 
 
 It is no exaggeration at all to say that, through the 
 organisation commenced by this simple citizen of 
 Gloucester, hundreds of thousands of Christ's little ones 
 have been reached, and have been influenced for their 
 temporal and eternal good. One of the most brilliant 
 of our judges — the late Mr. Justice Denman — once said 
 to me that his experiences as a Sunday school teacher 
 had been richer to him in interesting events and 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reminiscences than even his experiences as a Judge^ 
 And it is a remarkable fact that four, at least, of those 
 eminent lawyers who have held the lofty position of 
 Lord Chancellor — Lord Hatherley, Lord Cairns, Lord 
 Selborne, and Lord Herschell — have been Sunday school 
 teachers. Lord Hatherley continued his faithful labours 
 in Sunday schools for forty years of his life. Such a. 
 work is indeed approved of God ! 
 
 " What, though around His throne of fire 
 The everlasting chant 
 Be wafted by the Seraph Choir, 
 In glory jubilant ? 
 
 " Yet is He near us to survey 
 
 These bright and ordered files, 
 Like spring flowers in their best array, 
 All silence and all smiles. 
 
 " Save that each little voice in turn 
 Some glorious truth proclaims ; 
 What Sages would have died to learn 
 Now taught by cottage dames." 
 
 F. W. Farrar. 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 THE late Josiah Harris paid visits to the city of 
 Gloucester and made " Notes " with the intention 
 of writing a Biography of Robert Raikes, " The Man of 
 Gloucester," as he was often called during and after the 
 Jubilee Year of 1831. These visits were made in 
 1862-3, *nd there were then obtainable some fugitive 
 magazine articles, and small volumes on Robert Raikes 
 and the origin of Sunday schools. Inquiry led him to 
 the conclusion that there existed in various forms a great 
 deal of apparently unknown, certainly unworked, deposits 
 of the richest character for biographical purposes. 
 
 The subject grew upon him, and his design broadened 
 until his aim was to write the History of Sunday 
 schools in all the counties of Great Britain and Ireland, 
 and throughout the whole of the civilised world. This 
 labour of love my father was unable to accomplish. He 
 never lost sight of his object, but died in 1880 leaving 
 behind him an immense quantity of notes, documents, 
 and correspondence. It is only quite recently that I 
 have had the leisure to give the whole mass careful 
 examination. 
 
 After putting on one side all that might be considered 
 as common knowledge about Robert Raikes and the first 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 Sunday schools in Gloucester, I found that there remained 
 a precious residuum — all the more precious now because 
 of the utter impossibility of re-collecting the narratives 
 and opinions of persons long since silent. 
 
 It remained with me to determine whether I would 
 destroy the notes and documents and letters, contributed 
 often with love and in confidence of their being in some 
 form published ; or, whether I would produce a small 
 volume by omitting the proposed History of Sunday 
 schools throughout the world. I decided on the latter 
 course, and it only remains to say that my work has been 
 mainly editorial. I accept the responsibility for the form 
 of the narrative, and only ask it to be believed that I have 
 tried to present Robert Raikes, the Thinker and 
 Worker, as he appeared in life to men. 
 
 After so long an interval I dare not use the language 
 of compliment and thanks to the hundreds of ministers, 
 Sunday school superintendents, chaplains of prisons and 
 others, who contributed by letter or by word of mouth 
 towards the completion of the volume as originally 
 designed. Many, too many, I now know have passed 
 away with the Author; but in all cases I have been careful 
 to quote the authority for statements of fact ; and, when 
 possible and desirable, have given sufficient means for 
 identification, so that survivors may be assured that no 
 attempt has been made to deprive them of the best 
 acknowledgment in my power for service rendered. 
 
 One exception, however, I may make ; namely, in 
 mentioning collectively the members of the Raikes family. 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE. xxiii 
 
 to whom my late father was under the most precious of 
 all obligations in matters of this kind — a friendly desire 
 to help, and a generous toleration for delayed performance. 
 
 The volume, as it stands, is composed almost entirely 
 of original documents, or documents derived from original 
 sources. What has already appeared, when quoted at 
 length, will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 The portrait of Robert Raikes is from an oil painting 
 which in 1862 was in the possession of Mr. Warner, 
 Gloucester, and is now in the possession of Mrs. 
 Holloway, the Hill, Stroud ; that of his brother, the Rev.. 
 Richard Raikes, is from a drawing by Charbonnier, 
 now very rare; and the miniature likeness of the Rev. 
 Thomas Stock is from the original, copied by Mr. John 
 Jennings, Gloucester. The portraits of the old scholars 
 and teachers were taken by photography in 1863 — the 
 youngest then being 75, and the oldest 87, I am able to 
 give a tracing of Mr. Raikes's marriage certificate in 1767, 
 and the facsimile of a letter written by him in 1784 to 
 a gentleman who had anticipated him in establishing 
 Sunday schools by about eight years. 
 
 In all about sixty autograph letters were placed at the 
 Author's disposal. Some were on business matters, 
 relating to the proof sheets of books passing through the 
 press, to accounts, &c. ; but some of them referred to 
 Sunday schools, to his own position in regard to them, 
 and his opinions respecting people and things social, 
 religious, and political. Extracts from these letters will 
 be found in various parts of the volume. 
 
xxiv EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 The Editor recently paid a visit to the city of 
 Gloucester, and had placed at his disposal a most valuable 
 collection of documents, &c., relating to Robert Raikes, 
 the Rev. Thomas Stock, and some Gloucesterhire 
 Worthies, whose names can never be dissociated from 
 the origines of Sunday schools. The collection of Mr. H. 
 Y. J. Taylor, although more modern than that of the 
 Author's, has been of much value to the Editor for 
 supplemental and illustrative purposes ; and sometimes 
 it threw quite new light upon the older documents, 
 obtained in many instances over thirty years previously. 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHY THESE MATERIALS WERE GATHERED. 
 
 " Before 1 close this letter, I must assure you how thoroughly I 
 appreciate your indefatigable efforts to make the history of my dearest 
 father's life as truthful and profitable as possible." — Mrs. Ladbroke 
 to the Author. 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES was born in the Cathedral City 
 of Gloucester, in 1736. In 1780 he collected a 
 few poor children and gave them instruction on Sundays. 
 He died in 1811. His name, already on the lips and in 
 the hearts of men, spread throughout the world. 
 
 More than eighty years after the germ of Sunday 
 schools was planted and nursed into active life, Josiah 
 Harris, who had been a Sunday school boy and then 
 teacher in an antiquated but obscure fishing village on 
 the south coast of Cornwall, visited the ancient and 
 prosperous city of Gloucester. In his early youth he 
 had sailed to Gloucester in one of his father's small 
 coasting ships, and he had then fresh in his mind the 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 part which he had taken in the Sunday school Jubilee, 
 when the whole religious atmosphere in which he was 
 born was charged with the magic of a name — the name 
 of Robert Raikes. 
 
 The people of Cornwall in those days were very 
 primitive, and susceptible to lasting religious influences. 
 In 1831 the masses thrilled at the mere recollection of 
 the Wesleys. A spiritual magnetism vibrated within, 
 and there was for them a perpetual feast of love in the 
 bare rooms and barns and whitewashed chapels. They 
 were "believers" in its primitive a,nd apostolic sense, and 
 often fancied that Jesus was in very truth amongst them, 
 and listened to them, and adopted them as " heirs to the 
 inheritance " in the skies. But for this belief in a 
 spiritual inheritance these people were very poor. 
 
 When Josiah Harris went to Sunday school, he had for 
 teachers men in whom the Spirit of God seemed to dwell 
 bodily. They were poor men, richly endowed with the 
 faculty of drawing the young to them in the bonds of 
 love; and as Robert Raikes and John Wesley were to 
 them as two wings of the Seraph at the Throne of the 
 Eternal, they imprinted on the souls of the young 
 reverence for these men akin to worship. 
 
 In 1862 Mr. Harris contemplated his second visit to 
 the city of Gloucester, with something of the spirit of a 
 pilgrim visitiiig a holy shrine. For him it was " holy " in 
 the sense in which a man who has suifered much may 
 make holy a recollection, a place, a name associated with 
 the happiest years of his youth. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 3 
 
 A pardonable exaltation possessed him, so that he 
 carried with him ideal notions of what he would hear and 
 see in Gloucester, the birthplace and cradle of Sunday 
 schools. Perhaps he expected too much, for he was 
 certainly grievously disappointed. He thought he would 
 find in the city wherein Robert Raikes was born and 
 laboured and died, at least that reverential regard — 
 worship almost — to which he had been accustomed in his 
 youth ; and further, he thoughj; he would find the Sunday 
 school system in flourishing perfection. 
 
 He found neither. 
 
 It was, however, reserved for the third visit, in 
 January, 1863, to completely disillusionise him. The 
 Editor of these pages was with him, and well remembers 
 the visit paid to " Robert Raikes's Sunday school," in 
 St. Mary de Crypt Church, on the afternoon of the nth 
 January. He stood upright in the chancel as one 
 paralysed ! 
 
 Then he busied himself with inquiries commenced 
 the year previous, and it seemed as though in the City of 
 Raikes the Raikes tradition had lost its charm and was 
 rapidly dying out. After his visit in the previous year, 
 he had read up what little had been preserved, and 
 opened up correspondences which yielded much rich 
 biographical matter ; but he now wished to account to 
 himself for the singular want of genuine interest shown in 
 the very place where he expected to find it most ardent. 
 He thought that there surely must be some glowing ashes 
 yet to be found, to show that this was the place where the 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 central fire once burned so luminously bright. He 
 searched and found them, but for the most part amongst 
 the poor and aged living in the narrow streets of the city. 
 
 The nearer he got to Raikes with the assistance of 
 these tottering and poor men and women who had known 
 him and been taught by him, the nearer he got to the 
 secret of his success with children. Whatever else he 
 lacked, he possessed the gift of enshrining himself in their 
 hearts ; and the nearer they approached the tomb, the 
 deeper their love and the more certain they that " The 
 Man of Gloucester " was deserving of all the praise which 
 men spoke of him in every quarter of the world — except 
 in his own city ! 
 
 The reader is now prepared to make a pilgrimage of 
 love through some of the narrow streets of Gloucester — 
 never far from the shadow of the Cathedral, never far 
 from St. Mary de Crypt Church, never far from Robert 
 Raikes's dwellings. Before closing this book he will then 
 have learnt all that, perhaps, it now is possible to learn 
 of the character and habits and modes of thought and 
 life's work of the man who, for more than a century, has 
 set an impress upon the life of the world, without any 
 regard to sect or creed. To classify the man he must be 
 separated from his work, or, rather, from the results of it. 
 With Luther or Wesley or Whitefield the man and 
 his work seem one, so interdependent are they. If you 
 separate them, you lose something of the man and 
 something of the work ; but it is not so with Raikes, and 
 to see the man and know him as he was it is well to 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 forget the results of his efforts, and see him through the 
 eyes of those who knew him. 
 
 In 1863 this was possible, and those who knew Mr. 
 Raikes knew him well, for, apparently, except when he 
 married, he was never more than a few days absent from 
 the city at any one time. The old population was very 
 conservative in their habits — generation followed genera- 
 tion in the same houses, exercised the same trades, and 
 handed on the old traditions. Of all the old people whom 
 the Author interviewed, scarcely any had travelled far 
 from the city in their lives, and not one had been long 
 absent from it. 
 
 They knew Mr. Raikes, and, in very truth, were living 
 guides. They remembered what he said and how he 
 said it ; where he went and when, what he did and 
 what was said of it. Little details of every-day life 
 impressed themselves on their memories, so that they 
 could say what Mr. Raikes wore, and how he walked, and 
 were careful to note when he had silver buckles in his 
 shoes. They made careful note of his temper, and of his 
 freedom in giving pennies to good boys and getting bad 
 boys soundly thrashed. In all these and such manners 
 the memories of these old people were " as perfect as 
 acorns." In some other matters the infirmities of age 
 made themselves felt ; but with all drawbacks, we shall 
 not be long with these "human documents" without 
 getting a vivid presentment of the Man. 
 
 It is not probable that the Author would have taken 
 the trouble which he did to unearth these old people. 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and to follow up the lines which they suggested, but for 
 the fateful visit to the "Original" Sunday schools in 
 Gloucester on the afternoon of the nth January, 1863. 
 The following entries in the Author's diaries will now 
 explain why these materials were gathered : — 
 
 VISIT TO ROBERT RAIKES's SUNDAY SCHOOL. 
 
 " Gloucester, Sunday, January nth, 1863. 
 
 "Visited with my son the Sunday school established 
 by Robert Raikes, in the Church of St. Mary de Crypt, 
 this afternoon. When we entered the church we were 
 fairly astonished to find in the ' boys' school,' on the 
 right-hand side, where the remains of Mr. Raikes lie, 
 a respectable-looking, steady man named Frederic 
 Wakefield, 38 years of age, and only six or seven boys, 
 apparently from 5 to 12 years of age. They were seated 
 on one form, and the teacher sat on a stool in front of 
 them. 
 
 " The children were orderly and clean. The teacher 
 said they were very ignorant, and we found them to be so. 
 
 " We expressed surprise at so few being present. 
 The teacher said he was very sorry, and the fault was 
 not his. Usually more boys were present, but the 
 schoolmistress [the superintendent] having left the 
 previous week, the boys had heard of it and left too. 
 He observed that when he induced boys to come, there 
 were no teachers to look after them. 
 
 " He was a paid teacher. He was paid ^4 per annum, 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 7 
 
 and said : ' I am fond of the work, and am willing to lend 
 a hand under any circumstances.' 
 
 " Q. ' Do you know that this is Robert Raikes's 
 Sunday school ? ' 
 
 "A. 'Yes, quite well.' 
 
 " Q. ' And what do you think the whole Sunday 
 school world would say if they could see this pitiful 
 ■sight ? ' 
 
 "A. 'I'm sure I do not know; but, sir, the fault is 
 not mine.' 
 
 " The girls' school was on the other side, where there 
 was a miniature Babel. There were about twenty 
 scholars, apparently under the care of two females : one, 
 Fanny Saunders, a steady-looking unmarried woman 
 about 30, who had known and attended the school for 
 twenty years ; and the other, a young girl about 14, 
 named Sarah Ann Cooper. 
 
 " Miss Saunders said the children were tolerably 
 well up in reading the Bible ; and they were intelhgent- 
 looking and clean. She attributed the ruin of the school 
 to the systematic neglect which it had received, and gave 
 me some particulars which shocked me. . . 
 
 "I spoke to all three of them [Wakefield, Saunders, 
 and Cooper] of the solemn importance of keeping up 
 THIS school, as it was Robert Raikes's ; and Miss 
 Saunders seemed to be a little alive to it, Mr. Wakefield 
 very much so. 
 
 "This 'school,' if such it maybe called, seemed to 
 me to represent ruin and decay — cold and cheerless and 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 disorderly, right on the ashes of Raikes. Oh, the 
 profanation ! Is there no Inspiration ! " 
 
 This visit to the St. Mary de Crypt Sunday School, 
 to which was intrusted the great and distinguished 
 privilege of carrying on the traditions of 1780, greatly 
 distressed the visitor. His own ideals were shattered, 
 and what added to a humiliation, which became to him 
 something personal, was the rumour, often repeated, 
 that the historical continuity of the "original" school 
 had been broken, not once but twice, the first time 
 being in the lifetime of Robert Raikes himself ! 
 
 THE REV. THOMAS STOCK'S SCHOOL. 
 
 The narrative continues : 
 
 " I then went to Worcester Street and inspected the 
 Sunday school. It was held in a schoolhouse devoted to 
 day and Sunday schools. I saw there two respectable- 
 looking, genteely-dressed and well-spoken females — one 
 the governess of the day school, and the other an 
 amateur friend. 
 
 " The governess said the boys' school in this building 
 had been given up for some time, but there was a boys' 
 school in St. John's parish. The girls' school had 
 gradually dwindled away. She believed the reason was 
 because none of the ladies in the congregation felt any 
 interest in it. There were twenty girls present this 
 afternoon, but usually there was a larger attendance — the 
 holidays accounted for their absence. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 " I asked the governess if she knew this was once the 
 school that the Rev. Mr. Stock superintended and 
 dehghted in ? She said yes, and there were banners on 
 the premises about him now, one of which she shewed 
 me. It was a neat banner bearing this inscription : 
 
 ' FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL ESTABLISHED IN GLOUCESTER, 1780, 
 BY THE REV. THOMAS STOCK, RECTOR OF ST. JOHn'S.' 
 
 " The governess said that several persons had of late 
 been there to see this banner — among others the Rev. 
 Mr. Brown, the clergyman of the parish. She also said 
 that she felt it irksome to have to attend church and 
 school, Sundays, with the children, as well as [school] on 
 other days, for she was tired with the scholastic duties of 
 the other days ; but she was told by Mr. Brown, when 
 she engaged for the situation of teacher to the day 
 school, where there were about fifty scholars, that she 
 must attend to the Sunday school as well, for he had no 
 one else to do it." 
 
 And then there follows this " note," which seems to 
 have been wrung from the Author with anguish : 
 
 " By what fatality is it that here, in the very cradle of 
 the Sunday school system, where the germ first budded 
 so genially, the bloom burst so beautifully and fragrantly, 
 and the fruits developed so healthily and so fair, that 
 here it should be smitten with fatuity, and to be ready to 
 die of inanition ? 
 
 " How changed ! While here, in the sacred spot 
 where Raikes and Stock tried with such success the 
 
10 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 grand problem, the thing is all but dead, in America, 
 as Elihu Burritt tells me in a letter just received, it is 
 growing to a gigantic power, full of bloom and beauty ! 
 How is it that prophets can have no honour in their own 
 country? Alas, alas, that it should be so. Oh, shades 
 of Raikes and Stock, veil your faces as ye pass by St. 
 Mary de Crypt and St. John's Schools ! " 
 
 And these were the two Sunday schools about which 
 the soul of the city was at that moment greatly disturbed 
 by one of the periodical quarrels between the " Stockists " 
 and " Raikists," as to whom the honour of the " First 
 Founder " was due. This last quarrel had been unusually 
 bitter and prolonged, and the Rev. Mr. Sayers, Rector of 
 St. Mary de Crypt, had only a short time before concluded 
 un angry newspaper correspondence with reference to 
 Raikes's School under his charge. He indignantly denied 
 that the school had ever been discontinued, and alleged, 
 triumphantly, that in the boys' school the average 
 attendance was 14 or 15, and in the girls' ig ; total, 34 ! 
 
 In an interview with the Author he said : 
 
 " It is true that the Sunday school has been, and still 
 is, greatly depressed ; but there is no reason why it may 
 not be raised again." 
 
 The Author had an interview with Mrs. Watkins, who 
 had resigned her superintendence of the girls' school 
 after twenty years. She was the grand-daughter of the 
 Mrs. Mary Critchley who claimed to be the first school- 
 mistress, worthy of the name, appointed by Robert Raikes. 
 
 The note of the interview is as follows : 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. ii 
 
 " ' Is it true that Mr. Raikes's Sunday school was ever 
 given up ? ' 
 
 "'No.' 
 
 " ' How few children have you seen in the school at 
 any one time ? ' 
 
 " ' Perhaps a dozen.' 
 
 " ' Enough to keep it alive ? ' 
 
 " ' We kept school with them.' 
 
 " ' Does anyone take a particular interest in this school 
 because it is Robert Raikes's ? ' 
 
 " ' I cannot speak outside my own family. We all do ; 
 but strangers think much more of Robert Raikes than the 
 people of Gloucester do. My mother, Mrs. Sarah Packer, 
 is alive; she is the daughter of Mrs. Mary Critchley. 
 Yes, she is able to see you, and will be glad to tell you 
 what she knows.' " 
 
 The reader will better follow the narratives in the 
 next chapter, and understand the drift and purport of 
 some of the questions, after reading these "notes " of a 
 visit to the historic'al Sunday schools of Gloucester and 
 the interviews set forth. In order more fully to under- 
 stand the effect on the mind of the Author, a few 
 interjectional sentences in his Journal may be quoted : 
 
 " I am daily astonished at the complete apathy 
 amongst the people whom I talk to, at this miserable and 
 disgraceful state of things." Again : " When I talk to 
 well-to-do citizens earnestly, they seem surprised at my 
 warmth and interest in the matter, and not a few seem to 
 think that I am impertinently inquisitive. When, 
 
12 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 however, I tell them of what has been done, and is 
 doing, elsewhere, and of the love and reverence in all 
 parts of the world for Robert Raikes, ' The Man of 
 Gloucester,' I notice a languid interest is excited." Again i 
 " Some take the matter very philosophically, and say that 
 ' Sunday schools have answered their purpose, and, like 
 everything else, must decay, commencing, like some 
 fruits, at the core ' ! " 
 
 This was the condition of things in Gloucester City 
 in the beginning of 1863 ; and the effect upon the mind 
 of the Author, to whom it was an astounding revelation, 
 was to send him amongst those who composed and then 
 helped to build up the first Sunday schools, and so find 
 out for himself whether the love which had been infused 
 into his own bosom when a child, and remained there, 
 had reason for its claim or was simply one more 
 delusion. 
 
 Note. — The improved condition of things in Gloucester City is 
 referred to in the concluding chapter. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HUMAN DOCUMENTS. 
 
 " Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful 
 impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the condition of mankind." 
 — Stevenson. 
 
 THE first line of inquiry was : Who is there now 
 living in the city of Gloucester who knew Robert 
 Raikes well, and can be relied upon to give their narratives 
 honestly for the purposes of publication ? In 1863, as 
 already mentioned, the air was full of contradictions with 
 regard to three points : i. Who founded Sunday schools? 
 2. When they were founded. 3. Where the first Sunday 
 school was held and by whom. It would be difficult for 
 any one outside of the city to understand the heat which 
 was engendered in discussions on the rival claims of the 
 Rev. Thomas Stock, Rector of St. John the Baptist, and 
 of Robert Raikes to the honour of being the First Founder 
 of the Sunday School system. Much greater interest was 
 taken in this purely Academic discussion than in the 
 healthy working of the schools, and much care was neces- 
 sary to avoid deception, because there were no written 
 records in existence to which to refer. This is mentioned 
 here partly to instruct the reader and partly by way of 
 explanation of what follows. 
 
 13 
 
14 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 . i .^ 
 
 It was, however, a matter of good fortune that in 1863 
 there were living in the city some aged persons of sound 
 and vigorous intellect who were children when the first 
 Sunday schools were founded by Mr. Raikes and Mr. 
 Stock ; persons who as they grew up continued a family 
 connection with certain schools, and persons who were 
 able to fix dates approximately by certain other events. 
 The evidence of these persons was firsthand and the best 
 obtainable. 
 
 It is the fact that the reminiscences of these old people 
 had never been collected and published, and it is also the 
 fact that the people who knew Raikes and Stock best 
 in connection with the organisation and building up of 
 Sunday schools were the poor. They always had been 
 poor, and their original poverty in one way answered for 
 their good faith, for had they not been poor and ignorant 
 they would not have been taken into the first Sunday 
 schools established in Gloucester. We know now that 
 the collection of children on Sundays for instruction 
 was at first an experiment pure and simple ; that 
 the experiment lasted nearly three years, and that the 
 real birth of modern Sunday schools was not until 
 November 3rd, 1783. From 1780 to 1783 their state 
 was embryotic. 
 
 What doubt and confusion there is with regard to the 
 first Founder and places and dates, exists also with refer- 
 ence to the three years of almost secret experiment. Apart 
 from historical value, the evidence of the old people turned 
 out to be of the greatest interest, as showing the social 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 15 
 
 elements experimented upon and the modes of treat- 
 ment. Sunday school flowers we have, but what were the 
 seedlings ? 
 
 Some of these old people were photographed. They 
 were aged at the date of the Jubilee, they died long before 
 the Centenary, and they speak now in print, and for the 
 first time, of the Robert Reekes,* as they called him, whose 
 memory for them was an inspiration. It should be stated 
 that these old people were seen separately ; their state- 
 ments were taken down in shorthand, so as to spare 
 them fatigue, and in consequence their narratives possess 
 more freshness and vigour and picturesqueness than they 
 otherwise might. 
 
 The following extracts are taken from the Author's 
 notes : 
 
 Miss Arabella Herbert, 40 Worcester Street, aged 
 72 next November (1863), in reply to my questions, said 
 as follows : 
 
 " I am a native of Gloucester. I knew Robert Raikes 
 by sight. I never was to his school. He used to be 
 called ' Bobby Wild Goose,' because he was so active, I 
 suppose. I have heard my mother call him so many 
 times. She would say : ' There goes Bobby Wild Goose 
 and his ragged regiment ' — meaning the children he was 
 taking to church after the morning school. Or, she would 
 say: 'There goes Bobby Wild Goose to the Cathedral 
 again.' Sometimes boys, ragged varments they were, 
 
 * In the old Gloucester dialect " a " is pronounced as " ee." 
 
i6 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 followed him or met him in the Palace Yard, because 
 he was kind to them and gave them pennies and 
 things. He used to go to early morning prayers in 
 the Cathedral. 
 
 " Yes, I remember him well. He was a fair, well- 
 looking man. He used to wear a brown wig with double 
 ■curls [double rows of curls] to it, and he carried a stick. 
 He had a school in Catherine Street, kept by Mrs. King, 
 and then by her husband. I did not go to that school. 
 Our family were ' Church Methodists.' 
 
 " I have heard say that Mr. Stock started the first 
 ■school, but I do not know. There was one in the North- 
 gate and another in the Eastgate Street, kept by a woman 
 named Crowdy, and another in Cross Keys Lane. There 
 were other schools, but I have no reason for remembering 
 them. I don't know who founded them. 
 
 " I was at Mr. Raikes's funeral. A funeral dirge was 
 sung to him, but I don't recollect the words.* 
 
 " I believe Mrs. Critchley — the man Critchley's wife 
 — was Mr. Raikes's first regular schoolmistress, and she 
 was an old woman when I was a young woman. The 
 school was in the Southgate Street, close to and facing 
 St. Mary de Crypt Church. 
 
 "The Reverend Richard Raikes, ' Pazun Reekes ' 
 he was mostly called, used to give the Wesleyan 
 Schools 5s. every year; I am sure of this, because I 
 used to know the young woman who used to go and 
 ■collect it of him. 
 
 * Another witness, Anne Hannam, supplies the deficiency in part. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 17 
 
 "When I was young we used to have a tea meeting* 
 •every year in honour of Robert Raikes. 
 
 " I recollect that the little girls who followed Mr. 
 Raikes to his funeral wore white bonnets — muslin 
 [? linen], I think — with black strings. The bonnets were 
 formed of a pasteboard front and a kind of cap caul. 
 They were not specially made. Mr. Raikes used to like 
 to see the girls clean and neat, and bonnets were provided 
 for them to wear on Sundays. This was not done for a 
 long time after the starting of the schools — the girls had 
 to be civilised first. They were worse than the boys, I 
 have heard many people say. 
 
 " The girls were not taken into the schools until after 
 the boys — I mean the first schools were for boys only, 
 and when they succeeded, schools were formed for girls. 
 I have always understood that this was so." 
 
 [Note. — This witness is a highly respectable woman ; 
 has an excellent memory, is very intelligent and affable in 
 her manners.] 
 
 The next witness, Mr. John Oakley Packer, is the third 
 generation of a family most intimately connected with 
 Mr. Raikes's schools. His grandmother was the Mary 
 Critchley who kept the Sunday school in Southgate Street 
 which had the greatest amount of Robert Raikes's per- 
 sonal attention, after Mrs. Critchley's appointment. 
 Although on his own initiative or in connection with others 
 
 * In 1880, the Centenary year, Mrs. Summerhill — an old scholar — 
 stated that the first anniversary after Mr. Raikes's death the Crypt School 
 children had a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding. 
 
ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 he started schools in Soot Alley, Catherine Street, and 
 elsewhere, he abandoned some and drafted the scholars to 
 Southgate Street. This school was held in an old-fashioned 
 house, now (1899) occupied by Mr. Lapington, butcher, 
 and may fairly be considered as Robert Raikes's own. 
 Mrs. Critchley so considered it ; so did her daughter 
 (Mrs. Packer), the next witness in this group.* 
 
 Mr. John Oakley Packer says : " I live at 2 Bell 
 Lane, am Registrar of Births and Deaths, and sexton to 
 St. Mary de Crypt. I am 58 years of age. I knew 
 Robert Raikes, and was six years old when he died. My 
 grandmother, Mrs. Mary Critchley, was the first school- 
 mistress chosen by Robert Raikes." 
 
 Q. " Are you sure of that ? " 
 
 A. " Yes, my mother is living, and can tell you." 
 
 Q. " Was not Mr. James King or his wife appointed 
 before your grandmother ? " 
 
 A. "For Sunday school children only, perhaps, yes; 
 but they paid my grandmother to teach boys on week 
 days as well. She was his regular schoolmistress, for she 
 knew^ how to handle the boys, and a rough lot they were 
 by all accounts." 
 
 Q. " Have you any letter or record of any sort of 
 your grandmother's appointment ? " 
 
 * Mr. J. Oakley Packer was the sexton of St. Mary de Crypt in 1863, 
 and in 1880— the Centenary— made a statement to Mr. H. Y, J. Taylor' 
 the Gloucester antiquarian. The Editor compared the later with the 
 former statement, and found that it did not materially differ. It speaks 
 well for the man's honesty that the Raikes' traditions had not grown upon 
 him notwithstanding the local excitement during the Centenary, and when 
 he was the only surviving male Smiday school scholar who had a personal know- 
 ledge of Robert Raihes in the city of Gloucester. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 19 
 
 A. "None. I remember what I have heard. lean 
 tell you about Mr. Raikes's funeral. The St. Mary de 
 Crypt — Raikes's school children — walked in front of the 
 coffin when it was carried from the house in Bell Lane 
 into the church. They went through Crypt Alley. Mr. 
 Raikes was buried in his father's vault, on the south side 
 of the chancel. After his death Mr. Baylis took to the 
 school, and then Mr. Montagu. It never went down. I 
 went to the school in 1810. Mr. Raikes was a very 
 benevolent, kind-hearted man. If a child pleased him 
 he would sometimes give him a shilling — always some- 
 thing." 
 
 The next person whose testimony was taken was Mrs. 
 Sarah Packer, the mother of the preceding witness. 
 She said : " I was 86 last 
 December [1862] . My 
 mother (Mary Critchley) 
 was the very first person 
 who kept Robert Raikes's 
 Sunday school. At one 
 time she kept a small 
 public - house called the 
 ' Trumpet Inn,' Little- 
 worth ; then she came 
 and lived in Southgate 
 
 Street, where Mr. Butt, 
 
 Mrs. Sarah Packer. 
 the shoemaker, now lives. 
 
 [Mr. Lapington, the butcher's, in 1899.] 
 
20 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 " Mr. Raikes came to my mother when she was living 
 in Littleworth, and asked her if she would take care of 
 some poor children, as it was a pity that they should run 
 about on Sundays, and she said she would when she 
 removed into Southgate Street. This she did. Her 
 house was the corner of the Grey Fryars, facing the 
 church." 
 
 Q. "There might have been other schools opened in 
 the meantime ?'' 
 
 A. "I can't say. I only tell you what I know. I 
 don't know the date, but I have heard it was in 1780. 
 My mother remained schoolmistress up to her death, 
 when I succeeded her. After me a Mrs. Alder officiated, 
 and then a Mrs. Wilks. After her the Rev. Mr. Sayers 
 [Rector of St. Mary de Crypt] came to my daughter, Mrs. 
 Watkins, and asked her to take charge of the school. 
 She did so. This was in the year 1844, as shown by an 
 entry in a Bible given to my daughter by the Rector's 
 wife.* 
 
 " General George Cooke came from America two years 
 ago, and I gave him Robert Raikes's portrait. He was 
 a native of Gloucester, and told me that he was a teacher 
 in Mr. Raikes's Sunday school." 
 
 Q. " Did Robert Raikes's school ever go down ? " 
 
 A. "No. It never died away. Robert Raikes was 
 
 a very kind-hearted man, and so was his brother the 
 
 parson. They used to go down on the quays and wharves 
 
 • The entry is as follows : " Caroline Watkins, from the Honourable 
 L. S. Sayers, St. Mary de Crypt. Dec. 15, 1844." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 21 
 
 and pick up the dirty boys, and sometimes have them 
 clothed a bit." 
 
 Q. " Was he a rich man ? " 
 
 A. " He was not supposed to be very rich. He was 
 a printer, and died in his house in Bell Lane. On the 
 day of the funeral the children collected on the lawn, and 
 received one shilling and a cake each." 
 
 [Note. — This old lady is rather feeble, but gave her 
 testimony without wavering. She has a strong love for 
 the memory of Raikes. She did not like any doubt being 
 suggested even about his being the real Founder of Sunday 
 Schools. She was wheeled to the photographer's, and I 
 have an excellent likeness of her. She bears an ir- 
 reproachable character, and so, I believe, all her family 
 do.] 
 
 Mrs. Caroline Watkins, daughter of the above, 
 said : 
 
 " I am 50 years of age. I am sure the school — the 
 original school I call it — never went down. I never heard 
 of such a thing in my life. I and my family have always 
 been connected with St. Mary de Crypt Church and with 
 the school. 
 
 " I went to the school so soon as I was able to speak. 
 
 " My grandmother, Mary Critchley, kept Mr. Raikes's 
 day school as well. My grandfather was the master of a 
 Sunday school for boys, as well as clerk of the parish for 
 a great many years. Mrs. Alder, who succeeded my 
 grandmother, is dead, but Mrs. Wilks is still living. 
 
22 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 " I will tell you the history of the school." 
 
 Q. " Robert Raikes's school ? " 
 
 A. "Yes, Robert Raikes's first and most important 
 school. It was first held in my grandmother's house, 
 then in St. Mary de Crypt Church, then in the Crypt 
 Grammar School adjoining the church, then at the Corn 
 Exchange, on account of the increase of the number of 
 children." 
 
 Q. "How long was it held in the Corn Exchange?" 
 
 A. "About twelve months, but being so cold 'they' 
 came back to the church again, where the children still 
 come to school. 
 
 " The greatest number of children I recollect ever 
 attending the school is from lOO to 120 — boys and 
 girls — but at present the number is very much less. 
 My connection with the school has, as you know, now 
 ceased. 
 
 " When Mrs. Critchley died, she was followed to her 
 grave by the Sunday school children — and she was the 
 first schoolmistress of this, the first Sunday school. She 
 died August 17th, 1822, aged 72 years. She lived, after 
 my grandmother was born, at the ' Trumpet Inn,' Little- 
 worth, in this city. My mother [Mrs. Packer] was quite 
 young when she went to live in Southgate Street, just 
 opposite Mr. Raikes's house, where the first school was 
 held. It is likely that the school was opened shortly after 
 they went to live in Southgate Street. 
 
 " The children who were brought there were of the 
 very lowest kind that could be found." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 23 
 
 Q. "You say 'brought,' did they not come of their 
 own accord as children do now ? " 
 
 A. "Some were certainly brought, and some were 
 induced to come by promises of nice things to be given 
 them if they would come regularly, and wash themselves 
 and comb their hair tidy. I used to hear a rhyme when 
 I was young. It was like this : 
 
 ' Clean hands, clean face, and tidy combed hair, 
 Are better than fine clothes to wear.' " 
 
 Q. " Of all the children who have passed through 
 the schools, do you remember the names of any who have 
 greatly distinguished themselves? " 
 
 A. "\ know a great many who turned out to be 
 respectable and fairly well-to-do citizens." 
 
 Q. " Do you recollect hearing of any great genius 
 springing from Robert Raikes's school ? " 
 
 A. " No, I never heard of any." 
 
 The next person who gave his testimony was, in many 
 respects, a remarkable old man, and was a scholar in a 
 school in Soot or Sooty Alley, opened by Mr. Raikes 
 before Mrs. Critchley kept the Sunday and day* school 
 in the Southgate Street. This Soot or Sooty Alley was 
 in Littleworth, the slum of the city which Raikes most 
 affected for getting choice specimens for his experiment 
 in what he aptly called " botanizing in human nature." 
 
 * Mr. Raikes gave two shillings a week extra to one or more women 
 to teach children at meal times or in the evenings ; but this was not until 
 lie satisfied himself that Sunday teaching alone was insufficient. He 
 himself says so. 
 
24 
 
 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 Mr. Charles Cox, Hare Lane, aged 87 next autumn 
 (1863), and chapel keeper of the Baptist Chapel, said: 
 
 " I am a native of Gloucester. I was about five years 
 of age when I went to a Sunday school opened by Mr. 
 Raikes in Sooty Alley, opposite the City Prison. The 
 place was called 'Sooty Alley' because the chimneysweeps- 
 lived there. 
 
 " This, I believe, was the first Sunday school opened 
 
 in Gloucester. A woman 
 
 named Meredith kept the 
 school. There were 
 twelve or fourteen boys 
 there when I went there, 
 and some of these boys 
 afterwards went to the 
 school in Southgate Street 
 kept by Critchley." 
 
 Q. "Was it Mr. Raikes's 
 or Mr. Stock's school in 
 Sooty Alley?" 
 
 A. "Mr. Raikes's. After 
 I attended the school for a short time, I was sent to 
 a school opened ' by Mr. Stock in Dolphin Lane. A 
 man named "Bamford kept it. I was removed because I 
 belonged to Mr. Stock's parish. 
 
 " I went to the school in Sooty Alley within a few 
 weeks after it was opened. I feel certain that this was 
 the first school opened in Gloucester by Mr. Raikes." 
 Q. " Or by Mr. Stock ? " 
 
 Mr. Charles Cox. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 25 
 
 A. "The school I was removed to was certainly 
 opened by Mr. Stock afterwards, but not long — a few 
 months may be." 
 
 [Note. — This old man's faculties are as, keen as many 
 men's twenty years younger. I asked him if he would 
 go and have his likeness taken, and he said, " Yes, 
 gladly." He walked to the photographer's and had his 
 likeness taken. 
 
 I visited Sooty Alley. It is in a low part of the 
 city. The house in which Cox says the school was held 
 is still standing. It is a brick house — nearly 100 years 
 old, I should think. A mason's labourer inhabits it now. 
 I made inquiries, but no one in the neighbourhood had 
 heard anything about a Sunday school having once been 
 there. 
 
 It may be that Cox is the only man now living in 
 the city who has any knowledge of a school held there as 
 a makeshift before Mrs. Mary Critchley was ready to 
 take the little ragamuffins into her house in Southgate 
 Street — one of the principal thoroughfares in the city.] 
 
 Down to this point the Raikes traditions as to the 
 origin of Sunday schools is pre-eminent ; and now we 
 come to the evidence of an aged spinster, of most sweet 
 and gentle character, whose knowledge and sympathies- 
 were all in favour of the Rev. Thomas Stock. 
 
 Miss Priscilla Kirby, Sweet Briar Street, said : " I 
 am a native of Gloucester, and I am 75 years of age. 
 
26 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 St. Catherine's Nap and St. Mary's Nap [meadow] were 
 spaces of ground where children used to play. I knew 
 the Rev. Thomas Stock. The first school I know any- 
 thing about was kept in Hare Lane by a Mrs. Bretherton. 
 
 She was an old woman 
 when I was a girl. Mr. 
 Stock employed Mrs. Bre- 
 therton and her husband 
 to keep that school. Mr. 
 Stock established it ; but 
 I cannot say in what year. 
 He had three schools : two 
 in St. John's and one in 
 St. Aldate's parish. A 
 person named Tanner 
 was the master of one of 
 the St. John's schools, and 
 a Mrs. Lea kept the school in St. Aldate's. They are all 
 dead — many a long year ago. 
 
 "These schoolmistresses were paid ^£"1 per quarter 
 for each school by the Rev. Mr. Stock, who got the money 
 by public subscription. 
 
 " The children used to go to school at ten o'clock on 
 a Sunday morning. We used to go to school in the 
 church in the afternoon, and after service in the after- 
 noon Mr. Stock used to come to us. He used to explain 
 the Scriptures to us. 
 
 " We used to learn reading. Catechisms and Answers 
 — Mann's Catechism and Lewis's, I think. He used to 
 
 Miss Priscilla Kirby. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 27 
 
 stay until twelve o'clock. We went again at two o'clock 
 in the afternoon, and every third Sunday Mr. Stock used 
 to address us in public in the church. 
 
 " Mr. Robert Raikes and his brother [the Rev. Richard 
 Raikes] used to come occasionally to visit us, and see 
 how we progressed : he [R. Raikes] used to distribute 
 a crown [piece] in small prizes. 
 
 " I think I can see Robert Raikes now saying to the 
 boys : ' I can see what bad boys you have been.' 
 
 " Mr. Stock was a poor man when compared to 
 Mr. Robert Raikes. 
 
 " When Robert Raikes was buried the children in his 
 parish followed him to his grave, but we did not. 
 
 " Robert Raikes was considered by some [persons] as 
 a very ostentatious sort of a man. I think he was a 
 very good man ; and I am sure the Rev. Mr. Stock was 
 a very excellent man indeed. Mr. Stock was a very 
 pious man, and was much abused for his goodness. 
 
 " My father followed Mr. Bretherton in the mastership 
 of the school in Hare Lane — his name was Jacob Kirby. 
 
 " I was always in that school, and was for ten years 
 the mistress (sole). 
 
 "After many years elapsed the Dissenters began to 
 form Sunday schools, and as they advanced we declined. 
 Another cause of our decline was because the Rev. Mr. 
 Bayly, who succeeded Mr. Stock, did not attend to the 
 school as Mr. Stock did. I was born in 1787. The 
 school was finally given up about the year 1817. I think 
 Mr. Stock died about the year 1803. 
 
28 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 " St. John's School, I believe, has always been kept 
 up. It is now in Worcester Street.* 
 
 " The ladies in my time used to think it below 
 them, and that it was a degradation to them to assist 
 as teachers in Sunday schools, but it is very different 
 now. 
 
 " My mother always said that Mr. Stock was the 
 Founder of Sunday schools. 
 
 " There was a Bible class when I was a child, and this 
 was conducted by Mr. Stock. 
 
 " Robert Raikes was a very 'buckish ' sort of a person 
 when he was young, and there was always a great deal of 
 ' style' with him. 
 
 " He used to go every morning with the children to 
 the College prayers. After that he used to read the Bible 
 to them. I know this, because I knew some of the boys 
 who liked to go with him. He was very kind to them, 
 and there was no one scarcely in those days to condescend 
 to notice poor children like he did. 
 
 " I never knew there to be any unpleasantness between 
 Robert Raikes and Thomas Stock. 
 
 " Mr. Stock was a very benevolent man and a very 
 popular man, and was sent for from all parts of the city 
 to come and visit poor sick people. At this the other 
 clergymen grew displeased, and he would not afterwards 
 go unless he had a written request. 
 
 " Mr, Stock was a great disciplinarian. I profited very 
 much under him. He did me much good. He gave me 
 
 ■" Visited by the Author, January nth, 1863. See preceding chapter. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 29 
 
 kind instruction and sound advice, and I shall always feel 
 grateful to him, and I should wish to see justice done to 
 him in the matter respecting Sunday schools. 
 
 "A gentleman named Wintle [the Rev. Mr. Wintle], 
 who knew Mr. Stock very well, once came to my house, 
 and while there he read from a book published on Robert 
 Raikes and Sunday schools, and when he came to a 
 certain passage in it he said : ' Now this is what Mr. Stock 
 has been reading to his wife and to me, and when he 
 came here he said, " This is false!" ' 
 
 " I do not remember the title of the book, but I think 
 the passage was something stating that Robert Raikes 
 was the Founder of something connected with Sunday 
 schools, which he was not. 
 
 " I cannot say that Mr. Raikes did not first start 
 Sunday schools, I can only say I don't believe he did." 
 
 Q. " And for what reason ? " 
 
 A. "One reason is, he had not the time to devote to 
 them that Mr. Stock had. He had a newspaper, and 
 every Sunday he was all day at work in printing it. I know 
 this to be the truth."* 
 
 [Note. — The above witness has an extraordinarily 
 clear memory, never hesitates, and at times speaks with 
 natural eloquence. She is said to have come from a very 
 respectable family. She evidently was greatly predisposed 
 towards Mr. Stock. When I expressed myself as at all 
 doubtful of what she was saying, she would say: " This 
 
 * The editing and printing of the Gloucestey Journal on Sundays is 
 fully dealt with in Chapter IX. 
 
30 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 is as true as if I were at the table of the Lord's Feast." 
 I subsequently had her likeness taken.*] 
 
 Mr. Eycott, furniture broker, &c., 62 next November, 
 deposed : " I am a native of Gloucester. I was about 
 six or seven years old when I first went to Robert Raikes's 
 Sunday school in Southgate Street. The girls' school 
 was kept by Mrs. Critchley, and the boys' school was in 
 the next house to it, nearer the church. The only 
 education I ever received was at Robert Raikes's school. 
 I cannot write. 
 
 " Robert Raikes had a knack of touching the boys 
 under their chins and saying: 'That is a nice little boy.' 
 He used to take us sometimes into his garden, and who- 
 ever was the best boy in his examining of us, was the 
 best rewarded by him. 
 
 " He was buried in the morning, and all the children 
 assembled outside his house in the Crypt Alley, and each 
 of them had a cake and one shilling before they started 
 to the funeral. 
 
 " The schools were never dropped in my time. They 
 ebbed and flowed-like [as to numbers] , but never went 
 down. 
 
 " I knew his brother, the Rev. Richard Raikes. He 
 was a good man and humble. He used to take his lantern 
 
 * Those who knew her well described her in 1880 to Mr. Taylor, of 
 Gloucester, as " a well educated and most intelligent woman." She was 
 then long dead. She gave her nephew (a Mr. Goddard) a narrative which 
 "he wrote out and put with other documents into a silk stocking ! " These 
 valuable records were, however, destroyed by fire. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 31 
 
 and go out into the streets by night and bring in all the 
 loose women he could find, and take care of them, and 
 try to bring them into better ways. The good that man 
 did no one can tell ! " 
 
 The next interview took place in the old women's 
 day ward in the Gloucester Union. There was a fire 
 in the ward, and some of the old women wore white caps 
 and blue check costumes, and some sate around the fire 
 and listened to the conversation. Sometimes these old 
 people nodded their approval, and sometimes they sighed 
 and muttered to themselves, but took no part in the 
 dialogue. 
 
 Miss Anne Hannam said : " I am 73 years of age. I 
 was sent with other children to Mr. Raikes's school when 
 I was quite little — five years old perhaps. My sister had 
 been there two years before, she was older than I. 
 
 " Oh, yea, I was at the funeral, which took place on a 
 Saturday* morning. I took charge of some of the younger 
 children, and I got one shilling and a cake like the rest. 
 What happened was like this. We went on to the 
 Garden Green through Crypt Alley, and when they were 
 bringing out the coffin we pitched singing. Then we 
 went on in front, and the coffin was carried by bearers 
 behind. There's only a wall separating the churchyard 
 from the grounds of the house in which Mr. Raikes died. 
 
 " What did we sing? We sang five verses from the 
 
 * This is quite accurate. Mr. Raikes died on Friday, April 5th, and 
 was buried eight days afterwards, namely, April 13th, 1811, as appears by 
 the church register. 
 
32 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 xvi., xc, and another Psalm ; and we sang on until the 
 service commenced. 
 
 " After the service we sang again 'till the body was 
 lowered into the vault. « 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. Baylis read the funeral service." 
 
 Q. "Was there an address ?" 
 
 A. "Not then." 
 
 Q. " Was a funeral sermon preached about Mr. 
 Raikes ? " 
 
 A. " I do not know. The only person who preached 
 at St. Mary de Crypt then was Mr. Baylis, so I suppose 
 if there was any sermon preached he preached it." 
 
 Q. " Is your sister alive who went to the Sunday 
 school with you ? " 
 
 A. " 1 don't know. She left, and when poor people 
 get divided they 're lost to each other. It was so with 
 us." 
 
 Q. " What books were used in the school ? " 
 
 A. "The book which explained the meaning of the 
 Fast Days, Collects, etc., a Reading-made-Easy* Book, 
 Texts and Psalters. 
 
 " Sometimes we went in the week-day to Mr. Raikes's 
 house and stood on the Green. He used to read a 
 chapter to us, and explain the meaning of it. He had 
 a very good way with children." 
 
 Q. " What do you mean by ' good way ? ' " 
 
 * The old people usually pronounced this as " Redinmadesy " in one 
 word, and meant any elementary book. In this instance the Sunday 
 Scholars' Companion was meant, printed and published by R, Raikes 
 in^or before 1785. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 33 
 
 A. "He had authority with him and yet they were 
 not afraid ; and he would pat them on the head and on 
 the cheeks, and touch them under the chin and say they 
 ■\yere good and nice and clean, if they were so. He liked 
 to see boys' and girls' hair combed. Many children never 
 saw a comb before he gave them one. Their hair was 
 all matted, and it was not easy to use a comb at first. 
 The children would use their fingers for a time." 
 Q. " Were there many scholars in your school?" 
 A. " I have known fifty or more girls together. I 
 can give you a list of lady teachers in my time : Miss 
 Elizabeth Montagu, the two Miss Edwards, Lady 
 Thompson, and Mrs. Garrett, the two last were Raikes's 
 own daughters. I was in the school twenty years." 
 
 Q. " Did Mr. Raikes's daughters show much interest 
 in the children ? " 
 
 A. "Well, they were ladies, and the children were 
 not always so nice and clean as they should be. It was 
 a rare thing for a real lady to teach vulgar children 
 then." 
 
 Q. "But they taught?" 
 
 A . " Oh, yes ! I fancy they came by way of encourage- 
 ment to poor people's children to pick up nice ways by 
 imitating them. I was in the school twenty years — quite 
 five years after Mr. Raikes died." 
 
 Q. " During your time did the school ever go down?" 
 
 A. "No, certainly not. Mr. Raikes used to visit the 
 
 prison if there was anyone there he knew. Oh, Mr. 
 
 Raikes was a good man, he was ! " 
 
 4 
 
34 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 The reader will now be able to judge from these 
 narratives something of the good faith and intelligence 
 of those who made them. They differ on points, and 
 these differences attest to their genuineness. After allow- 
 ing for infirmities of memory, and the natural weakness 
 of age to exaggerate sentiments of love and respect or 
 their opposites, there remains a uniform testimony to 
 large-hearted benevolence on the part of Raikes. After 
 more than fifty years the impression left upon the minds^ 
 of all these old people, who themselves were chafed by 
 the friction of ill fortune, was that benevolence was the 
 basis of his character. 
 
 He was a little " buckish " and " stylish " in his dress 
 and manner, but he was Benevolent. 
 
 Putting on one side the differences of opinion as to 
 whether Mr. Raikes or Mr. Stock started the first 'schools 
 in the city of Gloucester, we get, from the only person 
 who could tell us, the fact that Mr. Raikes's^irsi school was 
 in Soot or Sooty Alley — a most suggestive name for the 
 young ragamuffins on whom he was trying an experiment. 
 The idea we gather is that Mr. Raikes got the woman 
 Meredith, living in the sweeps' quarter, to try her hand 
 until Mrs. Critchley was ready to take them ; and that 
 when she was ready the Soot Alley place was closed, and 
 such children as could be induced to go to the new school 
 were drafted there. This school in the Southgate Street 
 and Grey Fryars did become Robert Raikes's school in 
 preference to all others, and it is satisfactory to learn 
 that, although it had been permitted to fall into a state 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 35 
 
 of pitiable decay, its historical continuity has never been 
 broken.* 
 
 It is only whilst the Sunday schools were in an embryo 
 stage, and for local purposes, that the precedence of 
 Stock over Raikes, or Raikes over Stock, is of the slightest 
 consequence. As before said, the real birth of the Sunday 
 school movement was November 3rd, 1783, and then the 
 true Founder was Raikes and Raikes only, and we shall 
 not travel far before understanding why this is so. 
 
 * The number of " first " and "very first" Sunday schools estabhshed 
 in the city of Gloucester is a little confusing. After sifting the evidence 
 it seems probable that Mr. Raikes's first school was in Soot Alley, but his 
 first firmanent school was in the Grey Fryars (Mrs. Critchley's) facing St. 
 Mary de Crypt Church. Mr. Stock's first school was probably at 103 
 Northgate Street — Mrs. Roberts, mistress. The Rev. F. T. Bayly, 
 writing in 1864, says he remembers the grocer living there heading his 
 bills with a vignette of the house and this legend : " On these premises 
 the first Sunday school in England was established." The house in 
 Catheriiie Street, occupied by James King, for some years steward to 
 "Madam" Pitt, may be regarded as the place where a school was 
 established by the joint enterprise of Raikes and Stock. In the absence 
 of documents these conclusions savour of the probable. July, 1780, has 
 been fixed as the date when the first start was made, but direct evidence 
 is wanting. It is founded on the gift of a Bible to Mr. King, with that 
 date on the fly-leaf. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHOM NO MAN CARED FOR. 
 
 " Infant lips humming the hymns of hell." — MS. 
 
 " The streets of the city are full 
 Of poor little perishing souls," — American Golden Apples. 
 
 TO the question : What was the need for Robert 
 Raikes to interfere with the existing order of things? 
 sufficient answer will be given on becoming acquainted 
 with the children who were constrained, induced, or 
 enticed to put themselves under some sort of external 
 control one day in seven. Fortunately it was possible to 
 obtain descriptions in 1863 of what took place in 1780, 
 and after. 
 
 These descriptions seem to put us back not merely a 
 century in our own history, but behind the civilisations 
 of the world which we call " Early." What actually 
 took place in Sooty Alley is left pretty much to conjecture. 
 Mr. Cox only remembered that he was there "instead of 
 playing in the streets," and that he "would much rather 
 have been playing about." He did not remember that 
 anybody learnt anything there. They were " turrible bad 
 boys," and he did not believe that they went to school in 
 Sooty Alley from choice after the first time. There were 
 no girls in the Sooty Alley school. 
 
 36 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 37 
 
 Mr. Raikes took a personal interest in poor children. 
 He sometimes met them after early morning service in 
 the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral,* and so was known by 
 some as a kind man and a giver of pence before he 
 engaged the woman Meredith in the sweeps' quarter to 
 look after such children as he could bring to her. 
 
 Mr. Raikes had some of the popular notions of the 
 day with regard to " obedience " and the right of those 
 in authority to enforce it. As he was not above marching 
 through the streets with his " ragged regiment " because 
 they were ragged, he wished not to be put to shame on 
 account of their ill-conduct. Whether he ever heard 
 himself called "Bobby Wild Goose" is not certain. If 
 he did, he took no notice of it. As for rags and dirt and 
 ignorance, they were the three things which he sought for 
 and paraded in the streets and in his Journal. 
 
 A certain amount of repression was necessary before 
 the boys could be got under control; and corporal punish- 
 ment once commenced became customary. 
 
 William Brick was a Sunday school scholar when 
 Mr. Raikes died. He attended the funeral and received 
 a cake and a shilling along with the rest. He says : 
 
 " I can remember Mr. Raikes well enough. I remember 
 
 * It has been denied that Mr. Raikes did systematically meet children 
 at the Cathedral. In an hitherto unpublished letter, he says: "I am 
 surrounded every morning at seven o'clock prayers at the Cathedral, 
 especially on a Sunday morning." {Sei Chap. VI.) Long before starting 
 what he was fond of calling his " seminaries," he used to give presents and 
 instruction to children who would meet him in the Cathedral yard after 
 divine service. 
 
38 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 his caning me. I don't suppose I minded it much. He 
 used to cane boys on the back of a chair. 
 
 " Some turrible bad chaps went to school when I first 
 went." 
 
 Q. " Did things improve ? " 
 
 A. "There were always bad 'uns coming in. I know 
 the parents of one or two of them used to walk them, to 
 school with 14-lb. weights tied to their legs." 
 
 Q. " What for ? " 
 
 A. "To keep them from running away. Sometimes 
 boys would be sent to school with logs of wood tied to 
 their ankles, just as though they were wild jackasses, 
 which I suppose they were, only worse." 
 
 Q. " Did Mr. Raikes teach ? " 
 
 A. "He mostly looked on or talked to the boys. 
 When a boy was very bad he would take him out of the 
 school, and march him home and get his parents to 
 'wallop' him. He'd stop and see it done, and then bring 
 the young urchin back, rubbing his eyes and other places. 
 Mr. Raikes was a terror to all evil doers and a praise to 
 them that did well. Everyone in the city loved and 
 feared him." 
 
 An old man named Cooksey, 80 years of age, said : 
 " Mr. Raikes used to go to church — St. Mary de Crypt 
 Church — with the boys. If they walked orderly and 
 quietly and didn't fight each other on the way, he seemed 
 quite proud. The boys would play tricks on each other 
 and begin to fight in no time. I went to Mrs. Critchley's 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 39 
 
 school, opposite the church. She made us mind her 
 when we were there. 
 
 " When Mr. Raikes came she would sometimes make 
 complaints. Sometimes he would hold his glass up to 
 his eye [describing an old-fashioned reading-glass held in 
 the hand] and, looking at the disobedient boy, sternly 
 say : ' Ah, I can see you did not say your prayers this 
 morning 1 ' 
 
 " The boys believed he could see through stone 
 walls with that glass ; and it magnified his eye, so that 
 they were sometimes frightened and told wonderful 
 stories about what Mr. Raikes could do with this 
 wonderful glass." 
 
 Mr. Samuel Pitt,* Green Court, King Stanley, near 
 Stroud, said : 
 
 " Mrs. Critchley used to visit my aunt, who lived with 
 us at the ' Queen's Head,' Catherine Street. I have heard 
 her speak in words of praise of Mr. Raikes, but the boys 
 were sometimes too much even for his temper. 
 
 Q. " Did you ever hear of his chastising them ? " 
 
 A. "Oh yes, what else could he do? They were 
 varmints, most of them. They were the children of the 
 "worst anywhere in the city, some of them. Some were 
 quiet enough. But some ! ..." 
 
 Q. " Did you ever see the children brought to school 
 or marched to church with weights to their ankles ? " 
 
 * This gentleman is referred to on another point, and in contradiction 
 to the Rev. John Adey's statement that Robert Raikes's Sunday School 
 at one time ceased to exist. 
 
40 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 A. "No, but I've heard stories about the boys being 
 ' strapped ' all the way to school by their parents." 
 
 Q. " What do you mean by strapped ? " 
 
 A. "The men used to wear leather belts, and when 
 they took them off and laid them on the youngsters that 
 was 'belting' or 'strapping.' It's called the same now;. 
 and down by the canal and in the worst parts of the city 
 youngsters often get a taste of the strap. No one would 
 take any notice of boys being punished in Sunday schools 
 when they were first started, or during Mr. Raikes's life- 
 time. The only sense you could appeal to in the boys 
 who were first got together was the sense of pain ; I am 
 sure of that. Some of 'em were so hard, it was difficult 
 to find where they felt." 
 
 Another old scholar named Bourne, who had pre- 
 served a copy of the edition of the Sunday Scholars'' 
 Companion, printed by R. Raikes, 1794, made the 
 following statement with regard to punishment : 
 
 " I can speak as to what took place in 1800. The 
 first Sunday I went a boy called ' Winkin' Jim ' brought 
 a young badger with him and turned it loose. You should 
 have seen old Mother Critchley jump 1 I laugh now! I 
 shall never forget my first Sunday, nor Winkin' Jim. He 
 went to sea, and was rolled off the yard and drowned. I 
 don't remember if Mr. Raikes was in the room when the 
 badger was ' let fly.' 
 
 " No writing was taught in the school in my time. 
 We used to learn [from a] ' Reading-made-Easy ' Book, 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 41 
 
 the Collects, Bible and Testament. That is those who 
 could read. Some learnt their letters and A.B.'s. 
 
 " Mr. Raikes used always to come to school on 
 Sundays and inquire what the children had learnt, and 
 whether they had been ' good boys.' If there had been 
 extra bad boys, or Mrs. Critchley was out of temper 
 and put it on strong, then he would punish them 
 himself." 
 
 Q. " How did he punish them ? " 
 
 A. "The same way as boys were birched. An old 
 chair was the birching stool or horse. The chair was. 
 laid on its two front legs, downwards so [describing with 
 chair], and then the young 'un was put on so, kicking 
 and swearing all the time, if he were pretty big and pretty 
 new. Then Mr. Raikes would cane him. I knew a boy 
 he could never draw a tear from — we used to say he 
 couldn't feel. I don't know whether he could or no. 
 
 " One boy was a notorious liar. No, I don't remem- 
 ber his name for certain. He was sure to have a nick- 
 name, but I don't remember it. Mr. Raikes could do 
 nothing with him, and one day he caught him, by the 
 hand and pressed the tips of his fingers on the bars of 
 the stove or fireplace." 
 
 Q. " Was he burnt ? " 
 
 A. "Blistered a bit. Mr. Raikes would take care 
 that he was not much injured; but he did hate liars! 
 Look at my book. This is what he printed for us to 
 learn : ' A thief is better than a man who is accustomed 
 to lie.' What I think hurt him most was to hear boys 
 
42 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 cursing and swearing at each other in church. We were 
 at church one morning and a boy named Philpotts (we 
 called him Mugs) stuck a big shawl-pin* into a boy who 
 was nodding. He jumped up into the air with pain, and 
 yelled and swore and flew at ' Mugs.' The beadles came 
 and turned them out. I saw Mr. Raikes's face and I 
 have never forgotten his look." 
 
 Q. " Did Mr. Raikes lecture the boys about swearing 
 in church ? " 
 
 A. "He must have; it was the only language which 
 some of them knew, and they meant nothing in particular 
 when cursing. Mr. Raikes went down to 'Mugs's' father 
 and had him 'well leathered.' We lived close by and 
 I heard him. 'Mugs's' father told mine that he'd strapped 
 Joe well, and didn't know what for except that Mr. Raikes 
 told him he must. He seemed hurt about having to do 
 
 it. My father said he would see Mr. Raikes first. 
 
 He meant it ; for he was a kind man, if rough, and I 
 liked him all the better." 
 
 Q. " Did you receive any education except what you 
 got in the Sunday school ? " 
 
 A. " Not until I grew up." 
 
 Q. " You are an old man and have had plenty of 
 time for thought. What do you say has been the 
 influence on you of Sunday school teaching ? " 
 
 A. "In every way it has been a great blessing 
 to me." 
 
 *A piece of stout wire about three inches long and used to fasten 
 coarse shawls and turnovers. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 43. 
 
 Q. " So you have a respect for the memory of 
 Robert Raikes ? " 
 A. "I love it." 
 
 These are statements made by old people who, as 
 children, were experimented on for the purpose of seeing 
 whether the children of the poor, when disciplined and in- 
 structed, would show the same evidences of human feelings 
 and instincts as children more favourably situated. 
 
 There is a very close agreement between what these 
 children lived to think and say of themselves and what 
 Mr. Raikes at the time said of them. 
 
 The parents he found everywhere degraded, and either 
 ripe or ripening for the gallows when to be guilty of felony 
 was to be hanged, and of a very small felony, transported. 
 This state of degradation he traced to ignorance of the 
 most elementary principles of right and wrong, morality 
 and immorality. For a quarter of a century before 
 gathering a few children together in Sooty Alley he had 
 been studying some social questions by the dim uncertain 
 glare of prison lanterns. He had been actively engaged 
 in attempting to make the condition of criminals, and of 
 poor debtors who were treated as criminals, endurable. 
 He attempted to improve the adult, and to reach the 
 child through the parent. This very old plan failed in 
 ■his case — the minds of the parents being embruted and 
 then glazed against knowledge. 
 
 He found children whom he knew to be prison born* 
 • See Chapter VIII. 
 
44 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 running in the streets, filthy and degraded, only waiting 
 their turn to pass through the hands of the gaoler. 
 
 Then he did what a few had done before him, and 
 were doing in various places at that moment : he com- 
 menced with the children. 
 
 It cannot fairly be said that he was sanguine of 
 success. For three years, from 1780 to 1783, he worked 
 quietly without giving much publicity to his plan. Ap- 
 parently he wished to see whether in Littleworth, and 
 elsewhere, he could tame the untamed, and bring to the 
 surface something of the divine image beHeved to be 
 somewhere imprinted on the soul of every human child. 
 This three years of experiment has ofteii been a stumbling- 
 block to many, who have asked : " Why did not Robert 
 Raikes give the public the benefit of his idea soon after 
 he commenced working it ? " 
 
 The answer is, that it was necessary for him to have 
 some time in which to labour before he could say whether 
 or no he would be justified in mentioning the matter at 
 all. The descriptions and statements already given make 
 us pause before calling the children first got together, and 
 put into the hands of the woman Meredith in Sooty Alley, 
 a " school " at all. The ragged robins were taken off 
 the streets and pined for freedom. When they could 
 help it, apparently they did not come a second time 
 unless there was sufficient inducement. They were there 
 chafing under restraint. " Terrible bad " boys they 
 were. " Terrible bad " is the idiomatic equivalent for 
 the superlative in Gloucester. Poor Mrs. Meredith was 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 45 
 
 ■apparently not strong enough on the nerves for these 
 wild untrained Arabs of the city, who had pet badgers 
 and fought each other like demons. Mr. Charles Cox 
 does not think that during the six months, or so, the 
 ■children who came to Mrs. Meredith's learnt much. 
 Certainly he did not, except, perhaps, to sit still, which 
 the older boys found it hard to learn. 
 
 Then Mrs. Mary Critchley took them in hand. Mr. 
 Raikes was close to her elbow in Southgate Street, and 
 she had been the landlady of the " Trumpet Inn," in 
 Littleworth, where the gaol was, and where the chimney- 
 sweeps lived. Mrs. Critchley by association seemed well 
 chosen for disciplining boys brought to "school" with 
 logs of wood and iron weights tied to their legs — boys 
 who had to be birched on the premises, or taken home to 
 be " leathered," or have the tips of their fingers burnt for 
 lying. With all her qualifications, Mrs. Critchley was 
 more than two years at work before Mr. Raikes could 
 venture to say to the public that he was right in principle, 
 and that the salvation of the world must in very truth 
 come through the young. 
 
 Superintendents and teachers in Sunday schools who 
 now see children in all the holy beauty of childhood, 
 think for a moment what that school in Sooty Alley must 
 have been ; and fancy what were the duties of the good 
 woman Meredith ! The children she had to take care 
 of were no worse that the young Ishmaelites in the 
 rest of the country — even in pastoral Buckingham. The 
 poet Cowper wrote : " Heathenish parents can only bring. 
 
46 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 up heathenish children, an assertion nowhere oftener or 
 more clearly illustrated than at Olney, where children of 
 seven years of age infest the streets every evening with curses, 
 and with songs to which it would be unseemly to give 
 their proper epithet. Such urchins as these could not be 
 so diabolically accomplished unless by the connivance of 
 their parents. It is well indeed if, in some instances, 
 their parents be not their instructors. Judging by their 
 proficiency, one can hardly suppose any other. It is 
 therefore doubtless an act of the greatest charity to 
 snatch them out of such hands before the inveterancy of 
 the evil shall have made it desperate." 
 
 This was written five years after the opening of the 
 schools in Gloucester. We may go in imagination with 
 Robert Raikes to the schools in the Grey Fryars and 
 Southgate Street, and see the restless, fighting, high- 
 spirited children full of savage frolic, and lisping 
 blasphemy as their only language ; and we may then ask 
 whether Raikes was not right in not being over-sanguine, 
 but in waiting for three years before telling the world of 
 a simple plan which to many (and Cowper among 
 them) seemed like a second redemption necessary to 
 complement and complete the first which had been made 
 for all mankind. 
 
 The graphic descriptions in black and white of what 
 took place in the first Sunday schools answers as fully as 
 it can now be answered the question : " What need was 
 there for Robert Raikes to interfere when he did, and as 
 he did, on behalf of those for whom no man cared ? " 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 47 
 
 Note. — The "lower classes," the "vulgar," and the "common 
 people ' ' were made to keep their distance, and to feel that they were of 
 another race, even by those who wished them well, and wanted to obtain 
 their confidence and win their affections. In 1786, Dr. Samuel Glasse, 
 Rector of Wanstead, preached an oft-quoted sermon on Sunday schools, 
 and published it. This is the title-page : 
 
 "The Piety, "Wisdom, and Policy of Promoting Sunday Schools: 
 A Sermon preached in the Parish Church of Painswick, in the County 
 of Gloucester, on Sunday, September 24th, 1786, by Samuel Glasse, 
 D.D., F.R.S., Rector of Wanstead, Essex, and Chaplain in Ordinary to 
 His Majesty. ' To endeavour to influence the common people with such 
 sentiments as are suited to their earthly condition, and calculated to pro- 
 mote their everlasting felicity, is the most honourable occupation of the 
 most worthy citizen.' — Mr. Hanway. Published by the desire of the 
 Minister and parishioners, &c. London : Printed for and sold by Mess. 
 Rivington in St. Paul's Churchyard, and Mr. Gardner in the Strand, 
 MDCCCLXXXVI. N.B.— The profits (if any) will be applied to the 
 benefit of Sunday schools." 
 
 And this is not an exaggerated specimen of the art of building up 
 a title-page on small occasions, and letting the common people know their 
 places even when smiled on. This sermon was dedicated " To Mr. Robert 
 Raikes, of the city of Gloucester, an instructor of the ignorant and a father 
 to the poor : to whose piety and zeal, in the first institution and subsequent 
 encouragement of Sunday schools, every friend to religion is indebted ; 
 the following Discourse, preached at his request, is inscribed as a token of 
 friendship, approbation, and esteem by the Author." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AS SEEN OF MEN. 
 
 " I have travelled in various counties of England, and examined scores 
 -of people and many places and documents, in order to trace the influence and 
 view the ' Man of Gloucester' from various standpoints." — The Author. 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES was a prosperous man, and 
 walked through the city with a certain air of pro- 
 prietorship, which some of the poor called "Buckishness" 
 and " style," but which was also called " swagger " and 
 " pompousness." The dress of the period was decidedly 
 showy, and in the case of a " Buck " or " Dandy," 
 elaborate and expensive. 
 
 He used to wear a dark blue or claret coat, and white, 
 buff, or fancy waistcoat with silver-gilt buttons, and a not 
 too elaborate cambric frill and cuffs. His breeches were 
 of nankeen in summer and cloth in winter, white stockings, 
 and buckles in his shoes. He wore a wig and a three- 
 cornered turned-up civilian's hat, which could be carried 
 under his arm. In winter he dressed in the same fashion, 
 only with gaiters and a " ' Spencer ' which came down 
 around his waist." He did not carry a sword, only a 
 cane ; but after he had retired from business a man- 
 servant accompanied him to and from church, and in the 
 evenings carried a lantern before him. 
 
 48 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 49 
 
 He took snuff, and had a large massive gold box for 
 dress occasions. Usually he carried a horn box, and 
 was said " to snuff with elegance." 
 
 He was above the medium height and comfortably 
 stout ; and when he walked he drew attention to himself. 
 The curate of his parish, St. Mary de Crypt, said of him 
 in 1831 : "An excessive vanity was a predominant feature 
 in Mr. Raikes's character; " and he was supposed to have 
 known him well, having dined at his table and read some 
 of his correspondence. 
 
 He was a tradesman carrying on the craft and mystery 
 of printing — about which in those days there was a great 
 deal that was mysterious to the ordinary run of men, — but 
 lived as a gentleman, and was always referred to as 
 " respectable " or " eminently respectable," which in 
 those days was even applied to persons of county rank. 
 During the greater part of his business hfe he lived in a 
 quaint old-fashioned oak-timbered house of the seven- 
 teenth century in the Southgate Street, where the book- 
 printing and newspaper business was carried on, and 
 he printed large books in quarto in big type and with 
 fine margins for the Bishop of St. David"s and the 
 Uteraii, for his was the only printing press for many 
 years in many counties. Later in life he took a house 
 in Bell Lane — a city house with green lawn around it, 
 but near to the printing premises, and from one house 
 to the other was a pathway, made and kept clean at his 
 ■own expense. 
 
 He kept sufficient company of the "best sort," and 
 
50 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 had a handsome service of plate.* The house in South- 
 gate Street has historical interest, but is now a shop. 
 When Mr. Raikes and his family lived in the Southgate 
 Street he kept no shop. In a letter written in 1789 he 
 says : " I keep no shop, and have no concern in the book- 
 seUing line." The printing office was connected with the 
 house, and opened into Bolt Lane. Mr. Raikes had a 
 little office for himself shut off from the composing room, 
 but the window opened into Bolt Lane. When he was 
 reading proofs and otherwise seriously engaged, he was 
 " much annoyed by children playing under his very nose." 
 An old compositor who got possession of Mr. Raikes's 
 composing "stick" stated that he had heard the old 
 compositors in the Journal office say that the children 
 played hop-scotch, five-stones, and chuck, under the 
 
 * Mr. William Warner, gentleman, living in Brunswick Square, told 
 the Author that he knew Mrs. Robert Raikes very well. In the course of 
 conversation he said : 
 
 " After her death [which took place in 1828] all her furniture and 
 effects were sold. I bought all the plate, including a handsome gold snuff- 
 box which belonged to her husband. I also bought his lantern, which he 
 used to go from his house in Bell Lane across the lawn and out through a 
 narrow passage which led to St. Mary de Crypt Church." 
 
 Mr. Warner showed me the receipt for the plate, and I took a verbatim 
 copy. It is as follows : 
 
 " Gloucester, 
 
 " 17W1 April, 1828. 
 
 " Memorandum, 
 
 " I have received the sum of forty-nine pounds for 156 ounces 
 and 9 pennyweights of plate agreeable to the enclosed. 
 
 "Robert Napier Raikes." 
 
 " This snuff-box was subsequently purchased from me by his daughter 
 Caroline, the wife of General Ladbroke, then living at Worthing." 
 
 Mr. Warner showed me some of the plate, which was marked with the 
 Raikes' crest — a grifSn's head. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 51 
 
 editorial sanctum, and that when they cursed and 
 quarrelled Mr. Raikes was much annoyed, as well he 
 might be. The windows on the ground floor of the 
 Southgate Street dwelling were those of a private house, 
 as when Judge Powell lived there.* 
 
 The house in Bell Lane — the lane wherein George 
 Whitefield was born — in 1863 was in the possession 
 of a solicitor who, when the author visited him, had 
 a personal affection for Robert Raikes, and built a 
 " Memorial Tower " t in one corner of the grounds over 
 the spot which Raikes's coffin passed on its way to the 
 church. The Author's note of his visit is as follows : 
 
 " Mr. Addison showed me a room which Robert Raikes 
 had built expressly for himself. It looks out on a nice 
 green lawn, — the lawn spoken of by the old people whom 
 I have examined, as being the lawn where they were 
 sometimes assembled by Robert Raikes, and on which 
 they were drawn up and received their cakes and shillings 
 on the day of the funeral. 
 
 " I found that Mr. Addison took a great interest in 
 the St. Mary de Crypt Sunday School, because it was 
 Mr. Raikes's. Some ladies of his own family taught in 
 it. ' The school is nearly snuffed out now,' said he. 
 
 " Yes, there are various opinions about Mr. Raikes. 
 He certainly did a lot towards carrying out prison reforms 
 in this city. He was not paid for his labour, either with 
 regard to prisons or Sunday schools, and if his vanity was 
 a little bit tickled we may very well afford him that. 
 
 * In 1898 a wine merchant's office. t See concluding chapter. 
 
52 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 " I don't think the Raikeses have any property in the 
 city, or indeed any particular connection with it now. 
 His grandson, the Major, Hves in the county. All Robert 
 Raikes's daughters were well married." 
 
 Passing from the poor persons whose judgment, from 
 want of larger experience of men, is certain to be 
 governed by their affections, there is the opinion of a 
 gentleman of education and position residing, in 1863, at 
 the Castle, Stroud. This gentleman, Mr. Paul Hawkins 
 Fisher, had practised as a solicitor. He was then 83 
 years of age, and was educated at the Gloucester 
 Cathedral College. Mr. Fisher was born about the time 
 that Mr. Raikes was experimenting with his " ragged 
 regiment " in Soot Alley, in the Grey Frj'ars and else- 
 where ; and when Mr. Raikes died he was in the flush 
 of early manhood, and a keen critic of men and things. 
 His standards were entirely different from those of the 
 poor people whose statements have already been given, 
 and the ' following account of an interview is worth 
 preserving, if only for this reason : 
 
 "Mr. Paul Hawkins Fisher told me that when he 
 was a boy and went to the College School at Gloucester, 
 he used to meet Mr. Raikes almost every morning going 
 to early service in the Lady Chapel. He says Mr. Raikes 
 invariably spoke to him, put his hand upon his head and 
 said kindly : ' That is a fine boy,' or some such thing. 
 He says Mr. Raikes had a very ' swaggering ' walk with 
 him. 
 
 " Mr. Fisher has his own views with regard to Robert 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 53 
 
 Raikes, and his estimate of him differs very much 
 from that which I have hitherto heard expressed. 
 He does not give him credit for being actuated by 
 any religious motive in acting as he did. Mr. Fisher 
 said to me : 
 
 " ' Robert Raikes was a benevolent and emotional man 
 by nature, and he was a respectable, prosperous, and 
 shrewd man of business. You can tell that by the very 
 judicious manner in which he conducted his newspaper 
 in times of very great peril for newspaper conductors and 
 printers. 
 
 " ' He patted me on the head because he thought I 
 was a nice little boy going to school, and then he con- 
 tinued to do so from habit. He had no particular interest 
 in me. 
 
 "'His great friend was "Jimmy Wood," the banker, 
 popularly known as "the miser," as "miser" he was. 
 No one ever accused "Jimmy Wood" of being religious, 
 and yet he and Raikes were regular attendants at early 
 morning service at the Cathedral. "Jimmy Wood" was 
 a spare, neat-figured man, and had a beautiful smile for 
 everyone. He was a retiring little man in those days, 
 and dressed in black — rusty black, — white neckerchief 
 and knee breeches of course, worsted stockings, and 
 shoes. By the side of Raikes, who affected the swagger 
 of the well-to-do, he was quite refined. 
 
 " ' Robert Raikes was a foil to the banker without 
 knowing it, and greatly to his own disadvantage.' 
 
 "Q. 'Why should Raikes go regularly to early 
 
54 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 morning service, if it were not from a deeply religious 
 motive ? ' 
 
 "A. 'There was nothing particular in his doing that. 
 He was not the only one ; and you must remember that 
 in a Cathedral city there is always a great deal of 
 patronage for a printer. When we come to questions 
 of motive, we are on rather delicate ground.' 
 
 " I was charmed with Mr. Fisher. He has a very fine 
 collection of paintings and a magnificent library. At his 
 age, a perfect wonder — vivacious and epigrammatic ; an 
 antiquarian, with a fine range of literary subjects. Mr. 
 Fisher has kindly promised to see me again next week, 
 and to give me any information in his power, and show 
 me any documents in his possession which may be of 
 service to me in writing my proposed work. 
 
 " I told him what I had done in Glo'ster, and repeated 
 some of the evidence which I had taken down in short- 
 hand from the lips of the old scholars and teachers. 
 
 "He said: 'These people seem to me to be the 
 witnesses of truth as far as they know it.' " 
 
 Mr. John J. Powell, Q.C, and M.P. for the city of 
 Gloucester in 1863, placed the Author under many obliga- 
 tions, and showed much interest in his effort to get really 
 reliable information about Robert Raikes, the Man, apart 
 altogether from Sunday schools, the Institution. Writing 
 from Gloucester during the Long Vacation in 1863, 
 he said : 
 
 " I am not, however, so surprised as you appear to 
 be that so little should be known about Raikes and 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 55 
 
 his eiforts in establishing Sunday schools. You must 
 remember he led the quiet life of a tradesman in a some- 
 what dull provincial city, and that such a life is seldom 
 attended with incidents that are remembered, or that, 
 indeed, are worth remembering; and, moreover, important 
 as have been the results of the establishment of Sunday 
 schools, it is probable that in Raikes's time the world 
 in general thought little of them, and, possibly, Raikes 
 himself never anticipated anything like the extent to 
 which they have spread, or the good which has resulted 
 from them. 
 
 " Having for the sake of local information gone pain- 
 fully through very many of the volumes of the Gloucester 
 Journal, while under Raikes's management, and observed 
 the remarks on men and things inserted in them (and 
 which I have no doubt were all written by Raikes himself), 
 my opinion of him is that he was a very steady, methodical 
 man of business, and of a kindly and benevolent disposition ; 
 but I should doubt if he was a man of superior capability, 
 or even, in the modern acceptation of the term, of Evangelical 
 principles. 
 
 " His paper was published on Monday mornings, and 
 I believe there is no doubt that he and his workmen 
 worked at it on Sunday evenings, which, in the days 
 when Dr. Parr* kept the cricket score for his parishioners 
 on Sunday afternoons, was not deemed inconsistent with 
 the character of a religious person. 
 
 " I also attribute his instituting Sunday schools rather to a 
 
 * Dr. Samuel Parr is referred to. 
 
56 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 benevolent than a religious motive. It is certain that the 
 sight of pain, poverty, and depravity was very distressing 
 to him, for his papers abound with representations of the 
 vice and misery resulting from the overcrowding of the 
 local gaols, and with benevolent appeals to the public 
 for assistance for the poor prisoners — both debtors and 
 criminals." 
 
 The reader has now before him some materials with 
 which to form for himself a moral portrait of the " Man 
 of Gloucester." What stands out prominently so far is, 
 that he was a man of active benevolence and great 
 
 TENACITY OF PURPOSE. 
 
 With regard to motive and principle, the reader will 
 be in a better position to form a sound judgment when 
 he has stood by his side and seen him at work, breathed 
 the atmosphere which he breathed, and followed the slow 
 but logical workings of his mind towards the solution of 
 the now simple, but then almost unheard-of, problem of 
 " levelling up " the very dregs of society. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 AT WORK. 
 
 ' ' Persons are mistaken who consider the lower orders of mankind 
 incapable of improvement, and therefore think that an attempt to reclaim 
 impracticable, or, at least, not worth the trouble."— R. Raikes, MS. 
 
 "Teaching is a lifelong learning how to deal with human minds." — 
 Thring. 
 
 MR. RAIKES arrived at the conclusion at the end 
 of a three years experiment — commencing in Soot 
 Alley — that an attempt to reclaim was practicable. 
 During these three years of precious seedtime he had 
 not been idle. Those who look upon the idea as a 
 sudden inspiration and on the Sunday school system as 
 of spontaneous generation may undeceive themselves. 
 
 There were at the time living in the county of 
 Gloucester a few men who had arrived at a like 
 conclusion, and, what is more, acted on it. They saw that 
 the salvation of the future depended largely upon the 
 education of young children. The county of Gloucester 
 held a very different position then to its present, when 
 compared with our great centres of industry. The 
 city itself was the home of the pin industry and largely 
 commercial. Whole portions of the city were devoted to 
 "pinners" and child labour was largely employed.* 
 
 * Heading, drawing, pointing and sticking were the four processes in 
 making a pin. Whole families worked at pin-making at home. 
 
 57 
 
58 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Stroud and the small towns and villages in the Golden 
 Valley were busy with the hand loom and the manu- 
 facture of pins. 
 
 A pin passed through many hands and became a work 
 of art when a coil of fine wire forming the " head " was 
 fastened to the pointed stem. "Nine tailors to make a 
 man, but four men to make a pin " became a proverb. 
 The hand loom weavers worked at home, and the finest of 
 cloths and velvets were made by them. Sometimes there 
 was a " double loom " and the woman helped the man, 
 and the household was neglected. Child labour was 
 employed for all purposes whilst the adults worked. 
 Even young children earned " good money" as compared 
 with the standard of agricultural wage, which was low, 
 although corn ruled high per bushel. 
 
 The children grew in Stroud and the Golden Valley 
 as the flowers grew, but soon lost their beauty and 
 fragrance in dirt and bad habits. Sunday was a 
 saturnalia — the day for sports and drinking. Bull 
 baiting, bear baiting, badger baiting, cock fighting, dog 
 fighting, running and wrestling, were the principal 
 pastimes. Children earning wages took a quasi- 
 independent attitude towards their parents and became 
 " independent " as soon as possible. A most deplorable 
 state of affairs resulted, and individual efforts were made 
 in many places to give these children some sense of 
 religion, and sufficient education to enable them to read 
 in the New Testament. Some of these efforts will never 
 be known, but in some parts of the county of Gloucester, 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 59 
 
 and notably in Painswick and Nailsworth, there were men 
 who did gather children together on Sundays, pay men 
 and women to teach them, and did (what Raikes did in 
 Gloucester) visit the schools, speak kindly to the children 
 and distribute coppers and little gifts as rewards for good 
 conduct. 
 
 During the period of experiment in Gloucester Mr. 
 Raikes made himself familiar with what had been done 
 elsewhere, and in 1863 there were many aged people who 
 said they remembered Mr. Raikes visiting certain schools; 
 and in nearly every case it was said that " Mr. Raikes 
 drove over in a chaise and pair." In addition there grew 
 up the legend, which these old people always declared 
 they had received on the best authority, that " Mr. Raikes 
 borrowed his idea of Sunday schools from " a certain 
 person, as for example, Mr. Samuel Webb, of the Hill, 
 Painswick, once a wealthy cloth manufacturer, and 
 descended from the De Webs ; from William King, 
 woollen card maker, of Dursley, or from William 
 Twining, clothworker, Sheepscombe, in the parish of 
 Painswick. 
 
 There is no sufficient reason for doubting the good 
 faith of these old people. Robert Raikes did visit 
 various schools and learn what had been the results of 
 the experiment to reclaim the lower orders of mankind ; 
 and the only question worth discussing now is, whether in 
 any proper sense he "borrowed" his own idea from 
 anyone? 
 
 It is now certain that children were gathered together 
 
6o ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and taught on Sundays in private houses, weavers* 
 kitchens, and regularly catechised in churches, long 
 before he himself was born ; and it is also certain that no 
 general system arose, or spread even into neighbouring 
 parishes in England, from these individual and isolated 
 efforts. 
 
 The triumph of Sunday schools as a system, apart 
 from Robert Raikes, is the triumph of the Newspaper 
 Press. In the city of Gloucester, where Mr. Raikes had, 
 at all events, the loyal co-operation of the Rev. Thomas 
 Stock, and of his own brother, the Rev. Richard Raikes, 
 it seems probable that nothing permanent would have 
 resulted but for the fortunate circumstance that Mr. 
 Raikes was the proprietor and editor of the Gloucester 
 Journal. 
 
 So great a social reformation had never before 
 followed the efforts of the Newspaper Press. The 
 religious education of poor children was one of the few 
 subjects on which too sensitive Parliaments had left 
 journalists a free hand. This was fortunate. In nearly 
 every other department (except the purely Academic) the 
 printer felt the pressure of thumb screws. On education 
 he was at least free to say that people were improved 
 by it. 
 
 It is only right to mention that another journalist, the 
 eminent John Nichols—" Mr. Urban," of the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, — shares largely with Mr. Raikes the gratitude 
 of the world for the spread and organisation of Sunday 
 schools after their usefulness had been demonstrated. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 6i 
 
 Reading now all that was published in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, one has the impression that Mr. Nichols was 
 fully aware of Raikes's design, and the hopes he 
 entertained, before any public references were made to 
 Sunday schools. In Nichols and the Gentleman's 
 Magazine we, in fact, get Raikes and the Gloucester Journal 
 speaking from another centre and, at times, with even 
 greater authority. When attacks were made on Sunday 
 schools the judicious assistance of Nichols was of the 
 first importance. 
 
 Mr. Raikes did not expose his little plan to public 
 criticism before satisfying himself that if new manners 
 were to prevail, and new conditions of societ)' arise, the 
 child, and not the adult, must be taken in hand in such a 
 manner that the laity could form an efficient auxiliary to 
 the church in its broadest sense. He had enlisted the 
 sympathies of clergymen in several neighbouring parishes. 
 John* and Charles Wesley and Whitefield were his 
 personal friends, and Charles Wesley sometimes stayed 
 at his house during the musical festival."f To say the 
 least, it is probable that prior to November 3rd, 1783, 
 Raikes had made known his scheme for reform to all men 
 capable of assisting him with advice and sympathy. 
 
 * See Chapter XV., "Mrs. Ladbroke's Letters." 
 
 t Mrs. Arabella Herbert says : " Mr. Charles Wesley was in the habit 
 of coming from Bristol to Gloucester to attend the musical festival, and 
 on these occasions he used to put up at R. Raikes's house. Upon one of 
 these occasions Mrs. Raikes was confined and Mr. Wesley had to go back 
 to Bristol that same night." 
 
 John Wesley when he came to Gloucester generally put up at Mr. 
 Kellow's, in St. Mary Square. Mr. Kellow was Mrs. Arabella Herbert's 
 grandfather. 
 
62 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Reading only what has survived destruction, it seems 
 probable that minds had been already prepared when the 
 Gloucester Journal of November 3rd, 1783, appeared with 
 the first printed reference to the new plan for evangelising 
 the young. 
 
 The paragraph was written in the form of an 
 " editorial," and in the only form in which " editorials " 
 took in the Journal. It ran : 
 
 " Some of the clergy, in different parts of this county, 
 bent upon attempting a reform among the children of the 
 lower class, are establishing Sunday schools, for rendering 
 the Lord's day subservient to the ends of instruction, 
 which has hitherto been prostituted to bad purposes. 
 Farmers, and other inhabitants of the towns and villages, 
 complain that they receive more injury in their property 
 on the Sabbath than all the week besides : this, in a great 
 measure, proceeds from the lawless state of the younger 
 class, who are allowed to run wild on that day, free from 
 every restraint. To remedy this evil, persons duly 
 qualified are employed to instruct those that cannot 
 read : and those that may have learnt to read, are 
 taught the Catechism and conducted to church. By thus 
 keeping their minds engaged, the day passes profitably, 
 and not disagreeably. In those parishes where the plan 
 has been adopted, we are assured that the behaviour 
 of the children is greatly civilized. The barbarous 
 ignorance in which they had before lived, being in some 
 degree dispelled, they begin to give proofs that those 
 persons are mistaken who consider the lower orders of 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 63 
 
 mankind incapable of improvement, and therefore think 
 an attempt to reclaim them impracticable, or, at least, not 
 worth the trouble." 
 
 This was Robert Raikes's Hegira. Had the under- 
 current of sympathy known at that date to exist not been 
 stimulated and strengthened, the movement would have 
 remained in its experimental stage, and, perhaps, have 
 died out — at all events for the time. It was at this 
 critical period that the Gentleman's Magazine — a monthly 
 periodical admirably conducted and of great influence — 
 threw open its columns to the advocacy of the new 
 idea, and obtained for it publicity and support. The 
 publication of Mr. Raikes's letter to Colonel Town ley, of 
 Sheffield, in the Gentleman's Magazine * in 1784, really, 
 and for the first time, put the reading and thinking 
 public of Great Britain in possession of his views 
 and results ; and the simplicity and effectiveness of 
 the method took possession at once of the imagination 
 of real workers, like Mrs. Hannah More, sighing for 
 better days. 
 
 Mr. Raikes's correspondence during the following 
 two or three years must have been very great. He was 
 apparently a rapid and vigorous letter writer, but it 
 is a very singular thing that with the exception of 
 about half a dozen lengthy letters written for the express 
 purpose of immediate publication, very few letters of his 
 are known to exist. Mr. Raikes did not keep a diary, 
 and there does not appear to have been any attempt to 
 * See Appendix A. 
 
64 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 preserve letters and correspondence on the subject of 
 Sunday schools. He may have destroyed his letters 
 from time to time, after having used items of information 
 in the newspaper. Items constantly appear about the 
 schools and school children, anniversary services and 
 special sermons preached on their behalf, and it does 
 seem more than probable that the great mass of his 
 correspondence was from time to time destroyed. It is ' 
 also worth noting that Mr. Raikes, almost from the first, 
 recognised the insufficiency of Sunday schools to meet 
 the national requirements. He wanted a national system 
 of education, and his own schools were weekday as well 
 as Sunday schools so soon as he could get women capable 
 of teaching. He also promoted schools of Industry, so 
 that his negligence in preserving correspondence may 
 be attributed to an idea that Sunday schools would 
 disappear with the appearance of day schools, and the 
 re-establishment of the old and salutary practice of 
 catechising children in churches on Sundays. 
 
 The work done by Mr. Raikes and his friends 
 becomes, in the most reliable sense, the early history of 
 the Sunday school movement, after its passage through 
 its experimental stage; and, regarding the movement as 
 from November, 1783, Robert Raikes is its true Founder. 
 After giving all credit to those who preceded him on very 
 much the same lines, and those who walked by his side 
 and worked with him from 1780 to 1783, we find that a 
 start is given in 1783 of which he was the sole centre, 
 and John Nichols from that time forth did more than any 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 65 
 
 other to ensure that the living potential centre of the 
 movement should not be wanting in attraction. 
 
 We are now in this position : we can see and 
 appreciate the tiny rivulets trickling in the parishes of 
 Stroud, Painswick, Dursley, Nailsworth, and outlying 
 parishes in the county of Gloucester, forming that small 
 but still sufficient stream for Raikes to direct the eyes of 
 the public to. For three years it had trickled, and he 
 was able to show Colonel Townley and the world that it 
 was possible " to raise up amongst the lowest of the 
 people a new race." 
 
 He had worked patiently and silently towards this 
 €nd, and when he was able to point to success in this 
 limited area the whole world took up the subject with the 
 eagerness which, in later years, it would discuss " the 
 ■conversion of slag and refuse into steel." The neglected 
 children of the poor were then the slag and refuse of 
 society. 
 
 The impression that from and after the hour that 
 
 publicity was given to Sunday schools everything went 
 
 gaily as a marriage bell, is a pleasing though popular 
 
 error. Had Mr. Raikes not brought a good deal of calm 
 
 common sense and sound business capacity to bear upon 
 
 the movement, it seems, even now, more than probable 
 
 that the nascent system would have died from want of 
 
 proper organisation. So soon as people enamoured of 
 
 the prospect of this birth of a new race among the lower 
 
 orders were willing to work, Mr. Raikes was ready to 
 
 ■assist them. The drawing up of rules for adoption by 
 
 6 
 
66 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 local committees was the first and most important thing, 
 if there was to be a sufficient principle of cohesion. 
 
 These earliest rules show faintly what was the 
 material to be worked on. The first rules provided for 
 personal cleanliness, and against cursing and swearing in 
 church. It was the business of the masters and mistresses 
 and teachers to prevent fighting, and the introduction of 
 live badgers into schoolrooms. Mr. Raikes knew what to 
 expect, and in the first rules very little care is taken to 
 provide against fine breaches of good conduct ; but in the 
 House of God he seemed always anxious that a spirit of 
 reverence should prevail. That reverence in church was 
 not innate, he was aware when the boys stuck pins into 
 each other and had to be removed, cursing and fighting. 
 The habit of blasphemy (although it means so little, is 
 yet most revolting in the mouths of children) is one of 
 the most difficult things to eradicate where the blasphemy 
 forms an integral part of the currency of speech. In the 
 Sunday Scholars' Companion there is an " Admonition 
 against Swearing." It proceeds : " There is no excuse to 
 be made to it. It has neither honour, pleasure, nor 
 profit attending it. It is teaching others, especially 
 children, the language of hell." This admonition was 
 probably intended to influence adults and parents. 
 There is a footnote in which it is said : " Thus a church 
 is to be kept holy, that is to be used only when people 
 meet together to worship and adore the Great Creator. 
 Would it not shock the most profligate if a beast market 
 were held in a church, and the floor and seats were seen 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 67 
 
 as filthy as a stable ; or if men were to be behave in the 
 House of God as they do in an alehouse ? " 
 
 The leading idea in the first work done towards the 
 evolution of the new race was to instil a sense of reverence. 
 If children could only be got to reverence something, 
 there was hope for discipline, and orderly conduct, and 
 industrial habits. We are not entitled on Mr. Raikes's 
 written and published authority to go beyond this in 
 his name, until he himself grew dissatisfied with the 
 insufficiency of the plan of 1783. In his own mind the 
 system was a living force and grew. 
 
 Those who acted with Mr. Raikes found it necessary 
 to strive for years against the habits of irreverence which 
 were engrained into the generation. In 1807 a pamphlet 
 was published for " T. Smith, No. ig Little Moorfields, 
 Secretary to the General Sunday School Society," 
 entitled, Hints for the Formation and Establishment of 
 Sunday Schools. It is here recommended that corporal 
 punishment should be avoided in Sunday schools as much 
 as possible ; and Rule 3 shows a very unsatisfactory state 
 of things : 
 
 " If any scholars do not come clean, washed and 
 combed, or be guilty of lying, swearing, pilfering, talking 
 in an indecent manner," &c., then the scholars shall be 
 excluded the school if "he or she" is still unreformed. 
 The sexes were pretty much on a level at the commence- 
 ment of the century. 
 
 On this subject of the conduct of children, there exists 
 an earlier description, written by Mrs Trimmer, and pub- 
 
68 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 lished in 1787. Sunday schools had been established 
 in Old Brentford, and Mrs. Trimmer, being a literary 
 woman, looked at the whole matter with observant 
 literary eyes. A want of reverence and entire disregard 
 for personal cleanliness in both sexes, called for immediate 
 observation. For instance, she would teach girls not to 
 clatter into church with their pattens on ; and she would 
 have boys take off their caps — if they possessed any — on 
 entering the church door. Then she wanted children to ' 
 be taught that the singing of psalms was a solemn part 
 of divine worship, and not a mere accomplishment for 
 vulgar people in the streets. Some useful admonitions 
 were put up in the schools at Old Brentford. A few 
 may be given shortly : 
 
 " When you are in church, kneel." 
 
 " When the Clergyman enters arise from your 
 seats." 
 
 " Pray for yourselves." 
 
 " Pray for others." 
 
 " Do not talk in church : do not eat apples or other 
 things either there or in school ; for you come to church 
 and to school to serve God and to learn your duty, not 
 to eat and drink." 
 
 " Do not spoil hassocks, or anything belonging to the 
 house of God." 
 
 " Do not sing at improper times." 
 
 " Those among you who have coughs should take care 
 not to give way to them, as the noise is very disturbing 
 to other people." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 69 
 
 Very useful admonitions these, and very much like 
 Mrs. Trimmer ! 
 
 Then for the evening there are more admonitions : 
 
 " Keep from swearing, stealing, and lying." 
 
 " Let no one tempt you to drink drams." 
 
 " Do not fight or quarrel, call nicknames, or tell 
 tales." 
 
 " Do not take birds' nests, spin cockchafers, or do 
 anything to torment dumb creatures." 
 
 " Bow to gentlemen and ladies whenever you meet 
 them." 
 
 " Remember the Christian Covenant." 
 
 " Come to school early next Sunday." 
 
 " Come with your faces and hands clean, your hair 
 combed, and your apparel neat." 
 
 " Go home quietly ! " 
 
 There are a great many of these " admonitions," but 
 the pith of those which are here given will suffice ; and 
 they serve, amongst other things, to show that the 
 descriptions of the conduct of the young ragamuffins, 
 whom Mr. Raikes tried to cultivate in Sooty Alley and 
 Grey Fryars, only falls short of accuracy by not being 
 sufficiently descriptive. 
 
 Another point on which Mrs. Trimmer comes into 
 agreement with Mr. Raikes is, that at the end of a year 
 the human soul becomes visible in the child. Speaking 
 of the girls, she says that they came at first deplorably 
 ragged and shamefully dirty. " Most of the scholars 
 were so deficient as not even to know a single letter ; and 
 
70 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 many, nay, even some of the bigger girls, were not able 
 to tell who made them." With regard to the boys, she 
 says : " In respect to religious knowledge and civility of 
 manners, many of them were as untaught as the savages 
 of America, and an arduous task it has been found to 
 govern some of them." We may suppose that the gentle 
 Mrs. Trimmer stops short here of descriptions of badger 
 baiting, fighting and swearing among the boys, especially 
 as she found great improvement in all respects at the end 
 of a single year. 
 
 This was the grand secret of the early and continued 
 and continuous success of Sunday schools — they worked 
 
 WELL. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NEW LIFE. 
 
 " He who knows and does not teach is as a myrtle flowering in the 
 desert. ' ' — Talmud. 
 
 " God begins His work in children."— John Wesley, 1784. 
 
 MR. RAIKES was " in advance of his time " when he 
 relied on something so elementary and simple as the 
 education of children for the production of " a new race "; 
 and what became apparent to him sooner than to most 
 persons was, that the new departure adapted itself to 
 every circumstance and condition of society. How much 
 he was in advance of the public is shown in this : whilst 
 others were in their first or experimental stage, he was 
 already dissatisfied with Sunday schools unless they 
 were — as they in time became and now are — auxiliary to 
 a more complete system of education. 
 
 The old files of the Gloucester Journal* afford some most 
 instructive reading when we are endeavouring to follow 
 Mr. Raikes's views. As Editor, he had so many 
 opportunities for expressing his own, or adopting those 
 of others similar to his own, that the Journal — when 
 
 * The late Mr. Walker's great kindness in lending these most valuable 
 files for leisurely inspection is only one of several acts of courtesy which 
 1 have much pleasure in acknowledging. — Editor. 
 
 71 
 
72 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 we know how to read it — becomes a diary of the most 
 valuable character. 
 
 Year by year we are able to trace the steady 
 application of the following ideas : 
 
 "Ignorance is the root of the degradation everywhere 
 around us." 
 
 '■ Idleness is a consequence of ignorance." 
 
 "Idleness begets vice, and vice leads to the gallows." 
 
 Another series of arguments is found in brief sentences 
 leading to the following conclusions : 
 
 " Prevention is better than punishment." 
 
 " Religion must wait on improved education among 
 the masses before we shall be able to make much advance; 
 but religion and education may go together." 
 
 It was whilst he was labouring week after week to 
 obtain permanent prison reform, anticipating Howard by 
 many years in Gloucester, that he worked out this 
 conclusion : With knowledge will come the upward 
 tendency of man to spring towards the light. 
 
 B3' carefully reading the Journal, it will be seen that 
 he was more than twenty years coming to this conclusion, 
 and believing in it sufficiently to act on it. Popularly 
 speaking, he was not a brilliant man like Canning, nor an 
 enthusiast like Whitefield, but ideas once fixed in his 
 mind slowly unfolded and developed. 
 
 In August, 1785, he had come to the conclusion that 
 Sunday schools alone were not sufficient. A Sunday and 
 day school had been opened at Mitcheldene, and then 
 he writes : " This school is an improvement on Sunday 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 73 
 
 schools ; for not only do they have school on the Sunday 
 but in the week, suitable to the capacities of poor 
 children when they are out of work." 
 
 This was a marvellously frank confession of in- 
 sufficiency, just at the moment when the whole civilised 
 world was ringing with the praises of the new plan.* 
 From the columns of the newspaper we see that Mr. 
 Raikes kept his mind open and was willing himself to be 
 instructed. 
 
 He believed that hungry children were easier handled 
 and better taught by being fed, and said a word of 
 approval of Lady Ducie's beef and plum-pudding dinners 
 on Sundays. He also approved of persons sending to the 
 Trustees of the Mitcheldene Sunday School "a sum of 
 money sufficient to buy a 3d. loaf for each of the Sunday 
 scholars." There is a note in the spirit of apology for 
 this kind of biibery to be good, but he says "rewards 
 serve to emulate the children " ; and from the first he 
 acted on this principle. 
 
 The brief paragraphs in the Journal stand out with 
 almost pathetic simplicity because of their nakedness. 
 For example : " October, 1785. Two hundred children of 
 the lower class have been taught to read in the Painswick 
 Sunday School, and that, therefore, they who were 
 conspicuous for their brutality and profaneness have now 
 become quiet, and have a sense of respect and subordina- 
 tion to their superiors." 
 
 Mr. Raikes's second important and acknowledged 
 
 * See Appendix B . 
 
74 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 appeal to the public through the Journal appears on 
 May 24th, 1784, and there is a quotation from the London 
 Chronicle to the effect that in Leeds two thousand poor 
 children had been admitted into Sunday schools. 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine backed up Raikes's efforts 
 in all directions. Under the head of " County News " 
 [1784J there is a special reference to the Leeds schools. 
 " This institution," it is said, " wears a most pleasing 
 appearance, and were it to be adopted generally, would 
 do more towards lessening the increase of felons than all 
 the schemes that have been proposed. Strictness in 
 keeping the Lord's Day gives an early bias in the mind to 
 virtue, and estabhshes an abhorrence to vice. Scotland 
 exhibits an example. There the Sabbath is strictly kept, 
 and there the executions for felony are few, though the 
 people are poor." 
 
 On the opening of a Sunday school at Chester, when 
 150 children were admitted, " Mr. Urban " says : " Their 
 clean and decent appearance at church formed a most 
 pleasing sight." 
 
 The Kendal [Westmorland] Sunday School Managers 
 published their annual report, and " Mr. Urban" gives the 
 following items: Scholars admitted 331; 47 "gone 
 apprentices to service." Subscriptions amounted " only 
 to £57 4s. 6d." 
 
 Then "Mr. Urban" gives his friend in Gloucester a 
 little kindly encouragement, just when he wants it 
 perhaps, for he was sometimes dispirited and needed a 
 helping hand, as we shall see directly. Vol. Ivii. [1787] 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 75 
 
 contains the following short article, which is evidently an 
 excuse to enable Robert Raikes to speak in the pages of 
 the Gentleman's : 
 
 "The truly benevolent Mr. Raikes, in a private letter 
 to our printer, November 13th, 1787 (which his own good 
 heart will pardon our thus divulging) after politely 
 noticing the mention we have occasionally made of ' his 
 project for civilizing the common people of this kingdom,' 
 and observirxg that ' he has found the plan more widely 
 dispersed by the Gentleman's Magazine than by any other 
 publication,' adds : ' It is incredible with what rapidity 
 this grain of mustard seed is extending its branches over 
 the kingdom. The third of this month completes four* 
 years since I first mentioned the expediency of Sunday 
 schools in the Gloucester Journal, and by the best 
 information I am assured that the number of poor 
 children who were heretofore neglected as the wild asses' 
 colt, but who are now taken to these little seminaries t of 
 instruction, amounts to 250,000. In the town of Newcastle 
 alone the seminaries contain 5,000. 
 
 " ' It would dehght you to observe the cheerfulness 
 
 * Mr. Raikes generally dates the movement from the 3rd November, 
 1783, when he stood committed to the plan by its publication. It seems as 
 though he had up to then held himself free not to continue his schools 
 started in 1780, unless satisfied with the results obtained. He never 
 contested or challenged honours claimed by or on behalf of anyone prior to 
 1783, after which date he was the " Organiser " by universal consent. 
 
 t Mr. Raikes having once found a word or phrase to suit him, 
 invariably made it his own. In going through the newspaper files one 
 learns quickly to identify his work. "Seminaries" was a pet word 
 of his, and "grain of mustard seed" and "wild asses' colt," favourite 
 illustrations. 
 
76 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Mith which the children [in Gloucester] attend on the 
 Sunday. * 
 
 "'A woman told me last Sunday that her boy 
 enquires of her every night whether he has done anything 
 in the day that will furnish a complaint against him on 
 Sunday. You see, sir, to what care and vigilance this, 
 may lead. — Yours, &c., R. Raikes.' " 
 
 In August, 1784, we find " the suppression of Sunday 
 revels and wakes is becoming very general in this, 
 country." These Sunday revels, however, died hard in 
 the West of England, and may still be heard of in Devon. 
 
 Then follows the announcement : " The establishment 
 of Sunday schools, we also hear, is becoming very general. 
 . . . The children of the poor, who were heretofore 
 allowed to pass the Sunday in licentious idleness, are now 
 engaged in acquiring a knowledge of their duty, and 
 attending public worship." 
 
 Later in the year is the intelligence that in the parish 
 of Nympsfield, where there has been great improvement 
 in the morals and habits of the children, " Lady Ducie 
 has recently given the school children a Sunday dinner of 
 beef and pudding."t The effect was that: "The children 
 
 * A very different state of things to what at first prevailed. 
 
 t This, no doubt, was very pleasant news for poor, hungry little 
 children, and showed Lady Ducie's good sense. But she had a forerunner 
 in good Mrs. Catharine Boevey, of Flaxley Abbey, who died in 1726. This 
 good lady used to have every Sunday to dine with her, by turns, six of the 
 school children at Flaxley ; and after they had dined she heard them say their 
 Catechism. This must have been a popular Sunday school, but the children 
 at Flaxley were limited. When good Mrs. Boevey died this very wholesome 
 custom was discontinued. — See Ballard's Memoirs of British Ladies, &•(■. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 77 
 
 used to go about begging on Sundays of any stranger 
 that came into the village, and now they go to church and 
 behave themselves well." 
 
 These buddings of the new life were very precious. 
 Nor were testimonies wanting from almost every quarter, 
 from those who were competent to speak, that the life 
 was " New." 
 
 The Bishop of Salisbury wrote, 1785 * : "I have 
 established them [Sunday schools] in every parish where 
 my property lies, and warmly recommended them in my 
 Diocese. . . . From the experience I have already 
 had of the benefits arising from these institutions to good 
 order, morals and religion, amongst the lower ranks of the 
 people, I feel the most earnest satisfaction at the prospect 
 of their becoming general." 
 
 The Bishop of Llandaff, 1785, t says: "I have long 
 thought favourably of Sunday schools, and that experience 
 alone would be the sure test of their utility. I have taken 
 some steps towards introducing them into the large towns 
 in my Diocese." 
 
 The Dean of Lincoln, in his charge to the Clergy of 
 the Archdeaconry of Nottingham (April, 1786), after 
 referring to the late increase of capital crimes, owing to 
 the universal depravity of the people, says: "The 
 contemplation of this would be a gloomy office but for the 
 establishment of Sunday schools." He then adds : 
 " Having anxiously watched their infancy and attended to 
 their progress, I have thought their principles the most 
 
 * Letter to Mr. Henry Thornton. t il>id. 
 
78 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 unequivocal, their influences the most extensive, that can 
 be employed in the cause of general reformation. . . . 
 Nor will the benefit be solely confined to the children 
 who partake of these benevolent aids ; it will import- 
 antly affect the manners of families and even of the 
 neighbourhood to which they belong." 
 
 The Rev. John Fletcher, who seemed to his contem- 
 poraries more of a saint than a man, commenced gathering 
 children together for Sunday instruction, so soon as Mrs. 
 Derby — a lady alwa3?s ready to promote every good work 
 — brought Sunday schools under his notice. The Rev. 
 John Wesley, in his Life of Fletcher, bears testimony to 
 the delight which Fletcher took in the schools, in which 
 reading, writing, and the principles of religion were 
 taught. He established six schools — three for boys and 
 three for girls — at Madeley, Madeley Wood, and Coalbrook 
 Dale. Says Wesley : " It was not long before he [Mr. 
 Fletcher] observed that a general reformation had taken 
 place in the parish, and it was not only an outward 
 reformation, even of many that had been notorious for all 
 manner of wickedness, but an inward also ; many, both 
 young and old, having learnt to worship God in spirit and 
 in truth." 
 
 The feelings of respect and goodwill which Raikes had 
 for Wesley were fully reciprocated. They respected each 
 the other's work, and each the other for doing it. In the 
 Gloucester Journal the veteran preacher was always spoken 
 kindly of, and sometimes his future movements recorded. 
 On the other hand, John Wesley finding Sunday schools 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 79 
 
 springing up everywhere, preached them everywhere, and 
 recommended them by letter to everyone. This man did 
 nothing by halves. In 1784 he wrote : " Perhaps God 
 may have a deeper end thereto than men are aware of. 
 Who knows but what some of these schools may become 
 nurseries for Christians ! " 
 
 His intellectual vision was certainly not at fault, and 
 his admiration for school children knew no bounds. At 
 Bolton, 1788, he found that their voices could not be 
 exceeded, except, perhaps, by " the singing of angels in 
 our Father's house." Then their faces attracted him : 
 " Both boys and girls had as beautiful faces as, I believe, 
 England or Europe can afford ; and when they sang, their 
 melody was beyond that of any theatre ! " When he 
 wrote to his brother Charles, he said : " This is one of the 
 best institutions which has been seen in Europe for many 
 centuries." The child of to-day would be the adult of 
 to-morrow ; but he was most concerned with the adult of 
 to-day and yesterday, perishing under his eyes and in his 
 very grasp. These must be saved now, and this was his 
 work. Raikes's he looked on as vastly important and 
 supplemental to his own ; so he incorporated it, and 
 made the care of children a prominent feature in all his 
 Societies. 
 
 The Dean of Lincoln's observation, that the teaching 
 of children did and would have far-reaching and bene- 
 ficial influences upon families and neighbourhoods, was 
 carried still further by a correspondent of the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, who said : " If these useful seminaries are 
 
So ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 supported, many thousands of children when adults, 
 more than at any other period, will then have the capacity 
 of contributing to the sciences ; thousands for the want 
 of the capacity to read — the introduction to all knowledge 
 ■ — take up the alternative of idle and unprofitable company 
 at public-houses and the like. And if, besides this, with 
 the increase of Book Clubs all over the country, a number 
 of farmers are now iismg their bacon racks in the double 
 capacity of bookcases, we may reasonably expect that 
 ignorance and superstition will be driven from their latest 
 retreats." 
 
 These shrewd and practical remarks are so entirely 
 consistent with what we know Mr. Raikes often wrote, 
 that it is quite probable that the communication came 
 from, or was inspired by, him. The waste of intellect, 
 simply because children were neglected, was an observa- 
 tion worthy of a man who had studied the subject, and 
 we find the use of the word " seminaries " for Sunday 
 schools, which was his own particular word for describing 
 them. 
 
 In 1789 Mr. Raikes commenced a correspondence, 
 which extended over a considerable period, with the 
 Rev. William Lewelyn, of Leominster, and in letters 
 which have been preserved occur some passages which 
 give a remarkably clear insight into the operations of his 
 mind. In one place he says : " I have two clergymen* 
 engaged with me in an effort to raise up, among the 
 
 *It is generally supposed the Rev. Thomas Stock and the Rev. 
 Richard Raikes are meant ; Mr. Stock died in 1803, and Mr. Richard 
 Raikes in 1823. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 lowest of the people, a new race, taught at an early period 
 the happiness of thinking on that which is good, and 
 bringing those thoughts into action in the several duties 
 that Christianity enjoyns. We consider it as an experiment 
 how far it be practicable to lead mankind, by slow and 
 gentle steps, to the comforts and peace that good morals 
 supply, and thereby render those a blessing who have 
 hitherto been a scandal to the community." 
 
 In 1792 Mr. Raikes writes : 
 
 " If the higher orders of society would seek this true 
 and exalted pleasure, they would find it more readily in 
 promoting the glory of their Creator, than in sacrificing 
 to those idols that sensuality has set up. Let them go 
 about doing good, as He whose example we ought to 
 imitate. Let them visit the mansions of ignorance and 
 vice, and hold forth light to men that sit in darkness, and 
 lead them to the knowledge of Him that is invisible, but 
 who may be plainly seen in the work of His hands and 
 the dispensations of His providence." 
 
 Then follows his own account of a little address which 
 lie himself gave to children in a Sunday school : 
 
 " I had, some time ago, been exerting my feeble 
 powers to convey some ideas of this kind to some poor 
 children, at the opening of a Sunday school in a village in 
 this neighbourhood [Gloucester], where, till then, the 
 poor had been entirely neglected; and a little boy, who 
 -had listened attentively to my conversation, went home 
 
82 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 to his mother (as I was afterwards informed) and asked 
 her whether that gentleman had not been at [sic] 
 Heaven ? 
 
 " The simpHcity of the question diverted me very 
 much when I heard it. It shewed, however, that the 
 boy's mind had been strongly impressed." 
 
 In the next letter he writes : 
 
 " It would please me to show you my flock, and I 
 think it would divert you to see the pleasure we take in 
 each other's company. Instead of running out of church as- 
 though released from a situation of the most painful 
 restraint, you will see them waiting for my leaving my 
 seat, and then crowding around me as though I had 
 loaves and fishes to distribute." 
 
 Mr. Raikes was fond of telling his correspondent 
 about the little outcasts whom he now calls " My children.'' 
 In March, 1792, he says : 
 
 " My children last Sunday told me that they were 
 sorry when the time came that I was to leave them. The 
 subject of my conversation with them was the History of 
 Joseph. It occurred in the lesson for the day. I brought 
 it down to a level with their conditions, with Joseph as a 
 poor boy like one of them. You would have been agreably 
 [sic'] struck with the fixed attention of their little minds. 
 I dare say many went home and told the story to their 
 parents. 
 
 " What delightful sensations spring up in the mind,. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 83 
 
 when the faculties and powers are engaged in promoting 
 the glory of Him that is invisible ! " 
 
 The following lengthy extract shows Mr. Raikes in the 
 capacity of a teacher, and the powers which he had to 
 rivet the attention of the children and instruct them. It 
 bears date Gloucester, November 8th, 1793. 
 
 " I have lately had a new flock of children [Sunday 
 school] come about me from a singular circumstance. I 
 was shewing my Sunday scholars a little time ago how 
 possible it is for an invisible power to exist in bodies 
 which shall act upon other bodies without our being able 
 to perceive in what manner they act. This I prove to 
 them by the powers of the magnet. They see the magnet 
 draw the needle without touching it. Thus, I tell them, 
 I wish to draw them to the paths of duty, and thus lead 
 them to Heaven and happiness ; and as they saw one 
 needle, when it had touched the magnet then capable of 
 drawing another needle, thus when they became good 
 they would be made the instruments in the hands of God, 
 very probably, of making other boys good. 
 
 " Upon this idea those children are now endeavouring 
 to bring other children to meet me at church, and you 
 would be diverted to see with what a groupe [sic] I am 
 surrounded every morning at seven o'clock prayers, at the 
 Cathedral, especially upon a Sunday morning, at which 
 time I give books, or combs, or other encouragements. 
 Sometimes they read to me a part of the Gospel for the 
 day, which I explain in a manner suited and applied to 
 
84 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 their own situations and comprehensions. They were 
 reading that verse in St. Luke, the other morning, where 
 our Saviour says : ' The Kingdom of God cometh not with 
 observation.'* 'The Kingdom of God is within you.' t 
 Who can tell me, says [sic] I, what we are to understand by 
 that expression — ' The Kingdom of God is within you ' ? 
 They were all silent for some minutes. At last the boy 
 who was reading said : ' I believe it means when the 
 Spirit of God is in our hearts.' 
 
 " Don't you think this is encouragement to cultivate 
 the lower orders of the people ? I could recount to you 
 numberless incidents of this nature that occur to me, to 
 render my scheme of botanizing in human nature 
 pleasant and agreable. But I have been already too 
 tedious and prolix. 
 
 " I wish you lived near me ; I should receive aid 
 and new degrees of strength and animation from you. 
 But, alas, now nobody regards the design. I walk alone. 
 It seems as if I had discovered a new country where no other 
 adventurer chooses to follow. But if you were here, I am 
 sure I should not travel alone." 
 
 Here is an item which has a pleasant sound, and 
 would be agreeable even in the ears of Sunday school 
 teachers to-day : 
 
 " I have invited all my Sunday school children to dine 
 with me on New Year's Day [1795], on beef and plum 
 pudding. I wish you could step in and see what clean 
 
 * Luke, chap, xvii., verse zo. t Ibid, verse 21. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 85 
 
 and joyous countenances we shall exhibit, and you would 
 not be displeased to hear how well they sing their 
 Maker's praise." 
 
 Mr. Raikes, on his own showing, was not " a myrtle 
 flowering in the desert," but a careful cultivator of the 
 new life, which seemed to have sprung into being in a 
 Sahara where all before was desolate. 
 
 Note. — These letters from Mr. Raikes to Mr. Lewelyn have been 
 preserved by Mr. J. B. Froysell, into whose possession they passed on his 
 marriage with a member of the Rev. gentleman's family. To Mr. Froysell's 
 care the Sunday school world owes a great deal. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OPPOSING FORCES. 
 
 " No good thing was ever started without its being opposed ; but when 
 a thing is good and is wanted, opposition is the best thing that can happen 
 to it."— MS. 
 
 ONE of the earliest of Mr. Raikes's public supporters 
 was the Earl of Ducie, and he formed one of the 
 members of a School Board for the management of 
 five schools, to which there were admitted ']'] boys and 
 88 girls ; and in December, 1784, the Committee met for 
 the purpose of framing rules of management. Altogether 
 sixteen rules were passed for the conduct of these schools 
 in Gloucester, and so business-like are they that one would 
 suppose they had been framed beforehand by someone 
 already expert in management. The language contained 
 in some of the rules is precisely that which we have 
 grown accustomed to read in Mr. Raikes's newspaper 
 and letters, and there is internal evidence that these first 
 rules were framed by him and, perhaps, the Rev. Thomas 
 Stock. 
 
 These rules are most important now, as showing that 
 the Committee treated themselves as the acting board of 
 trustees to a charity which was to be supported on the 
 Voluntary principle. Apparently it never occurred to 
 
 86 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 87 
 
 these gentlemen, or any kindred body during Mr. Raikes's 
 lifetime, that the education of the young was the business 
 of the State. The business of the State was then thought 
 to be punitive, and not preventive. Mr. Raikes had for 
 many years been preaching to deaf ears that prevention 
 might render punishment unnecessary, and certainly would 
 reduce its frequency. He did not, however, look to the 
 State for aid. 
 
 Nearly everything in this country, outside of punish- 
 ment and repression, has had its origin in Voluntary 
 effort, and in the last century in the county of Gloucester 
 charitable bequests seemed to be the soul of everything. 
 There were charities of all descriptions, and the feeding, 
 clothing, and educating of children were not forgotten. 
 Even to-day the old parish churches are decorated with 
 letters of gold on black panels, spelling the various gifts 
 of pious donors. The saying, " As sure as God 's in 
 Gloucester," had a special significance for the poor at all 
 seasons of the year, and especially in the winter. This 
 spirit of charity in perpetuity was, perhaps, rooted in 
 pre- Reformation practices, and the Church remained the 
 almoner of the nation whatever changes took place in 
 ritual and doctrine. So it came about that Robert 
 Raikes, growing up in the habit and practice of treating 
 everything unselfishly undertaken and given for the public 
 good as charities, and their managers as trustees, fell into 
 the prevailing custom with regard to Sunday schools. 
 
 Very soon after the formation of the Sunday School 
 Board, with the Earl of Ducie as a member and Lady 
 
88 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Ducie actively benevolent, we find Mr. Raikes judiciously 
 publishing paragraphs in the Journal in favour of week- 
 day schools and schools of industry. So soon did this 
 take place after the formation of the Sunday School 
 Board, that the presumption is the acting committee 
 gave extended popular education their support. Nothing 
 was wanted but funds, and, from 1784-5 onwards, the 
 columns of the newspaper were made the vehicle for 
 chronicling donations, the formation of fresh charities, 
 the creation of new trusts and trustees, the opening of 
 new schools — Sunday, day, or industrial — throughout the 
 kingdom. Here are specimens taken pretty much at 
 random : 
 
 "The parish of St. James and St. Paul, in the city of 
 Bristol, exhibited on Monday last 450 children rescued 
 from idleness, filthiness, and vice, and trained up in habits 
 of industry and good order. This is an experiment to 
 show how far prevention of crimes is preferable to punish- 
 ment." 
 
 " A sermon was preached at Manchester, in the 
 Methodist chapel, by the Rev. Dr. Coke, for the benefit 
 of Sunday schools for the children of all denominations, 
 where ;^ioo 3s. lod. was collected." "At Tetbury the 
 collection amounted to £73 4s. 3d., and it was thought 
 that, if some of the principal inhabitants had not been 
 gone from home, it would have been more." " The 
 inhabitants of Great Malvern [April, 1800] gave the S.S. 
 children a dinner of roast beef and potatoes, plum pudding 
 and cyder." " Donations of 1^300 East India stock have 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 89 
 
 been given to the parish of Painswick in support of Sunday 
 schools, and a like sum in like .stock in support of day 
 and industrial schools." A donation of ^1,000 is then 
 recorded for the use of Sunday schools in a small parish. 
 
 These are specimens of items inserted every week, and 
 enable us to understand how and in what manner a volun- 
 tary movement, spreading to all the corners of the king- 
 dom, was able to meet all demands without once soliciting 
 the State for aid. It was at the commencement, and it 
 still is, one of the triumphs of the Sunday school that 
 children were never excluded because there was no room 
 or no funds ; another and not less triumph is, that in an 
 old Aristocratic State the Sunday school performed the 
 purest piece of democratic labour ever achieved since the 
 days of the Apostles — the people taught the people free 
 and freely. 
 
 After the novelty had passed there appears to have 
 grown up prejudices against the education of the children 
 of the poor. The political agitations of the times made 
 many anxious to believe that the masses of the people 
 could only be " kept in their places " and content so long 
 as they were ignorant. The upheaval in France struck 
 terror into the souls of easy-going, untravelled people in 
 the country, to whom the word " revolution " meant the 
 guillotine, and any and every change disturbing the social 
 balaqces was looked on with distrust. 
 
 The minds of the poor sought to be benefited were 
 prejudiced and inflamed against those who wished to 
 
90 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 benefit them. When Mrs. Hannah More, a personal 
 friend of the Raikeses, attempted to form a Sunday 
 school in the Cheddar district parents would not allow 
 their children to attend, because it was said she wished 
 to convey the children beyond sea, and sell them for 
 slaves in the West Indies ! It took her two years to 
 make appreciable progress. According to the Imperial 
 Magazine, the common people, having no idea of the first 
 principles of Christianity, said : " Whoever heard of 
 people taking pains to bestow benefits on the poor without 
 having some selfish object ? " They also said : " Religion 
 will neither fill our bellies nor clothe our backs, and as to 
 reading, it only serves to make poor folks proud and idle." 
 
 That the plan received the support of the wealthy and 
 educated is certain ; but there were times when Raikes 
 himself felt isolated and alone. 
 
 Writing to Mr. Lewelyn in May, 1790, he says : " I 
 did not conceive that I held any degree of esteem among 
 my neighbours, and am, therefore, the more astonished at 
 your having heard anything praiseworthy of one that here 
 seems to be walking alone.* I can prevail on no one to 
 second me in my little efforts to civilise the long-despised 
 and neglected children of indigence." 
 
 That Mr. Raikes had seasons of depression is evi- 
 denced by this open confession, which, however, is tinged 
 with extravagance. This may be pardoned, because all 
 
 * After a man has done his very best, adverse, though kindly, criti- 
 cism entails this feeling of loneliness. When Dean Stanley and other 
 friends severely judged John Richard Green's History of the English 
 People, he said with simple pathos that their judgment left him " lonely." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 91 
 
 men, working unselfishly, feel keenly when those around 
 them fail in sympathy, and do not appear to wish to 
 understand the spiritual movement of the motive which 
 inspires them. If those around them work only on the 
 lower plane, and do not understand that beyond the 
 present there is an ideal which must be aimed at, then 
 the feeling of isolation and weariness comes over them and 
 inflicts positive pain. Men are often so isolated among 
 their co-workers that the burden of effort seems too heavy 
 for them, and they are saved from despair sometimes by 
 natural combativeness, and sometimes by an appeal to a 
 higher power for strength and endurance. 
 
 How long adverse forces were gathering strength we 
 cannot say, but it must have been some time before 
 " Mr. Urban " threw open the Gentleman's Magazine to 
 an old and valued contributor for him to make a slashing 
 onslaught on Sunday schools and their founder. This 
 was in 1797, a period when we have been in the habit of 
 looking upon the system as secure from all opposition and 
 mahce; and it seems almost certain that the editor of the 
 Magazine must have known that there existed a great deal 
 of dishke to Sunday education before admitting an article 
 which ran counter to all his previously pronounced sym- 
 pathies. We may take it for granted that John Nichols, 
 knowing of an adverse opinion amongst educated men, 
 felt compelled to admit the article, so that he should not 
 suffer in his reputation for fairness. 
 
 The article was written, and probably by a clergyman, 
 under his usual signature of " Eusebius." It is very long, 
 
92 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and the writer voiced the growing apprehension that the 
 education of the poor would unfit them for menial* 
 service, raise discontent, and foment rebellion. The 
 shadow of the great French Revolution rested on his 
 page. The article concludes with the following words : 
 
 " We may, therefore, conclude that the Sunday school 
 is so far from being the wise, useful, or prudential institu- 
 tion (it is said to be) that it is in reality productive of no 
 valuable advantage, but, on the contrary, is subversive of 
 that order, that industry, that peace and tranquility which 
 constituted the happiness of society ; and that, so far from 
 deserving encouragement and applause, it merits our contempt, 
 and ought to be exploded as the vain chimerical institution of a 
 visionary projector.'" 
 
 There is no evidence that Mr. Raikes himself took any 
 notice publicly of the attack, but he was not wanting in 
 defenders, month after month. It is, however, curious to 
 notice that even those who supported him at this crisis 
 confessed that at one time they feared the experiment. 
 They were well-wishers to education, but feared secretly 
 that the bold experiment of teaching the masses only on 
 one day in the week would have far - reaching and 
 dangerous consequences. Mr. Edwin Goodwin (vol. 
 Ixvii.) said frankly : 
 
 " At the first institution of these schools I was doubtful 
 indeed whether these poor children, who have thus an 
 opportunity of being instructed on Sundays only, could 
 * See Appendix C, Sunday Scholars' Companion. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 93 
 
 make much improvement. But, thank God ! I have hved 
 to find my mistake." * 
 
 There are no means of ascertaining what the results of 
 this impeachment of Sunday school education were ; but 
 we do find, only three years later, that the Bishop of 
 Rochester was popularly credited with having expressed 
 himself as an opponent of these schools in a speech in the 
 House of Lords. So well was this known, and so generally 
 was it believed, that the Right Rev. Prelate, at his Second 
 ■General Visitation in the year 1800, said in his Charge : 
 
 " A report has been circulated, by a misrepresentation, 
 I suppose, in the public prints, that -in a debate in the 
 House of Peers, in which I had a considerable share, at 
 the close of the last Session of Parliament, I spoke with 
 decided disapprobation of all these institutions. 
 
 " The report is false. I spoke of them on that occasion 
 •as I have always spoken, and always shall speak, as 
 institutions that may be very beneficial or very pernicious, 
 according as they are well or ill-conducted, and according 
 as they are placed in proper or improper hands. I said 
 Ihat schools of Jacobinical rebellion and Jacobinical 
 politics — that is to say, schools of atheism and disloyalty — 
 
 *Eusebius replies [December 14th, 1797], and says: "There is an 
 idea of humanity and benevolence annexed to the institution of Sunday 
 schools which captivates the ignorant and superficial observer, and makes 
 many look with a malignant aspect on a writer who questions their utility." 
 He insists " that industry in the lowest classes of society is better than scholarship, 
 and that to give them the latter without the former is to put swords into 
 their hands which may be instruments to their own destruction." In 
 closing the correspondence, "Mr. Urban" lets his readers into the fact 
 .that " Eusebius " is " an old and respectable correspondent." 
 
94 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 abound in this country ; schools in the shape and disguise- 
 of charity schools and Sunday schools, in which the^ 
 minds of the children of the very lowest order are en- 
 lightened — that is to say, taught to despise religion and 
 the laws and all subordination. This I know to be fact; 
 but the proper antidote for the poison of the Jacobite 
 schools will be schools of the same class under the man- 
 agement of the parochial clergy. 
 
 " Sunday schools, therefore, under your own inspection, 
 I would advise you to encourage. Leave nothing to the 
 inspection of the master or mistress. Suffer no books to 
 be introduced but such as have had your previous appro- 
 bation. And in the choice of the Expositions of the 
 Church Catechism, which are almost the only books 
 requisite in such schools besides Psalters, Prayer-books, 
 Testaments, and Bibles, you would do well to fix on those 
 which you find in the list of the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, upon which you will be sure to find: 
 none that are in any way exceptionable." 
 
 This precise and guarded language shows the existence 
 (at all events) of a terror in the minds of men living when 
 France was under the shadow of the guillotine, and 
 England clamouring for more popular franchises. 
 
 What Mr. Raikes had been trying to do may be given 
 in his own words to Mr. Lewelyn : 
 
 " In my visit to my Sunday school last Sunday I 
 remarked some of my sheep had gone astray. On 
 my enquiry, one of the boys told me that they were 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 95, 
 
 at play with a set of wicked boys in a neighbouring 
 field. 
 
 " 'Alas! ' said I, 'the wicked one was afraid we should 
 lead all the poor boys to Heaven. He has, therefore, set 
 up a Sunday school against us to lead some to his place 
 of torment. 
 
 " ' Let those now who take pleasure in wickedness go 
 to their master ; but I know that all who wish to call God 
 their friend will come and take part with me. But do you 
 now mark the end of these boys who have joined our 
 adversary; and their fate, I am convinced, will confirm 
 you in your duty.' 
 
 " By this mode I endeavour to avail myself of the folly of 
 the bad to strengthen the good." * 
 
 The struggle, even if keenly felt by those who were 
 put upon the defensive for attempting to do good, was not 
 for long. The time had arrived when human ingenuity 
 had prepared the way for a future which could not be 
 satisfied with the old restrictions, and the bonds once 
 burst could never be re-united. At the time that opposition 
 was keenest no less than 250,000 children were receiving 
 the rudiments of education, and learning to bring them- 
 selves under that disciplinary self-control necessary for 
 the stability of social order and to progress. 
 
 There is another passage in the MS. letters in which 
 Mr. Raikes shows himself conscious of occasional feelings 
 of depression, and his determination to make the best of 
 
 *For this he was censured and reviled and misrepresented, an 
 allowed to "walk alone." 
 
g6 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 it. He says : " Perhaps the depression of what is mortal 
 may be necessary to elevate the immortal part of our 
 nature," and then again he shows where he was in the 
 habit of turning for consolation. " I am never," he writes, 
 " in so proper a frame of mind as whilst I am reading or 
 repeating passages from that heavenly composition [the 
 Psalms of David]. They are my chief comfort and con- 
 solation when any distress approaches ; they furnish the 
 language of thanksgiving when the heart rejoices." 
 
 Singular as it may now appear, strongly - worded 
 opposition to Sunday schools came from Scotland. In 
 1798 the Rev. Thomas Burns preached in the parish 
 church of Renfrew two sermons directed against the 
 introduction of Sunday schools in Scotland. These 
 sermons were considered to be of sufficient importance 
 to be printed and published. Some of the passages will 
 be now read with curiosity and interest. The preacher 
 said : 
 
 '' I can see no necessity for the institution, and I am 
 afraid men do not consider the effects that are likely to, 
 follow. In England necessity may be pleaded, as we are told 
 there are few parents in common life who are qualified to 
 instruct their children in the principles of true religion. 
 . . . But whatever may be said on the point of necessity 
 with respect to England, there can be no such argument 
 with regard to Scotland. From the wise institution of 
 parochial schools, every parish in Scotland is provided 
 with the means of instruction. Children are taught, at 
 least, to read and write, and instructed in the principles 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK: 
 
 97 
 
 of our holy religion as contained in our confessions of 
 faith and catechisms longer and shorter. 
 
 " Sunday schools, then, are reflections on every parish 
 where they are appointed ; nay, more, they are reflections 
 upon every parent in that parish. It is declaring to the 
 world that there is a parish where the parents are either 
 grossly ignorant or shamefully negligent. Negligent they 
 may be, but ignorant they are not, as I might easily show 
 from several parishes which are under my own obser- 
 vation. . . . 
 
 "The mode of appointing these Sunday schools is 
 strange. Here I shall say nothing but what falls under 
 my own observation. A number of young men, perhaps 
 well-meaning, meet together and consult where a Sunday 
 school shall be erected. One says that such a place 
 would do ; another says such another place is very 
 much in want of a Sunday school. They go and talk 
 with some people in these places, who approve without 
 thinking. They apply to some society, which sends out 
 a deputation, and formally erects a Sunday school; and 
 then old and young are put in motion upon the even of a 
 Sabbath, when they ought to be quiet in their own homes 
 and employed in the duties of family religion." 
 
 The preacher then goes on to consider Sunday schools 
 as forming lay preachers : 
 
 " It is well known to some of you that there is a 
 number of young men, some of them day labourers, now 
 preparing for what is called lay preachers ; and I under- 
 stand they are to be fully qualified for this in twelve or 
 
 8 
 
ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 eighteen months, and then they are to be sent as 
 missionaries over Scotland to instruct the people in the 
 principles of religion. Perhaps this institution of Sunday- 
 schools was originally intended to prepare for them 
 congregations by the time their teachers shall announce 
 them qualified to preach. 
 
 " Be that as it will, I repeat it again, my great objection 
 to Sunday schools is that I am afraid they will in the end 
 destroy all family religion, and whatever has tendency to 
 do this I consider it is my duty to guard you against. I 
 might also show that these schools are hurtful to public 
 religion, for it consists with my knowledge that children 
 stay at home from church to prepare their questions for 
 the even; and their families are divided when they ought 
 to be together." 
 
 On one point we may now all agree with the preacher. 
 It was a reflection, with which we may now grow scarlet 
 with shame, that at the end of the eighteenth century 
 Sunday schools were necessary in England and Wales to 
 teach children their ABC, and to teach their tongues to 
 say " GOD " with a knowledge of what the word meant. 
 It was this feeling of shame which inspired Raikes to 
 speak and act, and every decade which passes only 
 increases our wonder, until we find ourselves becoming 
 more and more incredulous that such things could have 
 been, and that men and women. Church and State, slept 
 soundly ! 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHERE RAIKES WAS TAUGHT. 
 "A successful teacher must himself be taught." — MS. 
 
 THE institution of Sunday schools was for so many 
 years presented to the world as an "inspiration" — a 
 sudden idea evolved by the contact of two benevolent 
 minds — that it is even now difficult to efface the image of 
 the good men meeting in the streets, bemoaning the 
 wickedness of youth, and then each going his own way 
 and setting-up Sunday schools forthwith. The picture is 
 pretty, and may be true. It is so simple that it deserves 
 to live ; but we shall not show much sagacity if we do not 
 divine that there was antecedent preparation, without which 
 it is very doubtful if the experiment would have been tried 
 when it was. Certainly there is no reason for supposing 
 that Mr. Raikes would have tried it. His mind caught at 
 principles slowly, but held them tenaciously ; and, but 
 for a conviction that mastered him, there is nothing to 
 induce us to believe that the opulent citizen with a touch 
 of " swagger " about him, and a vain man in his dress and 
 bearing, would have passed his time in the chimney- 
 sweeps' quarter, and marched to church with filthy, 
 ragged, fighting, cursing children longing to be free. 
 
 99 
 
100 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Littleworth was his favourite recruiting ground — 
 there was no lower quarter in the city. The jail was 
 there — another of his haunts. He, however, found some 
 good there. He found Mrs. Critchley leaving the 
 "Trumpet Inn," and induced her to take charge of the 
 little ruffians in the more respectable corner facing the 
 Grey Fryars and Southgate Street. Later he found his 
 apprentices there ; and so well was his weakness for Sooty 
 Alley known, that the educated " Eusebius," in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine, playfully taunted him with his love 
 for sweeps and suggested the opening of a Sunday school 
 for them. 
 
 A trifle galling to a vain man this — a man who enter- 
 tained the Duke of Gloucester, and the French savants 
 who visited the city and inquired of him about these 
 Sunday schools, and who had respectfully declined the 
 invitation of the great Catherine of Russia to come to 
 St. Petersburg and stay there! "Eusebius" did not 
 know of all this at the time, or he might have been more 
 respectful to the man, if not to the institution. 
 
 When there was so much outwardly to gall and 
 mortify a man a little vain with regard to appearances, 
 it is worth seeing what was the sustaining motive and 
 from whence derived. When we inquire closely, we find 
 that for twenty -five years before gathering the little 
 outcasts around him in the sweeps' quarter he had been 
 a very consistent student of social problems. He had 
 found his object lessons in the county and borough jails, 
 and, after doing all in his power to alleviate suffering, he 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. loi 
 
 seems to have had it slowly inborne upon him that it was 
 an inversion of the pyramid, first, to make criminals, and 
 then to punish the manufactured article. 
 
 For years he attempted to deal with adult criminals, 
 and failed : he paid the debts of small debtors, and they 
 returned to jail ; he interceded for prisoners and got their 
 sentences commuted, only again to find them naked and 
 chained to others in their dungeons. To deal with the 
 criminal adult was to invite defeat ; to deal with the 
 prison authorities, and, through them, the Government, 
 was heart-breaking to ordinary men. The only possible 
 solution, as it appeared to him, was to prevent criminals 
 being made.* 
 
 For years he preached this in his Journal. Week by 
 
 week he preached and illustrated and enforced this old 
 
 idea, which, however, had the appearance of being new. 
 
 The natural slowness of the man's intellect is shown in 
 
 this, that it was not until 1780 that it occurred to him 
 
 that the way to prevent the manufacture of criminals 
 
 was to " train up a child in the way he should go." 
 
 * If Mr. Raikes had possessed Sir Thomas More's Utopia, he would 
 have found the results of his work and experiences anticipated by about 
 three centuries. In Utopia every child is educated, and afterwards tech- 
 nically instructed in industrial schools. What one marvels at is this : if 
 Mr Raikes was in advance of his time, how far behind Sir Thomas More 
 and his friends must his time have been ? If I had found the following 
 passage in one of Mr. Raikes's letters, I might have taken it as the original 
 expression of his views : " If you allow your people to be badly taught, 
 their morals to be corrupted from childhood, and then when they are men 
 punish them for the very crimes to which they have been trained in child- 
 hood—what is this but to make thieves, and then to punish them?" 
 Although Raphe Robinson's translation was published in 1551, it was 
 probably unknown, except to scholars, in Mr. Raikes's days. Mr, Arber's 
 reprint (i86g) has placed many a student under great obligations. 
 
102 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 When he once saw it in this Hght he tried his experiment, 
 and practically in secret for three years, which shows 
 that he was not a hasty generaliser. 
 
 Where he was taught and what he learnt we shall find 
 principally in a careful study of the old files of the 
 Gloucester Journal. 
 
 He had the great good fortune to possess a father 
 of sterling character, who was Robert the printer, 
 son of Robert, minister of Beeford, in Holderness, 
 Yorkshire. Of this Robert the printer we know little ; 
 but we do know that fear was not a mastering 
 weakness with him. At a critical period of the history 
 of the newspaper press he twice incurred the wrath 
 of the House of Commons for committing " breaches 
 of privilege " * in reporting votes or minutes of proceed- 
 ings. The breach was technical, but the punishment 
 might be formidable — fine and imprisonment in Newgate 
 during pleasure. The Clock Tower apartments were not 
 then ready. He was also a clean-minded man, and 
 excluded epigrams, vers de societe, and little balderdash, 
 spiced to liking, common in metropolitan and provincial 
 newspapers of his day. He was also a man who pitied 
 men, and went out of his way and encroached on the 
 little space to spare in his small sheet in order to 
 chronicle distress. He died at the age of 68, having 
 been three times married, t leaving Robert, his eldest 
 son, then 21 years, sole proprietor of the newspaper. This 
 
 * See Appendix D. 
 t Nothing is remembered of the first two wives. See Chapter XVII. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 103 
 
 was in September, 1757, and in August the following 
 year the business premises were removed from the Black 
 Fryars to Southgate Street. 
 
 From this time onwards the pages of the Journal 
 present pictures of the social life of the Cathedral City, 
 which, as years roll on, become more and more precious 
 to the historian and antiquarian. From the commence- 
 ment of his editorship, Mr. Raikes made the paper 
 a means of communication between the prisoners and 
 debtors, whom he found naked, starving, and rotting in 
 the jails. He begged for them, and printed the prisoners' 
 acknowledgments. From 1757 down to 1787 (when there 
 were improvements to record) the note was the same, 
 only varying in intensity. We need not trouble the reader 
 with the dates of the following paragraphs : 
 
 " The debtors return their sincere thanks to the High 
 Sheriff of the County for his kind donation of one guinea, 
 and also to Abraham Isaac Elton, Esq. From him they 
 likewise received one guinea yesterday, which was faith- 
 fully divided among real objects of charity. Some of 
 these unhappy sufferers had little other support than the 
 benefactions they received." 
 
 The prisoners return their thanks for benefactions, 
 and Raikes adds : " If it had not been for a private fund, 
 many of the prisoners must have perished for bread ! " 
 
 " From private benefactions placed in his hands last 
 winter for alleviating extreme distress in the county gaol 
 the printer has been enabled to give an allowance of two 
 pennyworth of bread per day to debtors who, not able to pay 
 
104 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 for a bed, are obliged to lay upon straw, and without such 
 assistance must have perished for want. This charitable 
 fund is almost exhausted." 
 
 "There are now in our Castle [the county gaol] 
 fourteen or fifteen persons confined for small debts of £xo 
 or jTii. These poor men are in such distress that they 
 are near perishing for want of sustenance. About a 
 fortnight ago one unfortunate man, they say, was starved to- 
 death there. Who in possession of the good things of this 
 world can refuse a small share to alleviate such a state of 
 wretchedness ? " * 
 
 It is only to be mentioned that this announcement, 
 that a small debtor was starved, is made without the 
 slightest attempt to excite notice. There is no " head- 
 line " to the paragraph — not even a note of interjection. 
 It might have been the commonest event in the world, 
 and no one would have known of it but for Raikes. 
 
 The state of the gaol was certainly bad, but not worse 
 than the rest of our gaols about a century ago, and these, 
 again, were sometimes held up as models for the imitation 
 of some European countries. This is how matters appeared 
 to Raikes : 
 
 * "An old gentleman, nearly 80, told me that he has heard his grand- 
 father, a farmer, say that when he was a young man his wife always gave 
 him, on market days, a basketful of eatables — black bread and cheese and 
 broken bits — for the poor debtors confined at the Northgate, then standing 
 and used as a debtors' prison. On market days the poor starving debtors 
 cried from the top of the gate, from the roof or windows : ' For God's 
 sake, have pity on the poor debtors ! ' These poor miserable wretches 
 dropped a basket down on the end of a cord, and benefactions were put in 
 it by the charitable. The gifts were acknowledged by pathetic and heart- 
 rending cries of gratitude." — Mr. Taylor. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 105 
 
 " Our gaol at this time [March, 1785, when he had been 
 working nearly twenty years to improve matters] exhibits 
 a melancholy scene of wretchedness and profligacy beyond 
 the example of any former period. 
 
 " One hundred and twenty unhappy creatures are 
 there confined together, increasing, if possible, their own 
 natural depravity. Shirts have been distributed to several 
 who were naked, which were no sooner washed and hung 
 out to dry than they have been stolen. 
 
 "The prisoners are locked up at night in a large 
 apartment called the Main, with a chain run through each 
 man's link. During the night they steal from each other — 
 shoes, buckles, bread, or anything which it is possible to 
 conceal. In the box of an old Welsh woman, confined 
 for stealing, no less than seven or eight stolen shirts were 
 discovered on Monday last, which she had bought at a 
 low price. 
 
 " As there is no separation for the sexes in the day- 
 time, one of the women, sentenced to a long imprison- 
 ment, is now ready to lie in, and would be destitute of 
 every necessary for such a situation had not private 
 beneficence placed a fund for the relief of occasional 
 distress in the hands of an individual. 
 
 " In short, the inhabitants of the prison give a more 
 affecting picture of the miseries entailed on mankind by 
 the corruption of human nature than it is in the power of 
 the imagination to paint." 
 
 The "humane Mr. Howard," as Raikes invariably 
 calls him, had visited this hell in miniature nearly two- 
 
io5 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 years before and inspected it, and spoke so well of it that he 
 reported that he knew of only one or two prisons in the 
 kingdom that were to be compared with it ! Sir George 
 Onesiphorus Paul, the truly humane Governor, who had 
 the satisfaction of carrying out some of the reforms for 
 which he and Raikes and Howard worked incessantly, 
 however, reported "that, in consequence of there not 
 being sufficient accommodation for prisoners, the Judges 
 of Assize often remitted the sentences of criminals, and 
 turned them loose on the public." 
 
 Five years after the Sunday school in Sooty Alley was 
 opened, " between twenty and thirty vagrants were 
 publicly flogged and sent to their parishes." 
 
 So that prisoners should not escape even if they broke 
 loose, mastiffs were kept to pursue them. The dogs 
 seldom lost scent, the prison taint was so strong on the 
 prisoners. The cost of maintaining these dogs appears 
 in the old county accounts preserved in the Shire Hall, 
 
 Mr. Raikes did not lose sight of criminals when they 
 left the gaol, but followed them on board H.M. transports. 
 He had correspondents on board some of these ships. 
 Here is a specimen paragraph : 
 
 " One thousand prisoners sent to Botany Bay, of both 
 sexes ; and it is said in a letter from one on board the 
 vessel in which they were sent that such is the sickness 
 that it is expected that four-fifths will die before they 
 land," — eight hundred out of a thousand ! To have 
 scuttled the ship in the Channel would have been more 
 humane. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 107 
 
 The enterprise of the newspaper manager is shown 
 by the publication of a "special" article in the form of 
 a letter from one of the women convicts who sailed from 
 England in the Lady Juliana, and dated " Sydney Cove, 
 Port Jackson, July 24th, 1790." It describes a state of 
 things which he sought to have remedied, and now that 
 it has long passed, never to return whilst England 
 remains civilised, the letter possesses much interest for 
 the historical student. The letter reads : 
 
 " We arrived here safe after a long voyage, in very 
 good health. We landed here 223 women and 12 children. 
 Only three women died and one child. Five or six were 
 born on board the ship. This place was in a fair starving 
 condition before we arrived, and our allowance [has been] 
 only two pounds of flour and two pounds of pork for each 
 man [sic] per week, and we had hardly any clothes. But 
 since the Scarborough, NepUme and Surprize arrived, we 
 have had a blanket and a rug given to us. 
 
 " If you had but seen the shocking state of the poor 
 creatures that came out of these three ships it would 
 make your heart bleed. They were almost dead. Very 
 few could stand, and they were obliged to sling them as 
 you would goods and hoist them out of the ship, they 
 were so feeble, and they died ten or twelve daily when 
 they first landed ; but some of them are getting better. 
 There died on their way on board the Neptune 183 men 
 and 12 women ; and in the Scarborough, 67 men ; and the 
 Surprize, 85. They were not so long as we were in 
 coming here, but on account of their [the convicts'] bad 
 
io8 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 behaviour they were confined and had bad victuals and 
 stinking water. 
 
 " I don't think I shall ever get away from this place ; 
 for some of the men's times were out, and they went and 
 spoke to the Governor and told him they would not work. 
 He told them he could not send them home without 
 orders from London, and if they would not work they 
 should have nothing to eat. So they almost all went 
 to work again, except ten [who] were saucy, and the 
 Governor ordered them a good flogging, which brought 
 them to compliance." 
 
 Mr. Raikes's interest in Society's victims and outcasts 
 ended only with their lives, and after death or execution 
 he sought to impress upon the public certain ideas which, 
 for him, were gathering the force of axioms. Having by 
 its neglect bred criminals, Society relieved itself of the 
 responsibility by hanging them. Thieves were hanged, 
 and, according to the Journal, after every Assize public 
 executions were plentiful. Very often the number ol 
 men and women to be hanged was simply given, as, for 
 instance : "At the Assizes, which lasted nearly a fortnight, 
 two Judges engaged, eight criminals received the sentence 
 of death for stealing." Again : " Heavy Assize. Twenty- 
 one condemned to death." 
 
 Sometimes the fact would be followed with a sigh, as 
 " How deplorable that Society cannot be secured withoui 
 so great a sacrifice ! " 
 
 Hangings were so common that "graphic descriptions' 
 were dispensed with. What was reported was, however. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 109 
 
 pathetic. Some men were hanged one morning, and on 
 
 the scaffold were recommended to pray. One of the poor 
 
 fellows said : 
 
 " Pray 1 I was never taught to do so. I don't know 
 
 what it means ; and if you hang me now I shall go to 
 
 hell, cloathes and all." * 
 
 Another said : " Make the Sabbath a day of holiness 
 
 to the Lord : then it will be a blessing to you. Take 
 warning before it is too late." 
 
 Another said : " Thieving is a poor business. I never 
 gained much by it at the best, and now I pay my life 
 for it." 
 
 This, then, was the school in which Mr. Raikes studied, 
 and these some of his object lessons. Going through the 
 files of the paper year after year, we see how painfully 
 he followed these human wrecks with eyes of pity, and 
 yet how difficult he found it to do more than heap regret 
 upon regret. When he met these people he could do no 
 more than get up compassionate funds and dole out loaves 
 of bread, or find suitable linen for women in the agonies 
 of maternity. His first conclusion was that idleness (and 
 all which it involved) was the root of all this social evil. 
 When sentences were commuted and had expired he set 
 himself to obtain work for the discharged prisoners.t 
 The Journal bears ample evidence that this was the 
 
 * There was a sly jest in this reference to clothes levelled at the gaoler, 
 "whose perquisites they were. 
 
 t One man (Edward Eager or Eagar) whose sentence was commute 
 became a reformed character and started a Sunday school at Sydney 
 This is probably the man Mrs. Ladbroke refers to in Chapter XV, 
 
no ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 uppermost idea in his mind for years. So far as adults 
 were concerned, the idea never forsook him that indus- 
 trious habits would alone meet their case. He put it in 
 a sentence in the Journal of the 22nd August, 1785, 
 when Sunday schools were spreading rapidly everywhere : 
 "When the common people know that work they must, 
 and that it remains with themselves to choose whether 
 they will work in a prison or with the enjoyment of 
 liberty, it is to be hoped they will prefer the latter." 
 Even then he was not very sanguine. 
 
 Although he deplored ignorance and bracketed it with 
 filth and idleness, the idea does not appear to have come 
 early to his mind that the minds of children must be 
 cultivated before habits of idleness were formed. It did, 
 however, come to him, and it came slowly. First of all 
 he got some children to meet him at or after early 
 morning service in the Cathedral. He gave them presents 
 of coppers and combs, and this went on for some time 
 before Mr. Raikes had the courage of his apparent 
 convictions that the child must be trained before the 
 adult can be reached. There has been much conflict 
 of testimony about this practice having been commenced 
 prior to the opening of Sunday schools ; but when Mr. 
 Raikes speaks of it, it is as though the habit was a long 
 established one. Some testimony on this point was 
 collected in the Sunday school Jubilee year; and there 
 is no sufficient reason for doubting that this was one 
 of his numerous experiments. He constantly tried some 
 new plan, and the mental improvement of prisoners 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. iii 
 
 was one of his schemes for carrying out prison reform. 
 The meeting of untaught children in the Cathedral 
 yard or in the Church was, in his case, only the 
 variation of an old plan. He had attempted, on the 
 testimony of his friend, the Rev. Samuel Glasse, D.D., 
 to make the prison a place of instruction by engaging 
 prisoners who could read, to read to those who could not ; 
 but this was only a makeshift experiment. According to 
 the story told by Mr. Lancaster, the word "try" was 
 inborne suddenly upon him one day with all the force of 
 an inspiration. Whether this is literally true or no, it is 
 certain that he had done his best to work out for himself 
 a solution to a then momentous problem. He engaged 
 four people to teach the children, whom he sent to 
 them from time to time, of whom three were — Meredith, 
 Critchley, and King ; and he assured himself that the fruits 
 would be lasting before venturing to take the public into 
 his confidence. 
 
 It will now be seen that Mr. Raikes was a student in 
 moral pathology and a practical worker ; that he worked 
 out his problems carefully and painfully — and, it may not 
 be presumptuous even now to add, prayerfully. What- 
 ever may be said of all the worthy men and women 
 during the centuries who made Sunday education a 
 pastime or study, it has not yet been claimed for any one 
 of them that his convictions rested on experiences so 
 variously, painfully, and laboriously acquired as Robert 
 Raikes's. This is his great distinction and separates him 
 from all disputing with him the title of " Founder." 
 
112 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Note. — Mr. Higgs, engaged at the Cheltenham Examiner Office in 
 1862, said : " Mr. Raikes visited the prisons — chiefly the city one — and 
 was very kind to the prisoners. As to the small debtors, he frequently 
 paid their debts so that they might be discharged. I cannot say that 
 the money came out of his own pocket. My grandfather knew him well 
 and worked for him, and from what he has told me, I believe Mr. Raikes 
 was large-hearted enough to give money out of his own pocket." 
 
 The following anecdote is contained in a letter to the Author from 
 Mr. John Crowse, Redmarley Mill : " Mrs. Jones, now [1862] landlady of 
 the ' Crown Inn,' Redmarley, told me that a woman named Harding 
 stole and pawned some of Mr. Raikes's shirts. When he accused her, she 
 seemed sorry for what she had done. He very seriously admonished her, 
 forgave her, paid for the things and said no more about it." This 
 anecdote shows that Mr. Raikes was sincere in his professions. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MR. RAIKES THE SABBATH-BREAKER. 
 
 " If you desire to judge a man without prejudice, you must consider 
 ■when and where he lived, and all the surrounding circumstances of his 
 life." — Sir George Jessel, 
 
 BY an "accident" of his profession, the Founder of 
 Sunday schools was a systemtic Sabbath-breaker ! 
 This was charged against him in no kindly spirit during 
 his lifetime, and remembered against him with more or 
 less of bitterness in the city of Gloucester, according 
 to the quality and quantity of venom distilled in the 
 periodical contests over "the first Founder of Sunday 
 schools." It is usually as hard to discover the first true 
 Founder as the " first true Inventor," to borrow a phrase 
 now familiar in Patent law. The " first true " anything 
 seems to be always going further and further back, as 
 we learn more of what our fathers did ; and Mr. Flinders 
 Petrie would not be at all surprised if he disentombed 
 ancestors of our Stephensons and Edisons from the buried 
 civilisations of the Nile Valley. We are now quite 
 satisfied to treat as the first true Founder, or Inventor, the 
 man who made the thing known and secured its adoption 
 for the public benefit. 
 
 The citizens of Gloucester, feeling much interest in a 
 
 9 
 "3 
 
114 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 question which they regarded sometimes as "local," were 
 not always accustomed to take broad and generous 
 views in the Sixties, and it was quite a common thing to 
 hear in conversation Robert Raikes labelled " hypocrite," 
 "canting humbug," "vainglorious self-seeker," and other 
 names more or less offensive. When investigated, it was 
 found that this odium arose mainly from two things — the 
 manner of the man, and the printing of the Gloucester 
 Journal on Sundays. 
 
 A certain " swagger," as Mr. Paul Hawkins Fisher 
 describes it, was natural to him, and the first comer 
 could see it — the observant but sprightly Miss Burney, 
 the Diarist, saw it at once. Raikes was " too flourishing, 
 too forward, too voluble " for that young lady's taste ; 
 still she tolerated him because of his wit, benevolence^ 
 and good nature, thereby showing her good sense and 
 capacity for seeing two sides of a man in one glance. 
 
 In addition to appearing so, Mr. Raikes was, and, . 
 apparently, had been a flourishing man all his lifetime. 
 He inherited the valuable quality to flourish as some 
 plants inherit the quality to bloom. His ancestors were 
 flourishing, pertinacious, and combative men in Yorkshire 
 before they came South, as will be seen by-and-by when 
 we reach the family history. His own father had rooted 
 kindly in the Gloucester soil and flourished ; and when 
 Miss Burney saw " I have flourished " written upon 
 Robert Raikes in the year of Grace 1787, she only saw 
 what was there and not any simulation. Still, a man 
 may not even show himself as he is without offending 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 115 
 
 someone, and it was registered against Raikes that he 
 had flourished when and where other men, perhaps, had 
 failed. So the benevolent-looking man, with a large heart 
 and practical brain, with a slight "swagger" in his gait, 
 a "buckish" air about him, and with a good balance at 
 his bankers, was sometimes discounted because of these 
 things. 
 
 But printing the newspaper on Sundays was quite 
 another thing, and, during his lifetime, it was charged 
 against him, so that he discontinued the practice for a 
 time, but resumed it, finding it impossible to publish the 
 Journal in country districts, and in parts of Wales, when 
 most wanted, without setting up in type his " latest news," 
 and then working off his edition on a little hand-press, 
 the only machine then available. 
 
 In order rightly to understand Mr. Raikes's position, 
 and to form a just opinion of his conduct, it is necessary 
 to give a few facts about the old Gloucester Journal, and 
 to show the position in which its printer stood towards 
 the public. Everything relating to the newspaper world 
 was so entirely different in 1722, when the Journal was 
 established, that the history is not without an interest 
 entirely independent of the Raikes's connection with it. 
 
 Amongst provincial newspapers in England, the Journal 
 stands about nineteen in point of precedence, though only 
 some half a dozen have survived. The Encyclopcedia 
 Britannica, which does not include the Cirencester Post 
 (1719) and the Gloztcester Journal (1722), dates the English 
 provincial press from 1690, when the Worcester Postman 
 
ii6 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 (now Berrow's Worcester Journal) was started. The first 
 number of the Journal was published April gth, 1722. 
 The paper was a very small, and, to modern eyes, a 
 curious-looking sheet — thick, coarse, dirty-white-looking 
 paper, with an elaborately got-up headline. The top of 
 the front page was quite a work of art. On the left hand 
 was a ship (representing Commerce) and a child bearing 
 heads of corn (Agriculture). In the middle stood Old 
 Time dictating to a scribe — or it may have been an angel 
 dictating to St. John, and so symbolising the Church, 
 for a good deal was left to the imagination. Between 
 these figures stood " Prudentia." On the right was the 
 Coat of Arms of the City and a figure with wings, meaning, 
 perhaps, the spiritual protection over the Cathedral City. 
 The contents of a number printed in 1723 were : 
 
 THE LONDON BILL OF MORTALITY. 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED SINCE OUR LAST. 
 FOREIGN AND HOME NEWS. 
 POETRY AND ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 No "leader" of course, and very little matter apparently 
 of any interest. This was not only a first-class, but the 
 only paper for several English counties and Wales. In 
 the language of the day, it was a " very spirited under- 
 taking," and a fuller reference will be made to it in 
 another chapter dealing exclusively with the family 
 history. 
 
 The paper was improved and enlarged from time to 
 time, but when Robert Raikes succeeded his father in 
 1757 it was still what we now look on as a curiosity ; 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 117 
 
 but such as it was, it was the only source for early intelli- 
 gence for a large portion of the West of England and 
 Wales, and was even published at two places in London. 
 When improved road coaches shortened the journey 
 between Gloucester and London — -doing the journey under 
 twenty hours in summer — then the paper was permanently 
 improved. 
 
 The young and spirited editor was able to obtain, per 
 Flying coach, a London Letter, the latest foreign news, 
 agricultural prices, and a copy of the London Gazette, 
 and from these news-letters and official paper he was 
 able to get about one thousand words of what, on the 
 Monday morning, formed the very soul of the paper, and 
 of the greatest value from Gloucester to Hereford and 
 through a large portion of Wales. Many and important 
 interests depended in those days upon the due publication 
 of the Journal. But the paper could not be produced 
 without the matter being edited, set, read and revised, 
 and then printed on the Sunday. By doing this, and 
 working through the night with a hand-press, the paper 
 could be sent away from the city by the earliest stage- 
 vans and coaches on the Monday morning. 
 
 With improved modes of transit, the newspaper almost 
 leaped into prosperity and influence. Its appearance had 
 long been improved. A less fantastic heading had been 
 adopted, and the issue of Nov. 3, 1783, containing the 
 editor's modest announcement about Sunday schools, is 
 precisely the same size as the Times of October 3rd, 1798, 
 containing "Nelson's Victory of the Nile"; namely. 
 
ii8 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 19^ ins. by 12J ins. ; but whilst the Journal contains nine 
 columns of advertisements, the Times contains but seven 
 and a-half, and those of an inferior class. Measured by 
 this standard — a weekly against a daily — practical jour- 
 nalists can make a shrewd guess as to the value of the 
 property, and its influence as a newspaper. The price 
 was 3d., with a halfpenny Government stamp impressed ; 
 then raised to 3Jd., when the stamp duty was raised to 
 one penny ; and before Mr. Raikes retired the price 
 per copy was 6d. The "make-up" of the paper was: 
 Page I, two columns advertisements and two columns 
 foreign news and paragraphs. Page 2, advertisements 
 and odd paragraphs. Page 3, letters on various topics, 
 News of the Nation, local news, markets, London Letter, 
 social paragraphs, obituary notices, &c. Page 4, adver- 
 tisements and imprint. So important was this paper 
 that the volumes were bound up and passed on as heir- 
 looms, and not infrequently found fifty years after Mr. 
 Raikes died in old farmhouses stowed away with the 
 Family Bibles. 
 
 What time the Flying coach, leaving London on the 
 Saturday with the precious news-letters and copy of the 
 Gazette, would reach Gloucester was always a matter of 
 uncertainty — so much depended on the weather and the 
 chapter of accidents ; but when the parcels did reach 
 the editor's hands, his work commenced. Then the 
 " copy " was set up ; and when all was ready, the two 
 inner "formes" — pages 2 and 3 — were locked up and put 
 upon a hand-press. One half of the paper — pages i and 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 119 
 
 4 — were already printed, probably on the Saturday ; and 
 to facilitate matters a notice appeared apprising the 
 public that "all advertisements brought after five o'clock 
 on Saturday evening will not appear," — no space being 
 left for anything but the precious London news, letters, 
 and clippings from the Gazette. 
 
 We now see Mr. Raikes, the "up-to-date" journalist, 
 catering for a widespread public, representing important 
 interests and depending upon him for the latest market 
 prices. We have also to remember that even in the 
 •commencement of the present century Sunday trading in 
 Gloucester was a recognised traffic. The shops in the 
 city and the principal towns were regularly opened on 
 Sunday mornings for the convenience of people living in 
 the outlying villages.* Sunday labour in connection with 
 the editing and printing of the Journal would never have 
 formed the ground of complaint against Mr. Raikes, but 
 
 * Timothy Exall, in his pamphlet on the Rise and Progress of IVesleyan 
 Methodism in Dursley, 1854, says at the end of the last century "buying 
 and selling were commonly practised on the Sabbath." This is how the 
 Sunday was spent at Dursley in Raikes's day : " Men, women, and 
 children rambled the woods and fields ; or dog-fighting, cock-fighting, 
 badger-baiting, ball or marble playing, — these amusements with drunken- 
 ness was the common way of spending" the Sunday. This is not intro- 
 duced by way of apology, but only for the information of the thoughtful 
 leader. 
 
 Licenses were regularly granted temp. Elizabeth to poor men fallen 
 into decay to practise sports on Sundays. The following is a curious copy 
 of a license at one time in the possession of Sir John Evelyn, Bart. : 
 
 "Middlesex. To all Mayors, Sheriffs, Constables, and other Hed 
 officers, within the Countie of Middlesex. 
 
 "After our hartie commendations. "Whereas we are informed that 
 one Seconton Powlter dwellinge within the parishe of St. Clement's 
 Daines, beinge a poore man, havinge fower small children, and fallen into 
 -decay, ys lycensed to have and use some playes and games at uppon nine 
 
120 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 for the position which he occupied in respect to Sunday 
 schools at a time when public opinion, stirred inta 
 activity, insisted on a purer code of morals. 
 
 In 1863 there were still living in Gloucester old men 
 who, as lads, worked for Mr. Raikes in the Journal office, 
 " and were able to tell what they did and what was done,, 
 and we give their statements without comment. 
 
 William Whitehead, College Court, aged 89, said : 
 " I was engaged as a lad for three years at the office of 
 Mr. Raikes, and I should have been apprenticed to him, 
 but there was a law among printers which compelled 
 them not to have more than a certain number of appren- 
 tices at one time, and I should have been obliged to wait 
 two years longer. The printing office in my time was in 
 Bolt Lane. 
 
 "We used to set up type on Sundays — the com- 
 positors were at work during the day, and we used to go 
 
 severall Sondaies, for his better relief, comforte, and sustentacion, within 
 the countie of Middlesex, to commence and begynne at and from xxii""^ 
 dale of Maye next comynge, after the date hereof and not to remayne in 
 one place not above three severall Sondaies : And we consideringe that 
 great resort of people is lyke to come thereunto, we will and require you, 
 as well for good order as also for the preservation of the Queen's Majesty's 
 peace, that you take with you foure or fyve of the discrete and substantial! 
 men within your office or libertie where the games shall be put in practice, 
 then and there to forsee and do your endeavour to your best in that behalf 
 duringe the continuance of the games or playes : which games are here- 
 after severally mentioned, that is to say the Shotinge with the Standarde, 
 the Shotinge with the Erode Arrowe, the Shotinge at the Twelve Shore 
 Prick, the Shotinge at the Tarthe, the Leppinge for Men, the Runninge for 
 Men, the Wrastlinge, the Throwinge of the Barre, with all such other 
 games as have at any time heretofore or now be lycensed used or played. 
 
 " Geaven the xxvi"' Dale of Aprill in the eleventh year of the Queen's 
 Majesty's Raigne." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 121 
 
 to press at seven o'clock in the evening, and get away 
 from the office at four o'clock on Monday morning. On 
 Mondays we had holiday." 
 
 Q. " What did people think about Sunday work ? " 
 
 A. "The opinion of the public was not then as now. 
 I don't remember anyone saying anything about our 
 printing the paper. Everybody was too glad to get it 
 on the Monday." 
 
 Q. " Did you ever hear Mr. Raikes say anything about 
 his breaking the Sabbath ? " 
 
 A. "I never heard him say anything on the subject. 
 I went with him in 1786." 
 
 Q. " Did you ever see Mr. Raikes set up type ? " 
 
 A. " No ; but he knew his business. He had a desk 
 in the composing room, and used to sit there and correct 
 the proofs and give out copy. He used to come there on 
 Sundays and do what work there was for him to do. 
 I never heard whether he was brought up to the 
 business." 
 
 Q. "Was he a go-ahead or sleepy sort of a 
 man ? " 
 
 A. " Oh, go-ahead for those times. His was the best 
 office in the city to work for. The wages paid the comps. 
 were one guinea a week. His was the first printing 
 business in the county— I mean in reputation. We did 
 good bookwork. Mr. Raikes always adopted the latest 
 improvements. I do not know what the circulation of 
 the Journal was." 
 
122 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 James Whitehead, King's Holm, 76 years of age, 
 said : " I was apprenticed to Mr. Raikes, and was with 
 him till he sold the paper to Mr. Walker [1802] . 
 
 " I never went to school or church on Sundays because 
 I had to commence work early, — light fires, make paste, 
 run errands for the men, and, when all was ready, call the 
 pressman from chapel. He was a Wesleyan, and we 
 used to go to press about seven or eight o'clock. Sunday 
 was my busy day, and I stayed up until six o'clock 
 Monday morning — folding papers and doing anything." 
 
 Q. " Did you hear people complain that Mr. Raikes 
 broke the Sabbath?" 
 
 A. "No; people did not look upon it as Sabbath- 
 breaking to print a newspaper. Shops in those days 
 were regularly opened on Sundays for the convenience 
 of country people. Everybody was satisfied then, the 
 printers with their work and the public with their 
 news." 
 
 Q. " Was yours a temperance office ? " 
 
 A. "My goodness! no. I was the boy, you know, 
 and when gentlemen came to the office I used to 'wipe 
 their shoes.' We used to give a crown a quart for egg- 
 flip made with mint, eggs, sugar, and beer. It was a 
 ' Chapel'* affair, and I had my share for fetching it." 
 
 Mr. Simpson, aged 65 : "I was apprenticed to Mr. 
 Walker at the Journal office. The reason why the paper 
 was printed on Sundays was because the Gazette was 
 * A trade term. Every printing office has its "Chapel" and "Father." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 123 
 
 published in London on Saturdays, and as it contained 
 the bankrupts, &c., it would have been ruin to publish it 
 on any other day than Monday. In my time, we went to 
 press at seven, eight, or nine o'clock, according to the 
 time the coach arrived — and that would depend on the 
 weather and accidents ; it might come in early on 
 Sunday morning, or not before eleven or twelve o'clock 
 in the day." 
 
 Q. " Have you heard people say that Robert Raikes, 
 the Founder of Sunday schools, was a Sabbath- 
 breaker ? " 
 
 A. "Yes. People may say what they like; but 
 Robert Raikes seemed quite angelic as he walked through 
 the streets of Gloucester — there was no one like him. 
 Everybody seemed anxious to have the Journal on the 
 Monday because there was no news in that day to be 
 had, and no literature hardly. The Dissenters used to 
 complain much about the paper being printed on Sundays. 
 It is a Saturday paper now. Things are all different 
 now." 
 
 The paper was printed first on a " screw press " and 
 then on a hand-press, after the old Stanhope pattern, 
 and the types were inked with balls covered with skin, — 
 not composition rollers as now. The reader who is 
 accustomed to-day to hear of hundreds of thousands of 
 papers being printed from "endless rolls" in a short time, 
 will learn with surprise that with a hand-press it would 
 take ten hours to print five hundred " insides " of the 
 
124 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Journal. Pressmen were a distinct class to compositors. 
 The " Printer's Devil " was the man who worked up the 
 ink on the stone with the balls and inked the types ; 
 and after a time, what with ink and perspiration, he 
 looked very terrible, hence the name. 
 
 It never occurred to Mr. Raikes that the setting up 
 of type and printing his Journal was an offence against 
 good morals ; but when he attempted to take advantage 
 of an improved postal service and get off some of the 
 papers on Sunday nights, he laid himself open to 
 adverse criticism, and on the gth May, 1791, the Journal 
 contained the following singular notice : 
 
 "As the printer's exertions to favour the despatch 
 of his paper to Hay and Brecon by the advantages of 
 Sunday's post are found to expose his conduct to much 
 misconstruction, he intends to discontinue the circulation 
 by that mode, and flatters himself his connection in these 
 quarters will accept his best endeavours to supply them 
 with the Gloucester Journal in the most expeditious 
 manner he can of another kind." 
 
 In the present day Mr. Raikes will not be judged 
 severely, and probably a bill of complete indemnity will 
 be given him. But the charge of Sabbath breaking has 
 been brought against him again and again, and made an 
 excuse for much adverse criticism and aspersion. When 
 the facts are known just judgment is certain to be 
 pronounced. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 125 
 
 Note. — Mr. Charles Cooke, surgeon, Cheltenham, writing on this 
 subject, says: "That his [Raikes's] paper was printed, and therefore 
 corrected, on that day [.Sunday] I can bear testimony, having often as a 
 boy been sent for one on the same night. But when I add that this was at 
 a time when my Aunt Sophia [afterwards Mrs. Bradburn] used to be 
 bitterly scoffed at for the regularity of her attendance at the Cathedral 
 daily service, and invited out to parties, as she has often told me, in order 
 to be made jest of, it cannot be wondered at that religion should not have 
 had much to do with business customs, and that in the part which he took 
 in the foundation of Sabbath schools, he should be considered as in advance of 
 Mmself as well as of the times in which he lived." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FIFTY YEARS IN THE VINEYARD. 
 
 "Pleased to do good, 
 He gave, and sought no more, nor questioned much, 
 Nor reasoned who deserved, for well he knew 
 The face of Need." Pollock. 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES spent the best fifty years of his 
 life in forming and carrying out plans of social 
 reform ; and he had the great satisfaction of seeing his 
 plans adopted and accomplishing their purpose. 
 
 The names of Howard, Paul, and Raikes are insepar- 
 ably associated with the work of prison reform which 
 commenced in Gloucester and gave its name to the 
 "Separate System." Sir G. O. Paul perfected and 
 carried the system into practice ; and in 1807 a 
 Commission from America visited Gloucester, and on 
 their return inaugurated the " Solitary System," which, 
 in its turn, was modified and introduced into Great 
 Britain. Identity is often lost under various disguises, 
 and the general reader, knowing Raikes simply in 
 connection with Sunday schools, may be interested in 
 finding that the energy which he expended on prisons 
 and prisoners is still vital. 
 
 126 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 127 
 
 In October, 1791, he was able to write in his Journal : 
 "The prison is in every way calculated to the ease, 
 health, and benefit of the prisoner, who has every comfort 
 he can wish to render confinement agreeable and life 
 desirable." 
 
 The " prisoners" here refer to "debttDrs," who before 
 were herded by day and chained at night with criminals. 
 This view was taken by the twenty-one debtors who 
 signed a petition to Sir G. O. Paul praying that their 
 wives and children might have admission to their 
 apartments. 
 
 In July, 1792, Mr. Raikes, writing to his friend, Mr. 
 Lewelyn, at Leominster, says : 
 
 " I have some satisfaction in acquainting you that the 
 state of the county is so much improved by the late 
 Regulations, and the attention to the improvement of 
 morals among the common people, that we have not for the 
 whole county one culprit to hold up his hand at the Bar at the 
 next Assizes. A circumstance that the history of this county 
 could never before record. 
 
 " The number about ten years ago was from 50 
 to 100 that we usually tried. That was the period when 
 Providence was pleased to make me the instrument of 
 introducing Sunday schools and regulations in prisons. — Non 
 Nobis Domine, sed Nomini tuo da gloriam ! " 
 
 The conviction is pressed upon us that Mr. Raikes 
 felt keenly the want of sympathy amongst the citizens, 
 towards whom he was entitled to look for generous 
 appreciation and support. The extravagant praise often 
 
128 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 bestowed upon him, and the adoption of his system so 
 universally as to become more than national, would have 
 been sufficient to overfill the souls of the vainest men 
 ■of his generation ; but at home, where he had worked 
 without fainting, he was " Bobby Wild Goose," and 
 the Sunday schools in the city did not thrive by 
 ■comparison with those in the rest of the world. The 
 'Queen (Charlotte) was pleased to see him at Windsor 
 and to encourage him.* Writing to the Rev. Bowea 
 Thickens, Ross (quoted by Nichols, Literary Anecdotes), 
 June 27th, 1788, he says : 
 
 " I rejoice to hear that Sunday schools are producing 
 the same happy effects with you that are springing up in 
 all parts of the kingdom, when the high ranks of people 
 will condescend to overlook the management. 
 
 " At Windsor, the ladies of fashion pass their Sundays 
 in teaching the poorest children. The Queen sent for 
 me the other day to give Her Majesty an account of the 
 effects observable on the manners of the poor, and Her 
 Majesty most graciously said that she envied those 
 who had the power of doing good by thus personally 
 promoting the welfare of society in giving instruction 
 and morality to the general mass of the common people, 
 a pleasure from which by her position she was debarred. 
 Were this known to the ladies of the British nation, it 
 would serve to animate them with zeal and follow in the 
 example which the Queen is so desirous to set before 
 them. You may mention it to the ladies of Ross, who 
 * See " Royal Anecdote," Appendix E. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 129 
 
 will not then, perhaps, be above noticing the children of 
 ■their poor neighbours, if they are present." 
 
 Putting his own wishes into practice, he induced two 
 of his own daughters to attend the school of St. Mary de 
 ■Crypt, and personally promote " the welfare of society in 
 giving instruction and morality to the general mass of the 
 ■common people." 
 
 King George III. paid a visit to the Sunday schools 
 
 at Brentford and uttered the pious wish, in Mrs. Trimmer's 
 
 hearing, " That every poor child in my kingdom should be 
 
 taught to read the Bible." The Duke of Gloucester — 
 
 as before mentioned — visited at Mr. Raikes's house whilst 
 
 quartered in the city with his regiment. He was the 
 
 President of an Eclectic Society and affected an 
 
 ■acquaintance with popular science. He was also so 
 
 good-natured a man that Thomas Raikes, the Diarist, 
 
 says he was known as " Silly Billy " by the young bloods 
 
 about town. Being a good-natured man and given to 
 
 intellectual pursuits, it may fairly be presumed that in 
 
 Mr. Robert Raikes's company the Sunday school project 
 
 was, at least, discussed ; and probably the noble Duke was 
 
 an early subscriber to the institution. Members of the 
 
 French Academy came over from Paris in 1787 and 
 
 thoroughly investigated the new plans for raising up a 
 
 new race. Dr. Adam Smith wrote : " No plan has 
 
 promised to effect a change of manners with equal ease 
 
 since the days of the Apostles." Opposition had burnt 
 
 itself out, and yet Mr. Raikes, writing to his friend 
 
 Lewelyn, said : 
 
 10 
 
130 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 " It is, however, some recompense for the scorn and 
 contempt of my neighbours that I am frequently honoured 
 with visits from strangers the most dignified and respect- 
 able, one of whom told me the other day that he would 
 rather have been the instrument of so much good to the 
 world than to be the possessor of a million of gold." 
 
 The Empress Catherine of Russia, for whose, 
 enlightened policy in the matter of education Raikes 
 frequently had a good word to say in his Journal, did 
 invite him — as she had invited Voltaire before him — to 
 come to Russia. His brother's connection with St. 
 Petersburg makes this circumstance not at all surprising, 
 only no one apparently would have known of the great 
 compliment paid to the citizen of Gloucester had it not 
 been for the following lines slipped into a gossipy letter 
 to Mr. Lewelyn* : 
 
 " You would smile were you to see how many 
 applications I have received from men in different parts 
 of the kingdom desiring me to recommend them to the 
 Empress of Russia in my room. Alas ! we have too much 
 need of aid in the work of instructing the ignorant and 
 enlightening the darkness that overhangs this nation, to 
 spare one individual who has zeal and capacity to be 
 useful at home." 
 
 This is all the notice which was taken of a compli- 
 ment which a public man might be excused if he blazoned 
 all over Europe. The society magazines of the day had 
 no inkling of this very interesting fact. That his name. 
 
 * Mrs. Ladbroke was not aware of the fact. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 131 
 
 did fill the minds of men is beyond dispute. The erudite 
 and pious Etheridge notes that Dr. Adam Clarke by his 
 long-continued appeals on behalf of Sunday schools 
 greatly aided those important institutions ; and Dr. 
 Jabez Bunting, afterwards President of the Wesleyan 
 Conference, preached, May 15th, 1805, "at the Rev. Mr. 
 Sharpe's Meeting House, 4 New Court, Carey Street, 
 London," so powerful a sermon in support of Sunday 
 schools that the Gentleman's Magazine recommended its 
 publication, which recommendation was adopted. 
 
 The Sunday School Union was in existence then, 
 though Mr. Raikes does not appear to have been 
 connected with it. He was, however, an honorary 
 member of the Sunday School Society, as appears from 
 this minute : 
 
 " At a general meeting of the members of the Sunday 
 School Society, held June nth, 1787, it was resolved 
 unanimously : That in consideration of the zeal and 
 merits of Robert Raikes, Esq., of Gloucester, who may be 
 considered as the original Founder as well as a liberal 
 supporter of Sunday schools, he be admitted an honorary 
 member of this Society." 
 
 It has never been sufficiently noticed that from the 
 time of his becoming its responsible Editor, the Gloucester 
 Journal was the staunch advocate of Temperance. The 
 crusade commenced as early as 1757, and here again 
 we find Raikes a long way in advance of the popular 
 sentiments of his time. In this year there was scarcity 
 of corn, and the price was consequently very high. The 
 
132 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 columns of the Journal were thrown open to corre- 
 spondence on the liquor traffic and the impolicy — not 
 to say sin — of converting breadstuff into spirit, which 
 demoralised instead of feeding the people. Some of the 
 ideas are crudely expressed, but the whole argument used 
 by Mr. Hoyle — Our National Resources and How Tkey 
 are Wasted — is to be found in them. The payment of 
 taxes on grain for distilling is set forth as a " melancholy 
 truth " and the following bold question is put : " Whether 
 those poor wretches who have lately risen in different 
 parts of this kingdom impelled by extreme hunger to 
 commit outrages on their neighbours, and have thereby 
 in the eye of the law forfeited their lives, are not 
 in the more lenient eye of humanity real objects of 
 compassion ? " 
 
 There follows a long article taking up the ground of 
 modern Temperance advocates, that it is the duty of 
 Parliament so to restrict the manufacture and sale of 
 intoxicating liquors as to prevent the waste of food, the 
 corruption of morals and the bodily impoverishment of 
 the poor. Distillers as a class are denounced as 
 " avaricious men whose unrelenting hearts and thirst 
 after gain (without the interposition of Parliament) would 
 starve the poor, and destroy with intoxicating liquors 
 one-half of the common people who, under proper regu- 
 lation, would be made very civil members of society and 
 add strength to the State." 
 
 The article is signed " Britannicus," but it reads very 
 much like Mr. Raikes's own composition, and there 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 133 
 
 are two chords touched in the whole treatment of the 
 question which he never ceased to play on, namely : (i) 
 That it is a crime to degrade and starve the masses ; and 
 (2) That the masses when elevated are sources of wealth 
 and strength to the State. From internal evidence it 
 seems probable that a nom de plume is adopted so 
 as not to offend the great maltsters and distillers in the 
 country. 
 
 The nail is driven home with much force in the same 
 issue in a letter (also anonymous) on the scarcity of corn. 
 Here is an extract : 
 
 " A family in great distress made application to the 
 parish for assistance. Some of the officers went and saw 
 a pot boiling on the fire, at which sight they seemed to 
 disbelieve the presence of poverty. But this [disbelief] 
 was soon dispelled by throwing out the carcase of a dead 
 dog, which was the second that they had been compelled 
 by extreme necessity to procure in order to prevent their 
 starving. 
 
 "The very relation of this matter," says the corre- 
 spondent, " makes ' my heart bleed with sympathetic 
 sorrow ' ; nor can I look upon it in any other light than 
 as a judgment of the Almighty on this false sinful nation 
 for the abuse of His merciful and glorious bounty to us." 
 
 So that there can be no mistake as to the editorial 
 sympathies, an innocent but official-looking paragraph is 
 inserted reminding the local authorities of not the least 
 important of their duties, namely, the visiting of ale- 
 houses by constables and Tything men of the city on 
 
134 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Sundays. If tipplers are found therein during prohibited 
 hours, they are to be brought before a Justice of the 
 Peace and fined. The penalty to the tippler is 3s. 46. 
 and to the ale seller los. 
 
 It is the fact that a single issue of the Journal in 
 February, 1757, is as completely a temperance number as 
 the habits and modes of thought of that day would 
 tolerate, and was certainly more in advance of public 
 opinion than any temperance magazine of to-day can be 
 in advance of public sentiment. It was not a passing 
 fad : he was a consistent and persistent enemy to ale- 
 houses and Sunday drinking in them. Thirty years 
 afterwards — after all his prison experiences and after 
 Sunday schools were prosperous — he describes them as 
 " nests of crime," and adds that " the magistrates have 
 given orders to the constables to look well after them." 
 
 At the end of fifty years of work we do not find that 
 Mr. Raikes changed his views much on social questions, 
 or ever repented of the part which he had taken in 
 respect of them. That he really believed that criminals 
 were made so in consequence of the neglect and care- 
 lessness of society to teach them better, is proved by 
 the fact that he would not prosecute the woman who stole 
 and pawned his shirts* He looked on all such with com- 
 passion — and this compassionate feeling, founded on 
 experience, was never absent in his public and private 
 career. 
 
 Whilst he was a progressive man, the tone and 
 
 * Sec Note end of Chapter VIII. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 135 
 
 habit of his mind was conservative in this : having once 
 thought out a problem, he seldom changed his attitude 
 towards it. In respect to Sunday schools we only find 
 him saying that they were insufficient to meet the 
 necessities of the day, and that he went heart and soul 
 with the establishment of day and industrial schools. 
 He records in the Journal for July, 1801, that the Dean 
 of Lincoln preached in the Abbey Church, Bath, to 
 700 children attending Sunday schools and schools of 
 industry. 
 
 What the world most thanks him for is this : he 
 founded and organised Sunday schools in an unsectarian 
 spirit and on the principle of voluntaryism. The voluntary 
 principle has never been departed from. The Sunday 
 School Society was, from the first, a voluntary Society, 
 and this tradition is carried on by the Sunday School 
 Union established in 1803. The widest Catholic feeling 
 was shown from the commencement. The Church of 
 England and Nonconformist schools often shared the 
 proceeds of the same collection. This was a great 
 advantage to the movement from the very first, because 
 its aims were not obscured by sectarian prejudices or 
 bitterness. Children were cared for because they were 
 human, and not because they were called by any particular 
 name. It was not uncommon to meet in the Journal 
 acknowledgments of subscriptions for the benefit of all 
 the Sunday schools in a certain district. If there were 
 jealousies, Mr. Raikes wisely ignored them on paper. 
 
 The Sunday School Society was founded in 1785, 
 
136 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and in ten years did a great deal of work, though it only- 
 professed to give aid to other societies and struggling 
 schools out of funds arising from legacies and donations. 
 That these were generous, the report at the end of the 
 ten years will show. The report was presented at the 
 annual general meeting, held at " St. Paul's Head Tavern," 
 Cateaton Street, London, on the i8th July, 1795, Thomas 
 Boddington, Esq., in the chair. During ten years the 
 Society had distributed 91,915 spelling books, 24,232 
 Testaments, and 5,360 Bibles for use in 1012 Sunday 
 schools containing about 65,000 scholars. The committee 
 were able to report the gift of a legacy of ;f2O0 Bank 
 Stock. This Society, although working on the lines of a 
 charity, was much in advance of most charities, which 
 were tied down to particular purposes to be performed in 
 a particular way. This Society had more freedom and 
 exercised it judiciously. 
 
 So little were the Sunday schools of the United 
 Kingdom dependent on any central body or dependent on 
 the magic of a name, that the " passing away " of Raikes 
 never affected them in the least. The principle of self- 
 help had never before been so admirably adapted to the 
 educational necessities of a great people, and we know 
 that the principle is as elastic now as then ; and, speaking 
 for the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world, there is 
 no reason for the suggestion that the time may come 
 when Sunday schools will fail to adapt themselves to any 
 and all future social and religious conditions. 
 
 At the end of half a century of work in a vineyard 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 137 
 
 which seemed bare of promise, Robert Raikes saw that 
 his " little grain of mustard seed " was full of growth 
 and promised one day to cover the earth. Before he 
 died about 400,000 children were on the books of well- 
 organised Sunday schools, and this knowledge was his. 
 exceeding great reward whilst in the land of the living. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SOME PIONEERS. 
 " It is the first men who do who are great," — MS. 
 
 NO book pretending to take into account the condition 
 under which Mr. Raikes hved, and the moral atmo 
 sphere around him, will be complete without referring t( 
 some men and women in Gloucestershire who certainl; 
 did work on pretty much the same lines as himself oi 
 the question of education. If for no other purpose, thei 
 to show that thinking men, acting independently and ii 
 different centres, arrived at the same conclusions, an( 
 that society was ripe for the change so soon as thi 
 organiser should appear. When we know all that cai 
 be known, the pretensions to originality of design so lonj 
 set up for Mr. Raikes, and so hotly combated, are some 
 what reduced, but without detracting from his merit anc 
 the position which must be accorded him in history 
 Moreover, the county of Gloucester stands in relation t( 
 the rest of the country as the Galilee of the movement, S( 
 full was it of first disciples. 
 
 THE REV. JOHN MARKS MOFFATT. 
 
 A quiet, studious, unobtrusive man was John Mark 
 Moffatt, Independent Minister of Nailsworth, Gloucester 
 
 138 
 
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THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 139 
 
 shire and afterwards of Malmesbury, Wilts, where he died 
 and was buried. In 1774, when labouring at Nailsworth, 
 and as yet unmarried, he continued the practice ot teaching 
 the children of his congregation on Sundays. How long 
 before 1774 he commenced it it is impossible now to say 
 with certainty, for although a literary man and the author, 
 amongst other things, of The Duty and Interest of every 
 Private Person and the Kingdom at Large; the Protestant 
 Prayer Book; and the History of the Town and Abbey of 
 Malmesbury, he left no account of his attempt at civihsing 
 the young generation. Even after Mr. Raikes's "scheme," 
 as it was termed, became talked about, and somei^honour 
 was attached to the name of the man who suggested it 
 to the world, Mr. Moffatt kept silence. But for the 
 fortunate circumstance of his only daughter preserving 
 a letter to her father from the Rev. Thomas Gibbons, 
 dated August 26th, 1774, there would have been nothing 
 authentic to show that the claims put forward for 
 Mr. Moffatt as having ante-dated Mr. Raikes were not 
 as shadowy as scores of others. 
 
 Mr. Raikes also wrote to Mr. Moffatt in 1784, and 
 that letter, too, is in existence. It is a good specimen of 
 Mr. Raikes's composition and handwriting, and we give 
 a facsimile of it in this volume.* 
 
 Mr. Gibbons wrote to his "dear friend" in August, 1774, 
 and then confesses with much self-reproach that he has 
 
 * The earliest specimen of Mr. Raikes's handwriting which the Editor 
 possesses is his signature to the church register on the day of his marriage 
 in 1767. The letter no:v reproduced is the earhest specimen of a letter by 
 him ever exhibited. A tracing from the church register is also given on p. 267. 
 
140 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 been behindhand with his epistolary correspondence for 
 the two years previous, and that his dear friend's last 
 letter should have been answered months before. So 
 we may take it that it was in 1773 that Mr. Moffatt wrote 
 to him about his plan for instructing children, and it may 
 be assumed that it had been in practice some little time 
 before he wrote. We ma}', therefore, fix 1772 as the 
 probable date when he began his plan, or eight years before 
 Mr. Raikes commenced operations in the city of Gloucester. 
 
 The material parts of Mr. Gibbons's letter* are as 
 follow : 
 
 " The scheme you have suggested of instructing the 
 children, &c., is excellent, and I shall be ready to assist 
 you in it — if I cannot any otherwise, yet by procuring 
 you books from our Book Society. Indeed, I had a 
 nomination t'other day, and I divided it half to you and 
 half to another minister in the country. [He wrote from 
 Bishop's Stortford, Herts.] The books I suppose you 
 have, before this letter arrives, received : they consist only 
 of Bibles and Testaments. 
 
 "Let me know whether you have proceeded upon this 
 plan, whether you are likely to meet with success in it, 
 and what aids you could immediately wish. Though my 
 purse is but scanty, there are sparings from it for other 
 purposes, and much cannot be expected from that quarter, 
 yet I may be able, after I have had an account from you, 
 to procure assistance from the liberality of others, either 
 by books or money. 
 
 * The original is in the Editor's possession. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 141 
 
 " Assure yourself that as it is a very laudable scheme, 
 so I must heartily wish it success, and I am ready to 
 forward it as far as lies in my power. Go on and prosper, 
 my young friend, in the work of the Lord, and may He 
 enlarge and influence your heart for doing good, and fulfil 
 all your desire. Oh ! 'tis a blessed thing to be a servant 
 of the Lord, to be the instrument of blessing to others, 
 and especially in their most important, their everlasting 
 interests. And, considering how short and uncertain Life 
 is, how ready should we be to gather up the golden sands 
 of time that nothing may be lost." 
 
 Standing alone this letter would not clearly convey 
 the idea that Mr. Moffatt's plan had anything to do with 
 the Sunday instruction of children; but in 1863 Miss 
 Moffatt was living near Stroud, and in an interview she 
 informed the Author that her father's was a Sunday 
 school for the instruction of children, and that it flourished 
 under his care until he removed to Malmesbury, where 
 he died. Her mother told her that Mr. Raikes wrote 
 to her father and received from him information about 
 the Nailsworth Sunday School; and she used to say: 
 "Your father was a most humble-minded man, and did 
 not care to have any honour." 
 
 There is not the slightest reason for doubting a single 
 word uttered by Miss Moifatt, who at that date (1863) 
 had herself been a Sunday school teacher for forty years. 
 She had recently been presented with a handsomely 
 bound copy of Bagster's Comprehensive Bible by the 
 "teachers and friends of the Old Chapel Sunday School, 
 
142 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Stroud, for her unwearied attentions as superintendent 
 during the period of thirty years." 
 
 The material portions of the letter which Mr. Raikes 
 sent to her father in 1784 are as follow, and a facsimile 
 of the whole is annexed. 
 
 " It has been a great mortification to me that I have 
 never yet had leisure to pay a visit from which I should 
 derive so much satisfaction. It gives me a pleasure that 
 is not to be expressed to hear from all quarters how much 
 good is springing up from this little grain of mustard 
 seed. 
 
 "The city of Bristol is entering on a plan of Sunday 
 schools with a degree of spirit that reflects great honour 
 upon the promoters, who chiefly consist of a few of the 
 clergy and principal merchants. 
 
 " I have also had letters from Exeter, where they are 
 going to introduce it. 
 
 " I thank you, my good sir, for the tracts. I hope 
 that b}' using the means we shall in time gain some 
 ground towards attaining the end of preventing the 
 growth of those enormities which render mankind a curse 
 instead of a blessing to each other." 
 
 MRS. BRADBURN nee SOPHIA COOKE. 
 
 Both of the Wesleys were personally acquainted with 
 Mr. Raikes, and John Wesley gave his support, whole- 
 hearted and immediate, to Sunday schools. The plan 
 was in harmony with the democratic instincts of the early 
 Wesleyan societies. The lay element was paramount — 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 143 
 
 free to labour, free to teach, free to bring little children 
 to the arms of Jesus. There are many cases in the 
 country in which Sunday schools were adopted so early 
 — and no proper record kept — that it has been claimed 
 that some of them were prior to 1780. It has often been 
 claimed for Mrs. Bradburn — the wife of the talented and 
 eloquent preacher, sometimes called the Demosthenes of 
 Methodism, who did so much to bring Wesleyanism into- 
 repute — thkt she met Mr. Raikes in Gloucester, and in 
 conversation with him first suggested to his mind the idea 
 of Sunday instruction. The stories told and published 
 are defective and do not hang together well. The 
 following biographical facts relating to Sophia Cooke 
 (Mrs. Bradburn) are from the mouth of her nephew, Mr, 
 Charles Cooke, surgeon, Cambray Terrace, Cheltenham. 
 He said : 
 
 " Sophia Cooke was the daughter of John Cooke, an 
 eminent surgeon, and a native of the city of Gloucester. 
 John Cooke had, I believe, six children. His eldest son 
 was the Rev. George Cooke, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel 
 College, Oxford, and afterwards for forty years the Rector 
 of Dortworth. 
 
 " Sophia, like the rest of her relations, was strongly 
 attached in her early days to the Established Church, and 
 her friends were what was called ' High and dry Church 
 people; ' but very early in life she happened to be in the 
 neighbourhood of Stroud, and heard the Rev. Samuel 
 Bradburn preach. He was a Wesleyan. She was deeply 
 impressed with the religious truths uttered by him, and 
 
144 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 subsequently sought and obtained pardon for her sins. 
 She was thrown into London by the Providence of God, 
 and Mr, Bradburn was appointed to preach in Southwark 
 Chapel, Borough, to a congregation which numbered 
 generally 3,000 people, 
 
 " She was married to him. He was contemporary 
 with John Wesley, and was a very eminent minister in 
 that day. 
 
 " Mrs. Bradburn was greatly persecuted in her time 
 for marrying a Wesleyan preacher, by her friends and 
 relations. She suffered great privations of many kinds, 
 and from being a fine and beautiful woman, she became 
 a poor shattered creature, but we cannot learn that she 
 ever regretted the course she had taken. 
 
 " My Aunt Sophia, before her marriage and whilst she 
 was living in Gloucester, used to collect children in the 
 nave of her parish church and ask them religious ques- 
 tions, and this practice of hers, I have always understood, 
 was the first step towards the establishment of Sunday 
 schools in Gloucester. 
 
 " I never heard my aunt say that she was the first founder 
 of Sunday schools, and never heard her challenge anyone 
 for saying that she was not, or that other people were. 
 
 " I wrote to the Rev. Samuel Lysons in 1861, informing 
 him exactly the position which my aunt occupied, and he 
 wrote to me saying that had he known the facts earlier 
 he would have given her 'her proper position' in his 
 sketch of Raikes in the book entitled What has Gloucester- 
 shire Achieved ? " 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 145 
 
 The following items were extracted from an old MS. in 
 the possession of Mr. Cooke : 
 
 " Mrs. Bradburn was brought to the enjoyment of the 
 pardoning mercy and renewing grace of God in the 
 eighteenth year of her age. 
 
 " It is stated from good authority that she first 
 suggested to Mr. Raikes, with whom she was personally 
 acquainted, the plan of Sunday school instruction. 
 
 " Commiserating the case of a large number of ragged 
 children whom he saw in the streets, he said to Miss 
 Cooke, ' What shall we do for these poor neglected 
 children ? ' and she answered, ' Let us teach them to read 
 and take them to church.' 
 
 " The suggestion was adopted, and Mr. Raikes and 
 Miss Cooke conducted the first company of Sunday 
 scholars, exposed to public laughter as they passed along 
 the streets with their unpromising charges. 
 
 " From early life Mrs. Bradburn* enjoyed the personal 
 friendship of John Wesley, and lived two years in his 
 house in the City Road, London. She used to remark that 
 his morning salutation, uttered with great cheerfulness, 
 was : ' Safely live to-day.' " 
 
 SAMUEL WEB DE HILL, 
 
 When the Author visited Painswick, near Stroud, in 
 
 1862, sweet remembrances lingered in the minds of the 
 
 then aged of Mr. Samuel Web, son of John Web de Hill, 
 
 * Mr. Cooke possessed a portrait of Mrs. Bradburn in Indian ink, and 
 he gave the Author a copy, which has imfortunately been lost.— Ed. 
 
 11 
 
146 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 a wealthy cloth manufacturer. Samuel was baptised in 
 the parish church of Painswick, October 14th, 1737. 
 The certificated copy reads : " Baptizings. 1737. Oct: 14. 
 Sam"- son of John Web de Hill." In 1862 he was always 
 called Samuel Webb. The Rev. Samuel Lysons, in a 
 note to the Author, says the origin of the family is Dutch, 
 and that the name "Web" was given to one of the family 
 settled in Gloucester as a sort of nickname by the Merry 
 Monarch— Charles II. 
 
 Samuel Webb was born to wealth and to misfortuhe, 
 and both these estates endeared him to those who knew 
 him. He was open-handed with his wealth and pitied 
 the poor, and in his evil days he was " always the 
 gentleman." The aged were ever pleased to talk about 
 him — his great wealth, his great benevolence, his hand- 
 some countenance, his genial manners, his elegant dress. 
 A tradition grew around him which the aged would not 
 willingly let die ; and it had this for its foundation : He 
 employed a cloth weaver named William Twining to 
 hold a Sunday school in the kitchen of his house in 
 Rutchill Bottom, Sheepscombe. He took a personal 
 interest in the children, walking over from the Hill to 
 Sheepscombe, talking to and examining them. To all 
 the children he gave something. The good had two- 
 pence and the bad one penny. All had something. 
 He carried a large green umbrella, the first which had 
 ever been seen,* and those who saw it never afterwards 
 
 * Mr. Jonas Hanway is said to have been the first person to publicly 
 carry an umbrella in England. He will always be remembered in connec- 
 tion with Sunday schools. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 H7 
 
 forgot it, or the gold buttons on his blue coat, or the 
 beautiful lace about his waistcoat and cuffs. 
 
 He was acquainted with Mr. Robert Raikes, and many 
 old people remembered seeing Mr. Raikes with Mr. Webb 
 when he visited Twining's school at Sheepscombe. From 
 this circumstance, and from the fact that the Gloucester 
 schools became pre-eminent, the scholars as they grew up 
 obtained the fixed conviction that Mr. Raikes came over 
 to Painswick and "borrowed his idea" from Mr. Webb. 
 A careful investigation, however, resulted in nothing more 
 definite than this — a Sunday school was established by 
 Mr. Webb's agency at or about the time that Mr. Raikes 
 made known the result of his experiment in Gloucester, 
 and that Mr. Raikes visited the school with Mr. Fox 
 from London, but that was not until 1784, after which a 
 local committee was formed and Painswick became one 
 of the show places in the early history of the Sunday 
 school movement. 
 
 John Twining, gardener, son of William Twining, gave 
 "the Author all the information and assistance in his 
 power. His uncle, John, conducted the girls' school in 
 Sheepscombe— also with Mr. Webb's patronage— and in 
 the course of his narrative he said: "These wicked 
 ■children were soon reclaimed from the worst of their 
 ways, and we used to assemble them every year in Pains- 
 wick churchyard and arrange them around so as that 
 any person might come and examine them. After I grew 
 up I was a teacher for several years, and I once took as 
 many as no scholars from Sheepscombe to Painswick, 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 through the corn-fields, and not one of them broke the 
 ranks. They marched in twos. . . . Robert Raikes 
 gave my father a Bible; this Bible contained, I believe^ 
 a complete history of my father's Sunday school. I cannot 
 possibly find where it is." * 
 
 In 1861 the Rev. Edward Lightwood, Wesleyan, wrote- 
 to the Wesleyan Magazine stating that in 1772 a pious 
 woman, a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Society,, 
 started a Sunday school in Painswick. Then followed 
 the usual story about Mr. Raikes seeing her and "borrow- 
 ing " the idea, &c. Mr. Pullen, master of the National 
 School (1862), informed the Author that he had made 
 a house-to-house examination, but could never find any 
 trace of any old Sunday schools in the parish of Painswick, 
 except those kept by the Twinings and attributed to- 
 Mr. Webb's benevolence. He was very doubtful about 
 the dates of origin — 178^, in his opinion, would be the 
 earliest. 
 
 WILLIAM KING, OF DURSLEY. 
 
 Very strong claims have been put forward and sup- 
 ported with warmth on behalf of William King, a woollen 
 card maker, of Dursley, and an acquaintance of Mr. 
 Raikes. He was a Dissenter, an admirer of Howard's, 
 and a follower of Whitefield's. It was claimed for him 
 that he ante-dated Mr. Raikes's first school in Gloucester. 
 The following are the letters which the Author received 
 
 * This Bible was sold by auction, and all efforts to trace it have been 
 fruitless. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 149 
 
 from Mr. King's nearest surviving relations : — Mr. Edward 
 Weight, Norfolk Terrace, Gloucester, wrote : 
 
 " Upwards of fifty years since my late brother John 
 wished to take the matter up, but my father and mother 
 disapproving of it, 
 lest their intention 
 might be miscon- 
 strued and consi- 
 dered mere vanit}', 
 he refrained from 
 doing so. . . . 
 I well remember, 
 when young, hear- 
 ing Mr. Adrian 
 Newth* (a man 
 noted for his piety) 
 repeatedly saying 
 it was my grand- 
 father (Mr. King) 
 who first promoted 
 Sunday schools. 
 I much 
 regret the subject was not taken up when my brother 
 wished." 
 
 Mr. Weight obtained from his aunt, Mrs. M. Oldland, 
 one of William King's daughters, a letter which is perhaps 
 
 * This Adrian was the father of the Rev. Elisha Newtli, one of the 
 early converts of the Rev. Rowland Hill, and was " for nearly thirty years 
 in the pastoral oversight " of Surrey Chapel. That eminent Greek scholar, 
 and one of the New Testament revisers, the late Dr. Samuel Newth, was 
 his grandson. 
 
 William King, of Dursley. 
 
150 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 the best and most reliable testimony now obtainable. It 
 is as follows : 
 
 " March Sth, 1863. '] 
 
 " My dear and honoured father, Mr. William King, of 
 Dursley, being at Painswick on business, finding there 
 were two men in Gloucester Prison for execution on the 
 Monda}', came to Gloucester on Saturday evening in 
 order to visit them, intending, if permitted, to remain 
 with them the preceding night. But the keeper did not 
 think it safe, as they were so bad characters. 
 
 " On Sunday morning he called on Mr. Raikes. Both 
 walked together towards the Island, and seeing several 
 lads at different sports my father observed to Mr. Raikes 
 what a pity it was the Sabbath should be so desecrated, 
 when Mr. Raikes replied, ' Mr. King, how can it be 
 altered ? ' 
 
 " ' Sir,' said my father, ' if Sabbath schools were begun 
 so as to give the poor education it would be [the] means 
 of great good. I have endeavoured to open one myself 
 with the help of a faithful journeyman of mine, but from 
 multitude of business through the week I could not attend 
 as I wished.' 
 
 "Mr. Raikes replied, 'It will not do for Dissenters; 
 it must be from the Church.' My father belonged to the 
 Tabernacle — [and was] a follower of George Whitefield. 
 
 " Mr. Raikes told a Mr. Stock, I believe a clergyman, 
 who employed a person to instruct a few poor children, 
 and in three weeks after Mr. Raikes put ii in his Journal. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 151 
 
 " Some years back the question was sent to your dear 
 mother, my sister, and she answered nearly or quite the 
 same as above. It was then put in print, in a book 
 called The Origin of Sunday Schools, and I have to rejoice 
 that that small cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, has 
 spread over the land, and many thousands reap the benefit. 
 
 "From your affectionate Aunt, 
 
 " M. Oldland." 
 
 This claim, made no doubt in all good faith, does not 
 bear close investigation. If Mr. King did not see Mr. 
 Raikes until three weeks before the announcement in the 
 Journal of November 3rd, 1783, then that was about three 
 years after Mr. Raikes had collected children in Soot 
 Alley, Gloucester, six years after Samuel Lee, on the 
 authority of a painted board, opened a Sunday school at 
 Pagan Hill, and eleven years after Mr. Moffatt certainly 
 taught children on Sundays at Nailsworth. Many 
 genuine errors with regard to the dates of " original " 
 schools in isolated districts have, no doubt, arisen through 
 Mr. Raikes's printed announcement being taken as the 
 first inception of the idea of Sunday schools. This we 
 now know to be wrong ; and if it were not, the claims set 
 up would in no way affect the true historical position of 
 Mr. Raikes. 
 
 Outside of Gloucester there have been many genuine 
 attempts to inaugurate local social reforms, and at Little- 
 Lever, Lancashire, Raikes was clearly anticipated. The 
 points of resemblance in the methods are interesting. 
 
152 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 ADAM CROMPTON, LITTLE LEVER. 
 
 Perhaps the best thought-out and most systematic 
 plan of Sunday education, apart from catechising in places 
 of worship, is that of Mr. Adam Crompton's, of Little 
 Lever, paper manufacturer. He worked entirely on the 
 same lines as Raikes — establishing a school and support- 
 ing it at his own expense — only he put his plan in 
 operation some years before Mr. Raikes put his. The 
 one vital difference between the two experiments was, 
 that one was local, isolated, individual; and the other, 
 universal. The one died, the other lived. Both were 
 organically the same, but one, and one only, had breathed 
 into it the breath of life. 
 
 Through a little carelessness the thoughtful efforts of 
 Mr. Crompton have been attributed to James Heyes, a 
 poor bobbin-winder, of Little Lever, known locally as 
 "Jemmy o' th' Hey." Mr. Peter Turner, of Wednesbury, 
 gave currency to the "Jemmy o' th' Hey" tradition, and 
 gave it picturesqueness by stating that he used to summon 
 the Sunday scholars together by means of an old brass 
 mortar and pestle, which is not improbable. But Jemmy 
 was a paid teacher in the employ of Mr. Adam Crompton. 
 
 The European Magazine for 1793 (in Robert Raikes's 
 lifetime) contains a thoughtful and judicious article by 
 Dr. Thomas Barnes, of New College, Manchester, on Mr. 
 Adam Crompton, who died October 30th, 1793, at the 
 age of 72. Dr. Barnes claimed for his personal friend 
 the honour of being the first person in England who formed 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 153 
 
 the plan of a Sunday school and supported it at his own 
 ■charge. Dr. Barnes is not certain about the date, 
 although he is about the fact that James Heyes was paid 
 a regular salary by him for teaching poor children at his 
 own house on that day. The date fixed for the com- 
 mencement of James Heyes' school is 1774-5, and so Mr. 
 Crompton precedes Mr. Raikes by five or six years, and 
 in his turn was preceded by the Rev. John Marks Moffatt, 
 •of Nailsworth, by about two years, who likewise (as we 
 have seen) organised a school and supported it at his own 
 -charge. What makes the parallel between Mr. Raikes 
 and Mr. Crompton more interesting is, that both were 
 laymen. In one sense it was not their duty to look after 
 the spiritual welfare of the little outcasts, and Society 
 laid no claims upon them to do so. There the parallel 
 justly ceases — Raikes gave the nascent institution his 
 unceasing personal attention, advertised it, stood the 
 chaff and ridicule and abuse connected with it, and when 
 praise came he took that and absorbed that also. In Mr. 
 Crompton's case no one knew of it but "Jemmy o' th' 
 Hey," who received his wages when due. 
 
 Dr. Barnes says : " This was done in so secret a 
 manner that his [Crompton's] own family was at the 
 time ignorant of it, and cannot now [1793] therefore fix 
 the exact year when it was begun. But I can state, 
 that for several years before the institution of Sunday 
 schools by that good man, Mr. Raikes, of Gloucester, 
 Mr. A. Crompton maintained a school of this description 
 at Little Lever, under the care of James Heyes, to whom 
 
154 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 he paid a regular salary for teaching poor children at his 
 own house on that day. I lived for many years a near 
 neighbour to this poor man, and admired what I then 
 thought to be his disinterested kindness in devoting every 
 Sunday, when by infirmity disabled from attending public 
 worship, to so charitable an office. It was not till long- 
 after that I discovered the plan and the support of it to 
 be the work of Mr. Crompton, who had concealed this, 
 as he wished to do his other charities, even from his 
 nearest friends and relations, among whom I had the 
 pleasure of being numbered." Dr. Barnes for himself 
 then follows out a train of thought just towards Mr. 
 Raikes's claims to be the central figure in the Sunday 
 school system by saying: "This circumstance will not be 
 considered as any diminution to the praise, nor will it 
 lessen the satisfaction, of the worthy man before men- 
 tioned, since Mr. Raikes did not borrow the hint from 
 hence or any other quarter. He, in the generosity of his. 
 own soul, like Mr. Crompton, conceived and executed the 
 plan ; and he has had the noble pleasure of seeing it 
 adopted, extended, and patronised in such a manner as 
 to gratify the warmest feelings of his heart." 
 
 Many men and women besides these have, doubtlessly,, 
 in their own way endeavoured to improve the intellectual 
 and spiritual condition of the ignorant poor about them. 
 They have done good — all of them — and the fact has been 
 forgotten or recorded on tombstones ; but from no effort 
 of either of them did there spring a system or institution, 
 which lasted longer than they lived to support it. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 155 
 
 They were, however, pioneers, and as such deserve 
 remembrance. 
 
 CATECHISING IN CHURCHES. 
 
 The wholesome and ancient practice of catechising; 
 children publicly in churches has from time to time given 
 rise to much misapprehension as to the antiquity of 
 Sunday schools. In pre-Reformation times, and after, it 
 was the custom to transact most of the business of Hfe; 
 in or near the church. The church was "shot," like a 
 coloured thread in silken stuff, through all the concerns of 
 life. Feasts and fairs were held in unconsecrated portions 
 of churchyards, and rents and tolls were received by the 
 Abbots and Priors and Lords Ecclesiastical from all 
 persons using Church lands for secular purposes. The 
 church itself was the great meeting place in bitter trouble 
 and in great joy ; and for buying or selling, people met 
 either in the church porch or just outside of it — a practice 
 not yet altogether obsolete in rural counties. '■ 
 
 In pre-Reformation days the Church and teaching 
 were associated in the minds of the laity, and there were 
 Catechisms so old that their age is said to be doubtful. 
 In Reformation days the great value of catechising was 
 recognised, recommended, and then insisted on under 
 heavy penalties. As a general observance, the catechising 
 of children so fell into disuse that when practised it 
 seemed a new thing, and pious donors gave legacies for 
 its perpetuation. The value which the Church placed 
 upon the practice — which grew into a kind of domestic 
 
156 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 inquisition in Scotland, but which lost its hold in England 
 — may be seen by reference to the Constitutions and 
 Canons Ecclesiastical,* 
 
 By the 5gth of the loist " Constitutions and Canons 
 Ecclesiastical," agreed upon with the King's Majesty's 
 license in the Synod begun at London 1603, it was made 
 binding on " ministers to catechise every Sunday " : to 
 wit, " Every parson, vicar, or curate, upon every Sunday 
 and holyday, before evening prayer, shall, for half an hour 
 or more, examine and instruct the youth and ignorant 
 persons of his parish in the Ten Commandments, the 
 Articles of the Belief, and in the Lord's Prayer ; and shall 
 diligently hear, instruct, and teach them the Catechism 
 set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. And all 
 fathers, mothers, masters, and mistresses shall cause their 
 children, servants, and apprentices which have not learnt 
 the Catechism, to come to the church at the time 
 appointed, obediently to hear, and to be ordered by the 
 minister, until they have learned the same. 
 
 "And if any minister neglect his duty herein let him be 
 sharply reproved upon the first complaint, and true notice 
 thereof given to the Bishop or ordinary of the place. If, 
 after submitting himself, he shall willingly offend therein 
 again, let him be suspended ; if so the third time [he 
 offend] . . . then excommunicated, and so remain 
 until he will be reformed." 
 
 The Church could not pronounce itself more strongly; 
 but its sympathy may not have gone with the pronounce- 
 
 * For the opinion of the late Bishop of London, see Chapter XVI. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 157 
 
 ment, or "the times were out of joint," and there was no 
 power to enforce its authority. The Canon was dis- 
 obeyed and forgotten. Had it been acted on, the 
 energies of Mr. Raikes might have been more profitably 
 employed in other directions, and Sunday schools, as we 
 now know them, probably would never have had an 
 existence. Catechetical instruction is very ancient, and 
 the EncyclopcBdia Briiannica (ninth edition) says it " was 
 doubtless common among the ancient Jews, and the 
 modern Jews possess several Catechisms. The earliest 
 with which we are acquainted are, the Thirteen Articles of 
 Belief, by the famous Maimonides, which belongs to the 
 twelfth century, and Rabbi Levi's Book of Education, 
 which belongs to the thirteenth." The most important 
 and authoritative of the Catechisms of the Roman 
 Catholic Church is that of the Council of Trent, which 
 was published in 1566, prepared under the superintend- 
 ence of Cardinal Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, who 
 certainly did his best to enforce catechetical instruction. 
 He enacted a Synodical decree obliging all curates to 
 assemble the children of each parish for catechism on 
 Sundays and other festivals. He organised a teaching 
 staff of both sexes to teach the children on Sundays, and 
 at his death (1584) he left 740 schools, 273 superintendent 
 officers, 1,726 minor officers, and 40,098 scholars. The 
 plan never spread beyond the Cardinal's personal influ- 
 ence, and, after his death, the schools declined. 
 
 Apart from this ancient and most salutary practice of 
 catechising known to our own Church, there was the 
 
JSS ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 example of the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan for the 
 imitation of those who should not have been ignorant of 
 the duty so clearly set forth in the " Constitutions and 
 Canons Ecclesiastical.'' 
 
 The clergy and Nonconformist divines who started 
 what have, in their names, been called " Sunday schools " 
 never clairried for themselves any new discovery. They 
 viewed the matter in quite a different light to Raikes. 
 They were Catechists, and so looked on themselves, and 
 made no special note or parade about the matter. In this 
 ■way they differed greatly from Mr. Raikes, who estimated 
 himself as the originator of something. To use his 
 own words: "That was the period when Providence was 
 pleased to make me the instrument of introducing Sunday 
 schools." 
 
 The Rev. Joseph Alleine, one of the most sympathetic 
 of souls, and by some reckoned as the last of the Puritan 
 divines, catechised children in St. Mary Magdalen's 
 Church, Taunton, about 1655, and afterwards at Bath. 
 
 The Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, of Catterick, Yorkshire, 
 ■and his wife, in 1763 catechised and expounded the Scrip- 
 tures to the children in the parish on Sundays. He also 
 had adult classes in his study on alternate Sundays. 
 
 In 1769 Miss Hannah Ball used to hear children 
 their Catechism, and hear them read the Scriptures, in 
 her house and in the nave of the parish church at High 
 Wycombe, Bucks. 
 
 It has been claimed for these and for many others that 
 they were true and original founders of Sunday schools. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 159 
 
 They were really Catechists, and when their efforts ceased 
 things fell back into their original grooves. 
 
 What was understood by catechising is pretty well 
 ■shown by the legacy of Mrs. Rebecca Powell, of Ciren- 
 ■cester, who, dying in 1722, gave ^10 a year to the minister 
 for catechising the children and for expounding the 
 Catechism, and £2 a year to provide the candles necessary 
 for that service. The catechising was to extend from the 
 Feast of St. Luke (October i8th) to the Feast of St. 
 Matthias (February 24th). This bequest was meant by 
 the pious donor to be for "the better propagation of 
 ■Christian knowledge, and the breeding up of the children 
 •of the town in the principles and doctrines of the Estab- 
 lished Church of England." This practice was common 
 in Cirencester in the reign of Queen Anne. 
 
 In 1732, among the " Orders " agreed upon by the 
 trustees of the charity schools at Stroud were the follow- 
 ing: "All the children in the town [schools] shall be 
 ■brought to church every Sunday before Divine service 
 begins, and the children of each school out of town shall 
 be brought to church every Sunday in the afternoon 
 •during the summer season, in order to have their pro- 
 ficiency entered into by some of the society after Divine 
 service. All children shall be instructed in the Church 
 ■Catechism, and learning the Morning and Evening 
 Prayer and the Grace before and after meat ; and every 
 child in their turn shall repeat the Morning and Evening 
 Prayer and^the Grace to be used before they sit down 
 and rise from table." 
 
i6o ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Some years ago inquiry was very active into the 
 claims of " first founders," and a disposition was shown to- 
 accept an assemblage of children on a Sunday anywhere — 
 provided only that they were taught something — as a 
 " Sunday school." The catechising of children by 
 Cardinal Borromeo was often quoted to show how 
 absurd it was to look for " first founders " in England in 
 the eighteenth century. But the parallels between the 
 examples only run short distances. 
 
 Everyone who has attempted to make povert}' less 
 painful and bitter is deserving of honour, and it is for 
 this reason that Mrs. Catharine Boevey, of Flaxley 
 Abbey, Gloucester, is deserving of mention. She was a 
 wealthy and charitable lady, and set up a charity school 
 in her village. She liked to see the children beholden to 
 her bounty and know they were well cared for, and so 
 she had six of them each Sunday, turn and turn about, to 
 dinner with her ; and, after they were satisfied, she herself 
 heard them say their Catechism. This fact is duly 
 chronicled on her monument in Flaxley Abbey, erected 
 after her death in 1726. Ballard notes the fact, and 
 Bigland gives the inscription in full. Mr. Raikes might 
 have read both, or gone to Flaxley Abbey for inspiration 
 and returned again, without being one step nearer to the 
 institution of a system possessing the power of universal 
 adaptation to social needs. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE PLACE OF MR. STOCK, 
 
 "A truly modest diviae:'—Gnilleman's Magazine. 
 
 THE position which the Rev. Thomas Stock, so 
 frequently mentioned in this volume, must take is 
 one of three : to be placed before Mr. Raikes ; to be 
 bracketed Kutli Mv. Raikes, or to fall in line with, but 
 
 at the head of, all the 
 good and kind - hearted 
 men and women, in the 
 Church and out of it, 
 who pitied misery when 
 they saw it and tried to 
 enlighten ignorance. 
 
 To place him before Mr. 
 Raikes with regard to the 
 Sunday school movement 
 is impossible. In 1780 the 
 Rev. Thomas Stock, M.A., 
 first Curate and then 
 Rector of St. John the Baptist, Vicar of Glasbury, County 
 Brecon, and sometime Headmaster of the Gloucester 
 
 Cathedral School, was, comparatively speaking, a new man 
 
 12 
 i6i 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Stock. 
 
i62 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 in the city. He had had a living at Ashbury, in Berkshire,- 
 where he started what is sometimes called a " charity " 
 and sometimes a " Sunday '' school, because he was in 
 the habit of catechising children in the parish church. 
 This was in 1776, and one condition for admission to the 
 weekly reading school then started was a regular 
 attendance at Divine service on Sundays.* He is said to 
 have opened a similar weekly reading school in the 
 parishes of Leigh and Hempstead, in Gloucester, and to 
 have catechised children in the parish churches also, — ^ 
 which is highly probable, though must not be accepted 
 implicitly in the absence of direct evidence. If he did act 
 in this manner, the only strange element about it is that 
 it was so unusual a thing for a clergyman to do, at that 
 time, as to make it a matter worthy of comment. 
 
 He came to Gloucester, wherein he had relatives, in 
 1777-8, and the social conditions were very different to- 
 what they were at Ashbury. There is no record in the- 
 minutes of any of the local institutions of his taking any 
 active part, or indeed any part at all, in the city, to stem, 
 the living stream of vice and misery which surged around 
 him ; but in 1863, the old people who once had known 
 him spoke of him in the sincere language of respectful 
 praise. They said he was "an humble man," and, not- 
 withstanding his plurality of livings and headmastership, 
 
 * This is from a note made by tlie late William Griffiths, a well-known 
 scholar at Gloucester, and a personal friend of Mr. Stock's. This striking 
 of a bargain with children shows how entirely different they were to the 
 children in Gloucester. If Raikes had bargained so, he could not have- 
 succeeded. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 163 
 
 he was always spoken of as a "poor man" — certainly 
 poor when compared with Mr. Raikes. He was not a 
 Prison Chaplain, either paid or honorary, and there is no 
 paragraph in existence stating it as a fact that he did 
 visit the prisons. The experience of life which he brought 
 to Gloucester was acquired in rural pastoral districts, 
 where he cultivated a certain literary finish and style 
 highly appreciated when he preached at the Cathedral.* 
 Lysons states that when Mr. Stock preached in aid of the 
 Musical Festival, in 1796, the collection amounted to 
 ^385 15s. 6d. So little is known of the rev. gentleman, 
 that this fact even is valuable when we are endeavouring 
 to learn something of him beyond his professional 
 appointments. 
 
 It is said that he was connected by marriage with the 
 Raikes family, which is not improbable, though the claim 
 made (referred to at the end of this chapter) is very 
 obscure. The Stock family was very respectable, and, 
 socially, on a level with the Raikeses in the city. Certain 
 it is that they were on good terms in 1780. Mr. Stock 
 was then 30 years of age, and Mr. Raikes had for about 
 twenty-five years been studying social questions, life 
 in prisons and the streets, and slowly evolving plans for 
 the permanent improvement of the masses. 
 
 The experiences of the two men were at this time 
 
 * " The Rev. Thomas Stock wrote and pubhshed a Greek Grammar. 
 He also published some sermons which he preached in the Gloucester 
 Cathedral. I have seen one on the Restoration of King Charles. It was 
 written in bold, resonant and classical English." (H. Y. J. Taylor.) This 
 sermon was published at the request of the Dean and Chapter, with 
 illustrations by Dean Tucker, in 1782. (Gentleman's Magazine.) 
 
i64 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 widely different. Mr. Stock had run a creditable 
 University career, and was for some time Fellow of 
 Pembroke College, Oxford. His knowledge of life 
 obtained in his country curacies would, in the course of 
 things, not be large. By his side, Mr. Raikes was already 
 a veteran. He had never been to the University, and 
 probably had never spent more than a few days at any 
 one time outside of the city. His had always been the 
 practical side of life, and he had been under the guidance 
 ■of a father with leanings towards social economy as a 
 science, and philanthropy as a virtue. 
 
 In 1780 the sum of experience of the two men was 
 unequal. Mr. Stock could say at that date that he had 
 tried a reading school for children, and found good arise 
 from catechising them. No more than this could be 
 expected from a young man almost fresh from his 
 University, already distinguished for his scholarship, his 
 literary attainments, and, for three years, already the 
 Headmaster of the Cathedral College School. Mr. Raikes's 
 knowledge at that time was vastly more — he had learned 
 to know crime and misery and want in the alleys and 
 courts and gaols where they were generated and full- 
 fledged. "When these two came to compare notes, it was 
 the elder who was in the position to teach. 
 
 For more than a century now an irritation, ill- 
 suppressed at all times, and at times breeding much 
 ill-feeling, has existed on the vexed question of the claims 
 of Thomas Stock and Robert Raikes to precedence. 
 This is all it amounts to. Fortunately the area of 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 165 
 
 disturbance has never spread much ; but within the area 
 it may be fairly said that Raikes the Thinker has been 
 largely lost sight of, and what is superficial in him has 
 been compared most disadvantageously with Stock the 
 Christian and Scholar. 
 
 The life's work of the man shows that he cannot be 
 treated in this manner without doing violence to our 
 sense of right, and breaking down a true standard cf 
 criticism. He had been training himself, unconsciously 
 perhaps, all his life for the work in which he at last 
 succeeded. According to all the statements, Mr. Raikes 
 and Mr. Stock met by accident one day and determined 
 to do something. Each engaged women to look after 
 children on Sundays, and it is said they went together 
 and engaged Mr., or Mrs., James King. This is the 
 legend, and it may rest there. 
 
 Almost from the commencement, however, Mr. 
 Raikes went beyond his co-worker; he paid two of the 
 women two shillings per week extra to teach children out 
 of work hours on weekdays. Moreover, he kept his own 
 experiment apart and distinct from Mr. Stock's ; and 
 though it appears certain that they visited all the 
 schools together at times, Mr. Stock confined his labours 
 to his own, and was but little known until Mr. Raikes 
 had obtained a monopoly of recognition and praise. 
 The means for publication were his and his only. Mr. 
 Stock might have used the Press outside of Gloucester to 
 make known the new scheme and educate public opinion, 
 but he remained passive. The only plan known or 
 
i66 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 copied was Mr. Raikes's — and but for his intelligent 
 industry, Sunday schools might never have existed as far 
 as the public knew. 
 
 It results then that Mr. Stock cannot stand hefove 
 Mr. Raikes; and it also results that he cannot be 
 bracketed with him. It would have been a gracious 
 thing to have bracketed them in the " honours " list, 
 but that is impossible. However admirable Mr. Stock's 
 schools may have been, however well conducted and free 
 from the cursing, badger-fighting, laughter-loving ragged 
 robins whom Raikes managed to get hold of and lick into 
 shape, his schools were never known. He was not the man 
 on whom the citizens turned the laugh and flung the 
 nickname of " Bobby Wild Goose." Equally, too, when 
 honours came — and they came soon — it was Raikes and 
 not Stock who got them. The public did not bracket the 
 men then, and it is too late to do so now. 
 
 The privilege of Mr. Stock in this connection is, that 
 he was associated with Mr. Raikes. He certainly is one 
 of the "two clergymen" whom Mr. Raikes mentions 
 more than once with gratitude as working with him. 
 The other is his own brother, Richard, whose name 
 stood for a blessing in the city. The catechetical 
 exercises of Mr. Stock, at Ashbury, do not count for much 
 when considering the scope and interest of this particular 
 movement after its publicity in November, 1783. It is 
 always open to the observation that Sunday instruction 
 was his dvity, for the doing of which no special honour 
 accrues to any man. In Raikes's case, what he did had 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 167 
 
 merit. Here again a sharp line must be drawn between 
 the two workers, and due account taken in making just 
 criticism. 
 
 The children whom Mr. Stock had under his control 
 were, it seems, more amenable to discipline than Mr. 
 Raikes's " ragged regiment." He brought with him the 
 authority and personal dignity of his sacred office, and 
 greater experience in the handling of children when in 
 school than Mr. Raikes. He was also more disciplined 
 himself in his conduct towards them. His methods were 
 not so violent. His patience and firmness were not so 
 liable to be broken down by disorderly conduct. Neither 
 Miss Priscilla Kirby *— a scholar and afterwards the sole 
 mistress, who spoke the truth of him as though she were 
 at " the table of the Lord's Feast " — nor anyone else 
 gave an instance of sudden explosions of temper — 
 birching the boys, taking them home to be punished, or 
 blistering their fingers for lying. There were no stories 
 told in 1863 of boys being dragged, or driven, to his 
 schools with heavy weights and logs of wood attached 
 to their legs to prevent their running away. 
 
 He was a disciplinarian, but of another and gentler 
 kind. Miss Kirby says she learnt much from him ; and the 
 " rules " which he drew up for the conduct of his schools 
 are said to have formed the foundation of those adopted 
 later by the Sunday School committees. " Rules " in 
 the Soot Alley School, and in Mrs. Critchley's early days 
 in the Grey Fryars, would have been simply grotesque, 
 •Chapter II. — "Human Documents." 
 
i68 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and have had but little meaning without the sweet but 
 manly patience of the Rector of St. John's to illustrate and 
 enforce them. Later, these distinctions between the two 
 sets of scholars disappeared, but at first there were 
 marked differences between the character of the scholars 
 and the management and discipline of the schools. 
 
 When all is said that can be said, one is conscious of 
 the feeling that it would have been a more natural 
 process in the evolution of this most Christian idea, for 
 the Sunday school system to have proceeded from a mind 
 and temper chastened and modelled like Mr. Stock's 
 than like Mr. Raikes's. In this case, however, the finer 
 tool must give place — not for the first time in history — 
 and Mr. Raikes must remain where mankind, by an 
 instinctive sense of right, have placed him. 
 
 Mr. Stock was a much younger man than his friend, 
 was without his special training, and without his business 
 push and tact in making known the success of a plan for 
 evolving the " new race " which had been the subject of 
 painfully slow but persistent study. Had there been no 
 Raikes the reputation of Mr. Stock must have been 
 purely local. As it is, he will live in the hearts of men, 
 and in the history of the Sunday school movement rank 
 next to Robert Raikes. 
 
 Note. — Mr. Thomas Ensor, writing to the Weskyan Methodist Magazine 
 for August, 1870, said that the sister of Mr. Thomas Stocli was the mother 
 of the celebrated Robert Raikes. This could not be so, Robert Raikes's 
 mother's maiden name being Mary Drew. But as a Miss Stock mav 
 have been some relation by marriage to Robert Raikes the elder, the Author 
 wrote to Mr. Ensor, and was by him referred to Mr, J. Gould Avery, 
 of London, from whom he had obtained his information. Mr. Avery at 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 169 
 
 once replied : " I fear I cannot assist you much. My grandmother died 
 at an advanced age, when I was a little boy, and I only learned what I 
 know by conversation with my sister, who died two years ago, and by 
 other family gossip. My grandmother's name was Stock, daughter, as I 
 understand, of the Rev. Thomas Stock, of Gloucester. She always spoke 
 of Mr. Robert Raikes as ' My Cousin Raikes,' and was evidently very 
 familiar with him ; but whether Mr. Raikes's mother or Mr. Stock's wife 
 had changed her maiden name I cannot say. . . Of course, all this 
 
 is family gossip and nothing more. I have nothing in my possession 
 worthy to be called historical or biographical in reference to the matter." 
 The Rector of St. John's was fifteen years younger than Mr. Raikes, and 
 although there may have been a family connection, it certainly was not so 
 close as Mr. Avery here suggests. 
 
 The Gloucester Journal, January 2nd, 1804, contains the following 
 obituary notice, the writing of which is attributed to Mr. Raikes: "On 
 Tuesday last died, in the 54th year of his age, the Rev. Thomas Stock, A.M., 
 Rector of St. John the Baptist, Perpetual Curate of St. Aldate, in this 
 city, and Vicar of Glasbury, in the County of Brecon. Possessed with 
 sincere and ardent piety, with fervent and active charity, devout and 
 impressive in the services of his ministry, eloquent and animated in the 
 preaching of those awful truths of which diligent investigation had 
 convinced his correct and learned mind — attentive, affecting and solving, 
 in his visitation of those who were sinking under the weight of sickness or 
 the terror of death — scrupulously just in all his dealings — inoffensive, kind 
 and cheerful in domestick and social life, he will long live esteemed and 
 lamented in the memories of his parishioners, his acquaintances, family 
 and his friends. ' ' 
 
 The Gentleman' s Magazine supplied the omission about Sunday schools 
 by calling him " the first suggester of Sunday schools." 
 
 The rev. gentleman sometimes preached anniversary sermons. Here 
 are two records: — "September 25th, 1796. The Rev. Thomas Stock, 
 Rector of St. John's, Gloucester, preached the anniversary sermons for the 
 benefit of the Sunday School at Painswick." Again: " September 23rd, 
 1798. The Rev. Thomas Stock again preached for the Painswick Sunday 
 School." The memory of the rev. gentleman is perpetuated in St. John 
 the Baptist Church and in the Cathedral, Gloucester. His remains, 
 however, lie in St. Aldate's Church, but the memorial tablet originally 
 placed there has unaccountably disappeared ! ' 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 " The nurseries of the Church." — Dr. Guthrie. 
 
 WALES. 
 
 THE name of "Charles of Bala" casts a spell over 
 the Welsh soul as enthralling as, though differing 
 from, the inspiring notes of the " March of the Men of 
 Harlech." It is a march of another sort — a march of 
 the soul in subdued tones. 
 
 With reference to the Sunday school movement, 
 " Charles of Bala " to Wales is the " Raikes of 
 Gloucester ' to England. Working on independent 
 lines, he arrived at very similar results. The following 
 letter is from the pen of his grandson, the Rev. David 
 Charles, formerly the Principal of Trevecca College, 
 dated December 24th, 1863, and written after a long and 
 interesting interview with the Author : 
 
 " In reference to the Welsh Sunday schools and the 
 part my revered and honoured grandfather had in their 
 formation, &c., I would beg to submit the following 
 observations : 
 
 " It was the Rev. Griffith Jones, of Llanddowron, in 
 
 170 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 171 
 
 the county of Carmarthen, who gave the first impulse to 
 the work of educating the people by means of catechising 
 his parishioners every Sunday at the public service in the 
 parish church. This was about the beginning of the last 
 century. 
 
 " Before this time there were no schools in Wales, 
 and the mass of the population were lying in the grossest 
 darkness. 
 
 " The success that attended his public catechisings 
 led him to the establishment of Circulating Charity 
 Day Schools, which proved very beneficial in the several 
 localities to which they were removed from time to 
 time, and which were the first glimmerings of the dawn 
 of day. 
 
 " It was in the neighbourhood of Llanddowron that 
 my grandfather was born, and in Llanddowron it was 
 that he received his school instruction,' as well as some 
 of his first religious impressions. There lived at Lland- 
 dowron at that time an old man of the name of Rhys 
 Hugh, who had lived with Mr. Griffith Jones, and who 
 was the means of infusing Mr. Jones's spirit into Mr. 
 Charles while he was yet a boy ; and it appears that this 
 spark of inspiration, first excited by old Rhys Hugh in the 
 mind of his youthful friend, was never extinguished, but 
 broke out into a conflagration which was to embrace 
 Wales and the world. 
 
 " Mr. Charles in after years, when he went to reside 
 at Bala, in North Wales, established similar circulating 
 charity schools to those of Mr. Griffith Jones ; and it 
 
172 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 was in the working out of these charity schools that Mr. 
 Charles first saw the grand principle of the Welsh 
 Sabbath schools. 
 
 " The day schools, which survived for about twenty 
 years, were especial means towards preparing teachers 
 for the work of the Sabbath school. For this purpose 
 Mr. Charles himself undertook the instruction of those 
 whom he intended to become Sabbath school teachers, 
 and he composed two catechisms in the Welsh language 
 for the benefit both of the teachers and scholars of the 
 Sunday schools. 
 
 " These schools Mr. Charles first set up about the 
 year 1785 — about three years, I believe, after Mr. Raikes. 
 Still, we believe we are authorised to say that the principle 
 of the Welsh Sabbath school was practically wrought out 
 by Mr. Charles ; and to attribute to him the independent 
 thought of establishing these schools does not involve the 
 idea that Sabbath schools had not previously existed in 
 other places, but on another and a more inefficient 
 principle. 
 
 "A reference to a prior institution as evidence that 
 we are not to attribute the originating of the Welsh 
 Sabbath schools to Mr. Charles alone, proves that they 
 who do so do not fully comprehend the nature of the 
 schools which Mr. Charles established. 
 
 "The distinguishing principle of the Welsh Sunday 
 schools which Mr. Charles incorporated in his institution 
 for the religious instriiction of his countrymen was, that 
 the object of the Sabbath school was the instruction not 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 173 
 
 only of children but of adults also, and that it was 
 intended not merely to teach spelling and reading, but to 
 bring all classes together to examine the Word of God 
 and to exchange thoughts upon its all-important truths. 
 
 " The Welsh Sunday school thus became an institution 
 in which the great doctrines of the Christian religion 
 were learnt, and understood, and practically enforced by 
 men who had themselves experienced their power. 
 
 " The Church of Christ was taught that it was the 
 duty of every one of its members to care for and 
 instruct the world in the saving precepts of the Gospel ; 
 and the Sunday school was put forth as the arena in 
 which the zeal, the lovC; the knowledge, and the spiritual 
 power of the Church were to be brought to bear upon the 
 masses of their fellow-men. Thus our Sunday schools were 
 ■intended to become real missionary institutions for the Church 
 to exert its influence upojt all classes of the people. 
 
 " This is the distinguishing feature of our Welsh 
 Sunday schools, which is a great advancement upon the 
 ground taken by those which had been previously 
 established in England, and this, we say, was the distinct 
 and original idea of the Rev. Mr. Charles. 
 
 " He was probably the first also who estabHshed 
 regular public meetings in connection with the Sabbath 
 schools — meetings to which the public at large assembled 
 to witness and listen to the regular catechising of several 
 schools which had come together from different localities. 
 On those occasions large multitudes flocked together, and 
 very powerful impressions were generally left on the minds 
 
174 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 of the audience, as well as upon the Sunday scholars 
 and teachers, and, through them, upon their families. 
 
 " These meetings afforded opportunities to the people 
 in general to see what kind of instruction was given to 
 their children, and also what the efforts were on the part 
 of the teachers to instruct them in the great truths of 
 religion. TMk the prejudices of the people against religion 
 were gradually worn down ; their attention was drawn to 
 the Sunday school, and at length they were attracted to 
 place themselves under its fostering care. 
 
 " In this way the Sunday school wore more the aspect 
 of a church in active operation than a school — prayer and 
 praise being blended with earnest exhortations to all. 
 Instruction was given in every branch of scriptural 
 knowledge, and, at the same time, the teacher exhibited 
 not so much the character of a master as that of a friend 
 and a Christian, who was willing to lecture for the good 
 of others. 
 
 " The Welsh Sunday schools, are then, to this day 
 well-springs of religious instruction to men of every age, 
 and contain generally more adult members, both male 
 and female, than children. They are specially the 
 nurseries of our Churches, both as regards members and 
 ministers. 
 
 " Trusting the above brief sketch may meet your 
 object, and with Christian regards, 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 
 " Yours very faithfully, 
 
 " David Charles." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 175 
 
 It will be seen that one great advantage which the 
 Sunday school system in Wales had over the kindred 
 system in England was an organisation subject 
 man control. In England there was no " patent," so to 
 speak, for civilising the children of the masses, but it was 
 left to individuals to frame what rules they liked, teach 
 what they pleased, when they pleased, and where they 
 pleased. People anxious for the survival of strongly- 
 marked social distinctions in rural districts often looked 
 askance at these Sunday meetings, and regarded them as 
 secret societies for the propagation of Jacobite principles. 
 In some districts, however, these schools won confidence 
 by the openness with which they were conducted. 
 
 Mrs. Hannah More (who possibly may have heard of 
 the Welsh system) introduced into her schools at Cheddar 
 the teaching of adults with children. 
 
 A delightful little sketch of a day with the ladies 
 (who took their dinners with them) who taught in the 
 schools appears in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixviii 
 The following extract shows that Mr. Charles, of Bala, 
 was not alone in thinking that the communion of adults 
 with children was of advantage : 
 
 "After our return to the school in the evening, such 
 farm servants and others as were prevented from attending 
 before by the necessary avocations of the day — milking 
 cows, &c. — were not ashamed to make their appearance 
 at the school and give answers along with the children ; nor 
 could I learn that the knowledge thus acquired made 
 them in the least above their duty in that state of life in 
 
176 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 which it had pleased God to call them. The children 
 being then dismissed, were succeeded by two hundred 
 grown persons, who in a very devout manner, sang a 
 hymn, which was followed by prayer and a printed sermon 
 read by one of the ladies. That being over, we finished 
 with prayer and another hymn, and whilst the congrega- 
 tion were singing — 
 
 ' Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing,' 
 
 we entered our carriage and proceeded home, well pleased 
 with the occupation of the day." 
 
 That this was not an isolated method is shown by the 
 foot-note, which says that the same practice was going 
 on in various other villages, where the master or mistress 
 reads over the sermon when the ladies cannot attend. 
 The " ladies," we learn, were then living at Cowslip 
 Green, five miles from Cheddar, hence the necessity for 
 them to take their dinners with them. Mrs. Hannah 
 More was at this time engaged in writing "spirited 
 rhymes and prose tales in the Cheap Repository series, to 
 counteract the doctrines of Tom Paine and the influence 
 of the French Revolution." That her sketches were in 
 one sense "living" we know, and we know now, in part, 
 where and how she studied her " living documents." 
 Two millions of these sketches were circulated in one 
 year — in those days an unprecedented number. 
 
 Still, the admission of adults with children and 
 teaching them together, as a system, was not generally 
 followed in England. For Mr. Charles's idea of mixed 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 177 
 
 classes we must probably go back to the earliest Jewish 
 schools in Palestine, which were open to all classes and 
 all ages, the presence and sayings of young children being 
 always welcome and highly prized.* We must not, 
 however, go to the Old Testament, or even to later Jewish 
 practices, for the model of our Sunday schools. The late 
 Dr. N. Adler (Chief Rabbi in London) says:t "I may 
 state that Sabbath schools for children [Jewish] are of 
 comparatively recent origin. The Sabbath assemblies in 
 ancient times were devoted more to the instruction of the 
 adult than to that of the young," 
 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 In Scotland, as in England, there are now known to 
 have been many instances of Sunday teaching of children 
 early in the eighteenth century. If, however, the educa- 
 tion and care of children by ministers and parents had 
 been as intelligently active in England and Wales as in 
 Scotland, there is no good reason for supposing that 
 Robert Raikes, or Charles of Bala, would have founded 
 and organised systems which became national. When 
 Sunday schools after the English pattern were introduced 
 into Scotland, there was already in existence the habit 
 and practice of family teaching, and the very salutary 
 practice of Scotch ministers closely to examine the 
 
 * "The Kingdom of God is in the souls of children," was thought to 
 be the true meaning of the Psalmist's words, " Out of the mouths of babes 
 and sucklings ; " and Jesus gave currency to familiar language when saying, 
 " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise." 
 
 + Letter to the Author, October 6th [1863]. 
 13 
 
178 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 members of their congregations in spiritual matters. 
 What would now be considered impertinent and inquisi- 
 torial was then the custom ; and the minister would be 
 wanting in his duty, and be subjected to severe penalties, 
 if he did not make periodical searching examinations 
 into the hearts and consciences of his flock. For example, 
 a young man's marriage might be delayed until the 
 minister was satisfied that he was a fit and proper person 
 to become the head of a family. The introduction of 
 Sunday schools from over the Border met with much 
 opposition by both ministers and laity. The holding of 
 Sabbath evening schools made some headway, and a 
 society was formed in Edinburgh in March, 1797, called 
 " The Sabbath Evening School Society," having for its 
 object the establishing of others in Scotland. 
 
 "At Aberdeen," says the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 
 Ixxiii., "no children under eight years old, or who cannot 
 read,* are admitted. They meet at six o'clock on Sunday 
 evening, repeat the texts, and give an account of the 
 sermons they have heard. After prayer a portion of 
 Scripture is repeated, and the teachers endeavour to draw 
 forth the ideas of the children on it, and they are 
 examined on eight or ten questions from the Assembly's 
 Catechism. After a short and affectionate address, 
 •singing a few verses, mentioning the texts to be learnt 
 against the next meeting, and a short prayer, they are 
 
 * This alone shows the great difference between the state of things 
 in Aberdeen and Gloucester. It was because the children could not read 
 that Raikes' collected them. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 179 
 
 dismissed. . . . An extraordinary reformation has 
 been wrought among the youth of Dundee." 
 
 It is only necessary to compare this state of civilisa- 
 tion in Aberdeen with that of Gloucester, when " Winkin' 
 Jim " brought his live badger into school and let it 
 loose, and cursing and swearing during Divine service 
 in church had to be somehow provided against and 
 checked. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers's claims to making Sunday schools 
 popular in Scotland are fully recognised, and the number 
 of scholars is now 713,360, and the teachers 63,939. 
 These teachers (men and women) are considered to be 
 the flower of the Churches. With such teachers, the 
 seedlings must flourish. 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Urwick, Dublin, contributes the fol- 
 lowing account of the history of Sunday schools in the 
 Sister Island : 
 
 " So far as I have been able to ascertain, the earliest 
 gleam of 'Sunday school' work in Ireland appeared in 
 the parish of Bright, in the county of Down. It 
 matured into a professed and fully-arranged Sunday 
 school in 1786, but it had been less formally in operation 
 perhaps ten years before. Two Sunday schools were 
 opened in Dublin, led on apparently by the movement in 
 England in the same year ; namely, 1786." 
 
 The history of this germ of Sunday school work is 
 given by the rev. doctor in the interesting paper which he 
 
i8o ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 read at the .General Sunday School Convention, held in 
 London in September, 1862. He said : 
 
 "About the year 1770, the Rev. Dr. Kennedy, curate 
 of Bright parish, in the county of Down, was painfully 
 struck with the total disregard of the Lord's Day among 
 the young people and children in some villages through 
 which he had to pass in going to and from his duty at the 
 church. His congregation was very small. A gentleman 
 of the name of Henry, with his family, joined it, and 
 with him Dr. Kennedy consulted by what means it 
 could be improved. 
 
 " Having engaged a well-conducted and competent 
 man in the capacity of parish clerk, they got boys and girls, 
 together to practise psalmody. This made a little stir. In 
 1774 to singing was added exercise in reading the Psalms 
 and lessons for the day, which, being rumoured abroad, 
 excited further attention. Ere two more years had 
 elapsed, the numbers had considerably increased. Those 
 who came were desired to bring what Bibles and 
 Testaments they could, in order to their being better 
 instructed and examined in what they read. Then the 
 children of other denominations were invited to share the 
 advantages of the meeting. And thus by the year 1778 
 the gathering, which had begim as a singing class a few years 
 previously, had matured into a school held regidarly every 
 Sunday for an hour and a half before the morning service. 
 
 " The good work went on and prospered until the 
 latter part of the year 1785, when Dr. Kennedy heard 
 of the proceedings in England for the establishment of 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 i«i 
 
 Sunday schools. His own was in reality a Sunday school 
 already. But he and the gentleman he advised with 
 agreed that its plan should be made more comprehensive 
 and systematic, according to the English method. . . . 
 The Bright Sunday School was opened on the first 
 Sunday in May, 17S6, with Robert Henry, Esq., as 
 its superintendent ; members of his family, and other 
 respectable individuals, as teachers ; and honest Thomas 
 Turr, the parish clerk, ready to help in it as he might be 
 able or occasion require." 
 
 THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 
 
 Mr. Joshua le Bailly, St. Heliers, was instrumental in 
 obtaining some particulars respecting the early history of 
 
 Sunday schools in Jersey, 
 and of the somewhat 
 remarkable woman who 
 organised them in 1804. 
 Mrs. Susan Perrot was a 
 young lady mixing; in the 
 best island society, and 
 the miniature taken of her 
 when about twenty years 
 of age shows that when 
 young she was possessed 
 of great personal attrac- 
 tions. 
 Energetic by nature, she commenced^field preaching 
 in the island, and was very soon made the object of much 
 
 Mrs. Susan Pei'rot. 
 
i82 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 persecution. She had two grandsons, both of whom she 
 induced to join the ministry, and whilst her eldest 
 grandson was studying at Gosport she commenced a 
 Sunday school. A letter which she wrote to her grandson 
 (F. Perrot) has fortunately been preserved, and establishes 
 the fact. Translated, the material paragraph reads : 
 
 " I have commenced the Sunday school, and have 
 now from forty to fifty scholars from six to twelve years 
 of age. I have ordered more catechisms to be printed, 
 having given the school all I had. I hope the}' may be 
 the means of doing much good, and that the blessing of 
 God may be upon the work." 
 
 The "Parish Sunday School" in St. Peter's le Port, 
 Guernsey, was established about the same time, as 
 appears from a very clear statement made to Mr. Peter 
 Machon by his aged aunt, and transmitted October 8th, 
 1862, to the Author : 
 
 '•■ I believe," she said, " that the Parish Sunday School, 
 as it was called, was established by the Messrs. Le Cocq 
 and Dobree, at least sixty years ago [1802] . The girls' 
 school was kept by a Mrs. Nichols at her own house, and 
 the boys' by my father (my own grandfather assisted by 
 my own father) at his own house. 
 
 "About fifty-six or fifty-seven years ago Mrs. Nichols 
 resigned, and I then took charge of the girls, the school 
 being removed to my father's — he occupying the top 
 room of the house and myself the room underneath. The 
 hours in the morning were from nine to twelve; the 
 children met again in the afternoon at one, and were 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 183 
 
 taken to church by my father and myself and dismissed 
 at the conclusion of the sermon. 
 
 " In the school the children read in the Testament 
 and learned the Catechism. I cannot exactly say when 
 the school was discontinued ; but I was married in 1808, 
 and gave up my charge and was paid my salary of ;^6 per 
 annum. There were about one hundred and thirty boys 
 and eighty girls in the schools. From what influence the 
 school was established I cannot say."* 
 
 The Church Sunday school was established in 1820. 
 The following minute is preserved : " 17th April, 1820. 
 At a highly respectable meeting of the friends of the 
 Sunday school, the Very Rev. the Dean in the chair, it 
 was resolved that a French Sunday school should be 
 established for the parish of St. Peter's Port (town), 
 the committee being empowered, if expedient, to appoint 
 English teachers." 
 
 The Channel Islands^ are ecclesiastically in the diocese 
 of Winchester, and it is to the lasting credit of the 
 Sunday school connected with the parish church, that 
 Bishop Wilberforce left it on record that it was "the best 
 in his diocese." Victor Hugo, soon after he came to 
 reside at Hauteville House, visited the schools, and after- 
 wards established what he called " the festival of poor 
 Uttle children," forty of whom, without distinction of race 
 or creed, he was in the habit of having to dinner with 
 him once a week. On one occasion he said : " I know of 
 
 * The question asked was, whether this school was the offspring of the 
 Gloucester movement. 
 
i84 ROBERT RAIKES, 
 
 nothing more sad than to see little children suffering : 
 the livery of rags touches my heart." 
 
 If they had nothing else in common, the " livery of 
 rags," the appearance of want, and the degradation of 
 children's souls, when they should exude the perfume of 
 heaven, would form a bond of union between men so 
 dissimilar as Victor Hugo and Robert Raikes. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MR. RAIKES AT HOME. 
 
 " Let me see the man at his own fireside." — Johnson. 
 
 " I always want to know as much how a great person thought and spoke 
 as what he did." — Countess Pomfret. 
 
 MR. RAIKES was a domestic man — the home instinct 
 was strong within him. When he spoke of his 
 family it was with an affectionate caress. " I have now six 
 excellent daughters and two lovely sons," said he, when 
 writing of them in the plenitude of his own days. And 
 he loved them equally, and put them all upon the same 
 level when he made his will — the two sons to share and 
 share alike, and the six girls to share and share alike. 
 " My dear wife, Anne Raikes " was appointed sole 
 executrix, with life interest in all his real and personal 
 estate, should she survive him — which she did ; but should 
 she predecease him, then his two sons were to be joint 
 executors ; all of which shows the love and confidence in 
 his heart, and the atmosphere of affection in his home. 
 A very dry document like a will may be made to speak and 
 breathe sentiment and affection, when family love exists.* 
 
 * Mr. Raikes's will is a short document and was made only two years 
 hefore his death. He possessed no real estate. By a codicil added twelve 
 months afterwards [1810], he gave to his wife for life " all my benefit and 
 advantage from the Stock of the Stationers' Company," After her decease 
 
 185 
 
i86 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 The house in which he resided in Bell Lane was shut 
 out from the noise of the streets. The streets of the city- 
 were not paved and drained as they are now, but were 
 full of filth and garbage, and the " kennel " was always 
 running, to the great annoyance of gentlemen of the 
 dandy sort wearing white stockings and knee-breeches. 
 Mr. Raikes has been described as "buckish," and we 
 learn that he disliked dirt. A vain man in his dress is 
 generally a clean man in his habits — Raikes was certainly 
 clean, for he had a crossing made between his house in 
 Bell Lane and his place of business. On dark nights he 
 carried a lantern to light him between the two houses, so 
 that the prosperous, well-dressed, citizen left as little as 
 possible to chance and dirt. 
 
 His household appointments were those of a gentleman 
 of the period. He kept a good table and a manservant. 
 His two lovely sons and six excellent daughters were not 
 expected to grow manly and bloom beautifully without, at 
 least, some paternal encouragement. When distinguished 
 strangers came to the city it was their habit to visit my 
 Lord Bishop at the Palace, the Mayor, and Mr. Raikes, 
 so that the two sons and six daughters saw a good deal 
 of " the best company." 
 
 People who reside in a house are, when judges of 
 
 character, the best witnesses of the dispositions of the 
 
 it was to form part of "-my general personal estate, and be applied i 
 accordingly." At one time the testator possessed some small parcels of 
 freehold land in the county, but these were probably sold and the money 
 reinvested in the Stationers' Company's Stock, hence the codicil. The 
 will explains why, after the death of Mrs. Raikes, the whole of his estate 
 was sold. The will, with codicil, was proved in London, 28th June, 1811. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 187 
 
 master and mistress. Even when their own judgment is 
 not to be rehed on, they can often state facts of much 
 service to interested strangers. We possess, fortunately, 
 the statements of servants, which enable us to judge with 
 some accuracy of Mr. Raikes at home. 
 
 James Whitehead, the office boy, already quoted on 
 another point, said : " I was about the house a good deal. 
 Mr. Raikes was a good, liberal master and kept his 
 servants a good while. He paid good wages, and no 
 family in Gloucester had more company than the 
 Raikeses. I used sometimes to help the footman clean 
 the plate in the butler's pantry. There was no regular 
 butler, but extra servants were employed on occasion. 
 Mrs. Raikes was never happy unless her house was full of 
 company. She was very ' pettish ' but very good, and 
 had her own way; but she kept the maids a long time, 
 and she was very charitable. We all knew she was a 
 lady — an admiral's sister.* 
 
 " I knew most about Mr. Raikes. Mrs. Raikes took 
 no part in the Sunday schools, but I never heard 
 her object to the poor children coming on to the 
 lawn, when they lived in Bell Lane, and into Mr. 
 Raikes's room ; and she would send pieces of cake 
 in for them. 
 
 " I believe he liked to have children about him, and 
 he'd get them to sing on the lawn. I never saw John 
 Wesley or Charles Wesley at the house during the 
 
 * 5« .Chapter XVII., "The Raikes Family." 
 
ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Musical Festivals. If they stayed there, it would be 
 before my time. 
 
 " He had a nice way about him with children. I was 
 in the office one day, before the fire, making paste. Mr. 
 Raikes came in and said to me : 'James, are you a good 
 boy ? ' I said, ' Yes, sir.' He then put half a guinea in 
 my hand, and said that that was for a Christmas box for 
 being a good boy." 
 
 William Whitehead (who has also been quoted) 
 said : " All I know of Mr. Raikes is, that he was a .kind- 
 hearted sort of man, and that he was very strict in all. his 
 business matters and in all that he did. When I was with 
 him I -was fond of reading, and he said to me: 'Any 
 books you want you shall have, but don't take any 
 without asking me.' 
 
 " Mr. Raikes was a constant attendant at morning 
 prayers [at the Cathedral]. I was one of his Sunday 
 scholars, and he took me into his office.* 
 
 " Mr. Raikes was a nice good-looking man. I do 
 believe he was a pious man. He kept a footman and a 
 capital establishment. It was one of the first establish- 
 ments in the city. After the battle of Trafalgar, it was 
 "open" house for several days. I suppose seventy or 
 eighty persons were entertained every day. I mean 
 ladies and gentlemen and persons of respectability— their 
 acquaintances and connections. Captain Thompson, of 
 
 •In his letter to Mrs. Harris, of Chelsea, 17S7, Mr. Raikes says he 
 has taken one of .the LittlewOrth boys into his employ. See Appendix A. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. i8^ 
 
 the Leander, married one of the daughters. He did 
 a fine and gallant thing, and broke the line of the 
 enemy. 
 
 " When Mr. Raikes died, the general feeling was that 
 Gloucester had lost a good man." 
 
 Mr. Simpson, who was engaged at the Normal 
 College, Cheltenham, in 1863, said : " I often saw Mr. 
 Raikes with Mr. Wood, the banker — old Jimmy Wood, 
 the miser, you know. I used to see them going to early 
 morning service at the Cathedral. Mr. Wood had a 
 short, quick step and was very active. His shop was in 
 the main street ; he had a sort of haberdashery shop and 
 bank — one counter for each. On one side he'd sell you 
 a farthing's worth of pins, and on the other shovel out 
 gold to any amount. 
 
 " I went to Mr. Stock's and not to Mr. Raikes's 
 school. I have had many a penny from Mr. Raikes, but 
 nothing from Mr. Wood — he never gave away anything, 
 not he ! I never heard anyone speak badly of Mr. Raikes 
 • — only say he was ' a crank.' " ♦ 
 
 In 1862 there was residing with Mr. John Crowse 
 (a retired miller), Redmarley, an old man named William 
 Redding, who was in Mr. Raikes's employ as indoor 
 servant from the year 1807. This was after the transfer 
 of the Journal and printing business, and when he was 
 residing altogether, in Bell Lane. Mr. Redding, on being 
 applied to, expressed himself willing to answer any 
 
igo ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 ■questions in his power, and a schedule was sent to him, 
 to wliich he repHed in the following terms : 
 
 Q. "What were Mr. Raikes's habits in his house? 
 Did he rise early; have family prayers morning and 
 evening? And did his servants attend those prayers in 
 his house ? " 
 
 A. "Regular in his habits — not an early riser, or 
 late. Never had family prayers except Sundays, and 
 then his servants always attended them." 
 
 Q. " Did his servants go to church, and how often ? " 
 
 A, " His servants attended church every Sunday." 
 
 Q. " Did he often speak to his servants respecting 
 their souls' welfare ? " 
 
 A. "He never held any conversation on religious 
 subjects with an}' of his servants." 
 
 Q. " Did he ever speak to them respecting Sunday 
 schools, and what was the nature of what he said ? " 
 
 A. " 1 never remember hearing him speak to anyone 
 respecting his schools." 
 
 Q. " Did he ever speak of any other gentleman or 
 lady in connettion with these schools — if so, what were 
 their names ? " 
 
 A. " I never recollect hearing him mention any 
 other person's name." 
 
 Q. " Did he keep much company, and was it religious 
 or otherwise ? " 
 
 A. " He did not keep much company in my time." 
 
 Q. "Was his house ruled in the spirit of Christi- 
 anity ? " 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 191 
 
 A. " He always kept a very quiet house." 
 Q. " Was he in the habit of drinking alcoholic 
 liquors ? Did he drink them to excess, or only in 
 moderation ? " 
 
 A. "I never remember him drinking any spirits, 
 only his wine after dinner. Never to excess." 
 
 Q. " How did he spend his time on Sundays ? " 
 A. " He generally spent his time at home — excepting 
 going to church." 
 
 Q. " Was he a very sociable man, or gloomy and 
 reserved ? " 
 
 A. " He was a very sociable and pleasant-spoken 
 man." 
 
 Q. " What sort of health did he enjoy ? " 
 A. " Generally very good." 
 
 Q. " What sort of husband and father was he — kind 
 or otherwise ? " 
 
 A. " A. very kind husband and father." 
 Q. " How many servants did he keep ? " 
 A. "Three maid-servants and myself." 
 Q. " Was he a benevolent man ? " 
 A. " He was." 
 
 Q. " What kind of mistress had you ? " 
 A. "Avery good, pious woman." 
 Q. " Did his family live affectionately together ? " 
 A. " Very much so." 
 
 Q. "Did you ever hear that Mr. Raikes was accused 
 of Sabbath-breaking ? " 
 
 A. "I never heard anything of the sort." 
 
192 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 We have seen that Mr, Raikes spoke of his own 
 children as though satisfied with them — as fathers 
 should be — and how he trusted his " dear wife Anne " 
 when he made his will ; and now we are able to quote 
 one passage in a private letter, showing how tender and 
 distressed he was when she was ill. He had deferred 
 sending in an account for book work, and says : 
 
 " I have been greatly distressed by the indisposition 
 of my wife, whom I have been obliged to attend into the 
 country for the benefit of her health. This misfortune, I 
 dare say, will be admitted by your benevolent and 
 sympathetic heart as an apology for the apparent 
 neglect." * 
 
 All this gives one the notion of domesticity and 
 comfort ; a pleasant house at which to visit, and dine, 
 and drink claret, and be agreeable to the six excellent 
 daughters, whom Miss Burney found passable enough, 
 being only country bred. That the home was in truth 
 what it seemed is evidenced by the fact that all the girls 
 married well, and that their marriages appeared in 
 Dodsley's Annual and the Gentleman's Magazine and all the 
 fashionable Gazettes of the time. 
 
 The eldest daughter (Anne) married Admiral Sir 
 Thomas Boulden Thompson, Bart., when he was Captain 
 Sir Thomas, Knight, but marked out for promotion for 
 his gallant conduct when Commander of the Leander. 
 He lost one arm, like Nelson, whom he sailed under, 
 and was praised in Nelson's despatches. It was in his 
 * Raikes to Lewelyn, July 12th, 1790. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 193 
 
 honour that Mr. Raikes kept "open" house after the 
 victory at Trafalgar, and. the young officer did not belie 
 his early promise.* 
 
 The second (Mary) married Henry Garrett, Esq., 
 R.N., afterwards Admiral Garrett. 
 
 The third (Albinia) married John Birch, Esq., of 
 Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury Square, Lieut. -Colonel of 
 the Royal Westminster Volunteers. 
 
 The fourth (Eleanor) married Daniel Garrett, Esq., 
 of Gower Street, Bedford Square. 
 
 The fifth (Charlotte) married William Stanley Clarke, 
 Esq., Commander of the True Briton, East Indiaman ; 
 and the sixth and youngest (Caroline) was married to 
 Captain Weller, 23rd Regiment of Light Dragoons, 
 afterwards General Weller-Ladbroke. 
 
 There was a beautiful regularity about the marriages 
 of these young ladies — they went off year by year with 
 the regularity of clockwork. The marriages commenced 
 in 1796 and ended, when there were no more daughters 
 to marry, in 1803. And this, if nothing else, can be 
 fairly said about the fact : the home of Robert Raikes 
 was the home which young English gentlemen of position 
 were pleased to enter, and to marry from. 
 
 Whatever his fads or fancies about neglected crimi- 
 nals in fever-stricken prisons, or the education of ragged 
 outcasts in schools, or slumming in the sweeps' quarter, 
 he did not bring a gloomy ascetic air into his home, or 
 avenge upon his family the snubs and slights which he 
 
 * See Appendix F. 
 14 
 
194 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 got from his fellow-citizens, of whom he complained for 
 letting him walk too much alone. He was not an extreme 
 man, but a man of gay and joyous temperament, and too 
 simple minded to hide satisfaction when he felt it. Miss 
 Barney made a note of this transparency of character. 
 The shrewd little Diarist promised to name the institution 
 of Sunday schools to Queen Charlotte ; and then Mr. 
 Raikes was so overjoyed that " the joy with which he 
 heard this was nothing short of rapture ! " 
 
 Mr. Raikes, being a social man, was a member of the 
 Gloucestershire Society. At the annual meeting, held in 
 London in 1803, Robert Raikes and Dr. Jenner were 
 elected Vice-Presidents, the Duke of Norfolk being 
 President, of the Society. Raikes and Jenner were then 
 world-wide celebrities. At the annual dinner the old 
 Gloucestershire song of " George Ridler's Oven " was 
 sung in the vernacular. The Society, founded in 1657, 
 was originally political and intended to hasten the 
 restoration of the Stuart dynasty. " George Ridler's 
 Oven" was a political song; but so unintelligible had it 
 become in 1803, that the Society in its annual report 
 printed a version of it with elucidatory notes. When 
 Raikes and Jenner were Vice-Presidents the Society was 
 charitable, and, amongst other things, found the necessary 
 premiums for the apprenticeship of Gloucestershire 
 youths. 
 
 In religion Mr. Raikes was an Evangelical and had 
 strong leanings towards mysticism. In the course of 
 his correspondence with the Rev. Mr. Lewelyn, of 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 195 
 
 Leominster, his religious views are given with singular 
 candour. Mr. Lewelyn was strongly touched with pious 
 mysticism, and Mr. Raikes considered him to be the 
 possessor of an " illuminated soul." Amongst other 
 books, Mr. Lewelyn wrote MOP<I>h eEOY ; or, The Form 
 of God; an Exposition of the Revelation ; and Christianity; 
 or, Science of Christ. Mr. Raikes printed these books, 
 and opened his mind freely when forwarding "proofs." 
 The following passages give an insight into the workings 
 of his mind in secret, and enable us to understand, as 
 nothing else could, the precise meaning of the words 
 used by his youngest daughter concerning him : " His 
 favourite study was always on serious subjects. With 
 great truth, I may add, he was a very holy man." * 
 
 May 16th, 1790. — " I rejoice that I have some kindred 
 spirits who are anxious to promote the glory of Him who 
 is invisible, and who wish to enlarge the Kingdom of 
 His Son." 
 
 December gth, 1791. — " I wish to ask you what you 
 understand by the Seven Spirits, like the Seven Lamps, 
 burning before the Throne. Do they mean any particular 
 attributes of the Deity ? " 
 
 February 27th, 1792.— "You could not have gratified 
 me more highly than in the freedom with which you say 
 you write to me on the subject of the love of God. Were 
 all men by such communications to provoke each other 
 
 * See Chapter XV., "Mrs. Ladbroke's Letters." 
 
196 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 to good works, manifesting their love to the Giver of all 
 Good by imitating His beneficence in their conduct to 
 their fellow-creatures, what a happy world should we 
 live in — how well adapted to prepare us for that city 
 whose Builder is God ! " 
 
 March 12th, 1792. — " I wish my spiritual part was 
 subtilised and refined like yours. Heaven grant we may 
 one day meet and pass a happy eternity together in 
 that blessed society, where the praise of God is the only 
 enjoyment." 
 
 March z^th, 1792. — " When you can write, indulge me 
 with a few of those heavenly ideas that are preparing 
 your faithful spirit for its glorified state : that state in 
 which you will be admitted to see even as you are seen. 
 Oh, that I may be preserved, like you, faithful unto the 
 coming of the Lord Jesus, and that we may meet in the 
 realms of everlasting bliss, there to celebrate the praises 
 of Him who sitteth on the throne, and the Lamb that 
 was slain ! " 
 
 June 2nd, 1792. — " I have lately discovered new 
 improvement and delight in a kind of examination after I 
 have read the Gospel. The heart enquires of the head 
 what he \_sic'\ understands by such doctrine, what applica- 
 tion he [sic'] proposes to make in the future government 
 of the thoughts, the words and manners. How earnestly 
 ought prayer to be made for power to imitate the^Heavenly 
 Pattern." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 197 
 
 July yd, 1792. — " Perhaps we may not meet on this 
 side the grave, but I pray that we may pass eternity 
 together, and join in the dehghts of adoration, thanks- 
 giving and praise to Him that sitteth upon the Throne, 
 and of the Lamb and Holy Spirit, for ever and ever." 
 
 January 15th, 1793. — " It is the failure of the knowledge 
 of your most excellent principle, humility, that keeps 
 mankind tied and bound to the chains of everlasting 
 darkness. It is looking up to Jesus, the Author and 
 Finisher of our Faith, through the medium of humility, 
 and a due sense of our own vileness and unworthiness, 
 that appears to me the only means of following Him 
 whither He has gone before. It is in this sentiment that 
 we so cordially agree. This agreement binds us together 
 in unity of spirit and the bonds of peace. Upon this 
 rock let us build a temple to Friendship, which time shall 
 not destroy." 
 
 November 8th, 1793. — " Our relish for David's Psalms 
 is exactly similar. I am never in so proper a frame of 
 mind as when I am reading or repeating passages from 
 that heavenly composition. They are my chief comfort and 
 consolation when any distress approaches ; they furnish 
 the language of thanksgiving when the heart rejoices." 
 
 December ^xst, 1794. — "Your writings have strength- 
 ened and refreshed my drooping heart. I see my own 
 unworthiness more clearly, and with this plea I go more 
 toldly to the Throne of Mercy, keeping ip my eye the 
 
igS ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 leper, the publican in the Temple, the lame, the blind — 
 all who came to Jesus brought by conviction of their own 
 misery, having faith and confidence in His power to 
 restore. Without this hope of relief, the pressure of 
 my sins would be a burden too heavy for me to bear. 
 
 " However, this is language which I speak only to you 
 and to my own heart. The world would laugh. They 
 conceive that notorious crimes are all that we have to 
 guard against. But you and I have not so learned 
 Christ ! " 
 
 These extracts form of themselves a complete answer 
 to the suggestions, thrown out in the earlier portions of 
 this book, that Mr. Raikes acted as he did simply 
 because his sympathetic and emotional nature was 
 uppermost in the presence of physical suffering. Mr. 
 Paul Hawkins Fisher, man of the world and scholar, 
 and Mr. John Powell, Q.C., and M.P. for the City of 
 Gloucester, accustomed to trace human motive to its 
 secret springs, both came to wrong conclusions. They 
 had not before them a correspondence which lays bare 
 the inner workings and questionings of a soul certain of 
 what its ultimate destiny should be, and anxious not to 
 miss it. 
 
 The world has been in entire ignorance of the 
 religious, as apart from the merely benevolent, side of 
 Mr. Raikes. He has been misunderstood greatly, even 
 by those who wished to regard him with affection, 
 because they have credited him with " benevolent " 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. igg 
 
 instincts which stood apart altogether from religious 
 consciousness. Robert Raikes in this way became a 
 character in whom a large benevolence was founded on 
 a much larger personal vanity. What he really was 
 his own pen reveals ; and his own testimony of himself 
 may be taken as true, as there is not the faintest reason 
 for supposing that he ever dreamed his private confidences 
 would be preserved. 
 
 In politics* Mr. Raikes was a Church and Constitution 
 man, and studied the Apocalypse and some of the 
 prophetic books with special reference to the politics of 
 France. At times he feared greatly that England, on 
 account of her wickedness, had been abandoned by God, 
 and he took every occasion to express his hatred of Tom 
 Paine. When Paine was tried, in December, 1792, and 
 found guilty of treason and sentenced as an outlaw, Mr. 
 Raikes joyously attended his mock execution. " In the 
 evening," he wrote, " the figure of Tom Paine was hung 
 upon a gibbet, and ceremoniously burnt by the populace 
 in a meadow adjoining this city." Had he lived now, 
 he would have been an Imperialist, for in his lifetime 
 he believed it was the duty of an Englishman to put 
 England before the world, and light bonfires and keep 
 open house and rejoice when her sons won victories. 
 He was attached to the persons of his Sovereign and his 
 Queen, and did not obtrude himself upon their privacy 
 when they visited Gloucester, or when he took his family 
 over to Cheltenham to see and admire them with the rest 
 
 * See Note at end of chapter. 
 
200 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 of the crowd from a distance. The year before [1787] he 
 had had an interview with the good Queen Charlotte at 
 Windsor, and might have presumed a Httle, but he was 
 content to be on bowing terms with the bright-eyed 
 second keeper of the Queen's robes, and Miss La Planta, 
 maid of honour. A comfortable man in the family circle 
 was this prosperous citizen of good lineage, and, as he 
 styled himself, " botanizer in human nature." 
 
 Still, he was not always left in peace. Believing, with 
 his old friend John Wesley, that Satan was quite capable 
 of setting up an opposition Sunday school, he found that 
 Beelzebub was mean enough to persecute him in the 
 person of a " pettyfogging lawyer," and draw ^50 out of 
 his pocket. Here is the story as he told it to Mr. 
 Lewelyn on the 27th August, 1792 : 
 
 " Since I wrote to you last I have been the subject of 
 a most infamous prosecution, which has been instituted 
 against me by one of those miscreants of the law who 
 are seizing every occasion to oppress and worry those 
 who are endeavouring to do good.* 
 
 " It happened whilst I was last year in London that 
 an advertisement of a Bank bill that was lost was sent to 
 be inserted in my paper, in which the advertiser offered 
 five guineas reward and no questions asked. 
 
 " This last expression, it seems, by an old Act of 
 Parliament, subjects the person who publishes such an 
 
 *Mr. Raikes forgot that "good" is quite a relative term, and that 
 :what is " good " is capable of much argument. Probably he had interfered 
 with the Attorney's business, which was bad for the Attorney. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. zox 
 
 advertisement to a penalty of ^^50.* My compositor was 
 ignorant of this law, and inserted the advertisement as 
 it was sent. And now I am compelled by an infamous 
 pettyfogging lawyer to pay this sum for my servant's 
 ignorance. 
 
 " But the servants of God must expect such treatment 
 from the slaves of Beelzebub, whose sole delight is 
 mischief. May they never have power to hurt you, my 
 friend." This explosion shows that Mr. Raikes could 
 think hardly sometimes, and express himself vigorously 
 after the event ; and that the atmosphere of his 
 small but choice library of "serious books" did not 
 altogether subdue the "old Adam" when he felt himself 
 aggrieved. 
 
 This was quite an exceptional event in his active 
 life, and, reading carefully, we make this out : at home or 
 abroad, there was much evenness of temper with Mr. 
 Raikes ; and that although there was strong tenacity of 
 purpose with him, he took colour for the moment from 
 that which was nearest, and was sad or gay according 
 to his environment. But for this sympathy with what 
 was nearest, it is doubtful if he would have ever been 
 heard of in the world. He abounded with a living 
 sympathy at a time when all about him were fit objects 
 for compassion, and so the world knows him better than 
 it knows, or ever will know, much " greater " men. 
 
 *For compounding a felony and interfering with the due. course of 
 justice. This penalty may still be enforced under 24 and 25 Vic, c. 96, 
 s. 102. The provisions of much older Acts are re-enacted. 
 
202 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Note. — In the "good old days " newspapers were distributed in town 
 and country by ' ' newsmen ' ' who proclaimed their advent by blowing 
 horns or ringing bells. In villages the horn or bell of the newsman was 
 an event of the week. At the end of a year after the transfer of the 
 Journal to Mr. Walker, a supplement in doggerel rhyme was issued 
 with the paper, commencing : 
 
 " Long has the Journal of old Glo'ster 
 Been of our country's Fame the boaster ; 
 Long has its columns filled our eyes 
 With pleasure, horror, or surprise : 
 Nay, e'en our good great-grandsires knew it. 
 Proud at their festive boards to shew it. 
 The name which gave the paper birth 
 Fostered it long, and stamped its worth. 
 We 've lost our good old master — Raikes : 
 Who's quitted Paper, Types, and Cares, 
 T'enjoy the fruits of anxious years." 
 
 The " politics " of the paper are alluded to ; 
 
 " As to our politics, 'tis known 
 We love the King — support his Throne^ 
 Staunch sticklers in the people's cause. 
 Yet reverence the Church and Laws ! " 
 
 Then there is a word for the old newsman at this the festive season : 
 
 " Ah, remember, sirs, my weekly pains, 
 My labours hard, my humble gains ! 
 And whilst your board can plenty boast. 
 Whilst swims in ale the nutmeg'd toast, 
 Make th' Old Glo'ster Newsman drink — 
 Nay, make once more his pockets chink : 
 Then for another year he'll trot with 
 Wond'rous news, or tale, or plot ; 
 Adventures strange, or strange disasters, 
 T' amaze, or please, his worthy masters ! " 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MRS. LADBROKE'S LETTERS. 
 
 " My dear and honoured father was indeed a true philanthropist in 
 the most Christian sense of the word, and his life was a constant illustra- 
 tion of that character." — Mrs. Ladbroke. 
 
 HAVING presented Robert Raikes as remembered by 
 those who knew him when the memory is most 
 retentive, as he showed himself by and through his work, 
 and as he estimated himself in his own correspondence, 
 we now present a picture of him as he appeared to his 
 own daughter. 
 
 When these letters were penned, in 1862 and 1863, 
 there was no one living capable of speaking of Mr. Raikes 
 in the language of authority and affection as Mrs. Weller- 
 Ladbroke could and did. She was then of great age. 
 In 1862 she had passed her 84th birthday. The 
 solemnities of life were crowding around her, and, in the 
 intervals from suffering, she wrote the letters which we 
 print in full. They are penned in the spirit of affection 
 and reverence, and there is throughout them a scrupulous 
 desire not to permit affection to interfere with the pre- 
 sentation of the truth. Mrs. Ladbroke wrote with 
 freedom, having received the assurance that during her 
 
 203 
 
204 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 lifetime her letters should not be published, or her 
 authority quoted. 
 
 Mrs. Caroline Weller-Ladbroke — the relict of General 
 Ladbroke — was residing at Worthing when the Author 
 was introduced to her by letter. She would willingly 
 have received a visit, but wished to spare herself fatigue 
 and the Author possible disappointment, and so from time 
 to time she wrote letters to him, answering such questions 
 as she was able, and giving any additional information 
 which she possessed and thought worthy of record. 
 
 The information which the Author was able to obtain 
 respecting Robert Raikes and his life's work came from 
 many sources, overladen with much which was valueless 
 and more that was uncertain. It was only by a process 
 of sifting and re-sifting that material facts could be 
 separated and preserved, because the Raikes traditions in 
 Gloucester had even then become confused and blurred, 
 and heated controversies had greatly distorted the 
 original outlines. In the letters from Mrs. Ladbroke 
 the author felt that he was breathing a purer atmosphere, 
 and that in them he possessed a touchstone to which 
 he could bring the facts and fancies which came into 
 his possession. 
 
 It is the privilege of the reader of this little volume to 
 do the same. He may take all that has gone before — the 
 statements of witnesses, the imputations of motive, the 
 critical suggestions of the Author — and submit them to 
 this Ladbroke touchstone, and say what is their degree of 
 purity. Looked at from this standpoint, no gift to the 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 205 
 
 Sunday school world which now can ever be made will 
 be so precious as this portrait of Robert Raikes, drawn 
 by his daughter when — as it happened — in a few brief 
 months she herself would " cross the line." Where 
 affection glowed so intensely the absence of idealism is 
 strongly marked ; and those who love and revere the 
 memory of Robert Raikes will be grateful to Mrs. 
 Ladbroke for saying of her father only what she believed 
 to be true, and what to her was true. 
 
 The first letter was purely formal, after the receipt of 
 a letter from the Author enclosing a note of introduction. 
 The second and following letters are here given : 
 
 " Stanmer Lodge, Worthing, 
 
 " October 10th, 1862. 
 
 " Sir, — I am very sorry your letter has remained so 
 long unanswered ; but my health is so delicate that I am 
 not always equal to the painful exertion of writing. 
 
 " My firm and unhesitating conviction is that my dear 
 father (the late Mr. Raikes, of Gloucester) was the original 
 Founder of Sunday schools. His parents died very long 
 before I was born, and therefore I know not their early 
 history. They left four sons and one daughter.* 
 
 " My father was a constant communicant at St. Mary 
 de Crypt. He never held any office in the church, or 
 in any public office. 
 
 " He was a most affectionate husband and father, and 
 an excellent master. He ruled his household with great 
 * This error is contradicted in the next letter. 
 
206 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 Christian piety, and always required his servants to go 
 regularly to church. 
 
 " The subject of Sunday schools was nearest his heart, 
 and he often spoke of them in confident hope of the 
 blessings which would attend the institution. 
 
 " I believe the first Sunday school was opened 
 November 3rd, 1783 ; indeed, I fear not to assert it.* 
 
 " I perfectly recollect Prince William of Gloucester 
 visiting my father two or three times when he was 
 quartered at Gloucester, about seventy years ago ; 
 but I do not remember hearing the subject of their 
 conversation. 
 
 " I am not aware of my father having borrowed the 
 idea about Sunday schools from any person. I firmly 
 believe the first conception was his own. 
 
 " My father was in the frequent habit of visiting the 
 county and city prisons, particularly the former, and 
 much blessed were his religious instructions to the poor 
 inmates. Indeed, he was a general philanthropist, and 
 never so happy as when he was administering consola- 
 tion and instruction to the poor. 
 
 " He had two sons, now both dead. The eldest 
 (Robert) was Rector of Longhope, Gloucestershire ; the 
 second (WilHam) commanded the Coldstream Guards. 
 He had six daughters, one of whom alone survives him. 
 
 *It was in 1780 that Robert Raikes first opened a Sunday school in 
 the city of Gloucester ; but it was not until November 3rd, 1783, that he 
 made the project known to the world through the medium of the Gloucester 
 Journal. In a subsequent letter Mrs. Ladbroke admits that she may be 
 mistaken in the date she here gives. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 207 
 
 Their names were Anne, Mary, Albinia, Eleanor, 
 Charlotte, Caroline. 
 
 " My father died of disease of the heart, and was only 
 ill half an hour, and died in perfect peace. 
 
 " As you say Mr. Lloyd's book is out of print, I am 
 happy to have it in my power to lend you a copy. I am 
 sure you will take great care of it, and return it to me as 
 soon as you conveniently can. 
 
 " I sincerely wish you success in your excellent under- 
 taking. 
 
 " I beg to remain. Sir, 
 
 " Your obedient Servant, 
 
 " Caroline Weller-Ladbroke." 
 
 "Worthing, December z'jih, 1862. 
 
 " Sir, — There is an interesting circumstance in my 
 dear father's life connected with Sunday schools that I 
 have hitherto suppressed, because I am unable to supply 
 the date, though I think it must have been between the 
 years 1790 and 1795. I told you before that my father 
 was in the constant habit of visiting the county gaol, and 
 that the instruction he gave the poor inhabitants was 
 much blessed. A man was convicted for sheep stealing, 
 and sentence of death passed upon him. My father, 
 being fully convinced of the man's sincere repentance and 
 entire change of heart, made great interest with the Judge 
 to spare his life. The petition was granted, and the man 
 
2o8 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 transported to Botany Bay for his life. In the course of 
 years his conduct was so exemplary that he got a free 
 ticket, and established a Sunday school of his own in 
 Botany Bay.* 
 
 " I beg to correct my statement that my grandfather 
 Raikes left four sons and one daughter. He \&itfive sons 
 (of whom my father was the eldest) and one daughter.'f 
 I see by Mr. Lloyd's book that my father states his first 
 Sunday school to have been established at the close of the 
 year 1781, and therefore I suppose the plan was fully 
 matured in 1783. You ask me what was my father's 
 crest. It was a Griffin's Head. 
 
 " I beg to remain, Sir, yours obliged, 
 
 " Caroline Weller-Ladbroke." 
 
 " Stanmer Lodge, Worthing, 
 
 "January i^th, 1863. 
 
 " Sir, — I am very sorry that I am quite unable to give 
 you the information you wish to obtain as to where my 
 father was educated, but I should think it improbable that he 
 was at Crypt School. There was another large school at 
 Gloucester, ' The College School, ' but I am equally 
 uncertain as to his being placed there. 
 
 " I have never heard of his being articled to any 
 person. 
 
 * See Chapter VIII, 
 
 t Mrs. Ladbroke was not aware that her grandfather had been three 
 times married. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 209 
 
 "I perfectly recollect he was well-informed, wrote 
 French fluently, and was a first-rate geographer. 
 
 " I had not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Lewelyn, or 
 that he corresponded with my father. 
 
 " I well remember that my father had the great 
 privilege of a visit from Mr. Howard for a day or two. 
 I think it must have been in the year 1786 or 1787, 
 and, most probably, at the time he was visiting the gaols 
 in Gloucestershire. I recollect he wore a large bunch of 
 seals on his watch chain, and made impressions of them 
 for my sisters and me ; and a child's memory as to 
 kindness is generally very truthful. 
 
 " I wish I may have been of some little use in the 
 matters I have stated to the best of my belief. If you 
 publish them, I must request the kindness of you to 
 suppress mentioning me as your authority, for at my 
 great age (on the eve of 84) I particularly wish to avoid 
 all notoriety, and I think I may be safely spared that 
 discomfort by your being so good as to say that the 
 authority is undoubted, without giving my name. 
 
 " And now I will conclude with the assertion that my 
 dear and honoured father was, indeed, a true philan- 
 thropist in the most Christian sense of the word, and that 
 his life was a constant illustration of that character. 
 " I beg to remain. Sir, 
 
 " Your obedient and obliged, 
 
 " Caroline Weller-Ladbroke.-" 
 
 15 
 
210 ROBERT RAlKES. 
 
 " Stanmer Lodge, Worthing, 
 
 "February izth, 1863. 
 
 " Sir, — In answer to your letter, which I received 
 yesterday, I lose nd time in giving you the information 
 that my mother was a Miss Trigge. She had two brothers : 
 the eldest was General Sir Thomas Trigge, and the other 
 was Admiral Trigge. After Mr. Trigge's death my grand- 
 mother married General Napier. I think Mr. Trigge 
 lived at Mincham, in Gloucestershire; but my mother 
 •did not marry till some time after General Napier's 
 death. 
 
 " I am extremely sorry that I cannot give you any 
 intelligence as to where my father was educated, neither 
 do I know to whom I can apply for the information, as 
 all my uncles are dead. 
 
 "I never heard of my father having had any com- 
 munication with the Empress of Russia ; but that by no 
 means disproves the fact. 
 
 " I beg to remain, Sir, 
 
 " Yours truly and obliged, 
 
 "Caroline Weller-Ladbroke." 
 
 " Stanmer Lodge, Worthing, 
 
 "March izlh, 1863. 
 
 "Dear Sir, — I am very sorry to have delayed 
 answering your letter, but I have been too unwell to do 
 so, and am now not well able to write. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 " It was the Reverend John Wesley who my father 
 knew. I recollect his being at Gloucester between seventy 
 and eighty years ago. My dear father had a great respect 
 and regard for him. 
 
 " My eldest sister married Admiral Sir Thomas 
 Thompson ; the second, Admiral Garrett ; the third, 
 Mr. Birch; the fourth, Mr. Daniel Garrett; the fifth, 
 Captain Clarke. 
 
 "T am sorry to hear your health continues so in- 
 different ; but I hope you will receive some benefit from 
 the change of air. 
 
 " I beg to remain, dear Sir, 
 
 " Yours truly and obliged, 
 
 "C. Weller-Ladbroke." 
 
 " Stanmer Lodge, Worthing, 
 
 " September z^th, 1863. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I have been extremely unwell for the 
 last three months, and am now suffering from the natural 
 consequence of great weakness, and am quite unequal to 
 any exertion or excitement ; therefore, I should be exceed- 
 ingly sorry to be the means of your taking a journey when, 
 perhaps, I might not be able to see you ; but I will 
 endeavour, in writing, to answer your questions as far as 
 it is in my power. 
 
 " My beloved father was quite well in the former part 
 of the day he died. In the evening he was suddenly 
 
212 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 seized with a severe pain in his chest, and a great 
 oppression on his breath ; but he was only allowed to 
 suffer half an hour, and then expired. Dr. Cheston, an 
 eminent physician at Gloucester, had been immediately 
 sent for when he was first attacked, but at once said 
 nothing could be done. I was living in Wales at the 
 time, and, therefore, had not the high privilege of seeing 
 my dear father ere his blessed spirit had iiown. 
 
 " I quite remember that Mrs. Hannah More was a 
 friend of his, and that they used to correspond. 
 
 " He had no extensive library (as it would be termed 
 now), but a very good collection of books, and his favourite 
 study was always on serious subjects. With great truth, 
 I may add he was a very holy man. 
 
 "I have no idea where he was married, but I should 
 suppose in London, as I believe my mother lived there 
 with my grandmother, Mrs. Napier, after the General 
 died. 
 
 " I am extremely sorry that I cannot give you all the 
 satisfactory information you wish to^obtain. 
 
 " Before I close this letter I must assure you how 
 thoroughly I appreciate your indefatigable endeavours to 
 make the history of my dearest father's life as truthful 
 and profitable as possible. 
 
 " With my sincere good wishes, 
 
 "Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 " Yours much obliged, 
 "Caroline Weller-Ladbroke." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 213 
 
 This was the last letter which the Author received, and 
 the intrinsic value of the series will be most appreciated 
 by those who have endeavoured, from time to time, to 
 piece together a life of Robert Raikes so as to present 
 to their own minds a man working amongst men, and not 
 the Ideal Man of their own desire. On questions of fact 
 — such as where her father was married, where he was 
 educated, and whether he was ever apprenticed or articled 
 to a master printer — it seems curious that Mrs. Ladbroke 
 was entirely ignorant. What is more, every member of 
 the Raikes family — direct or collateral — was, at the time, 
 also ignorant. Where he was married we now know; 
 but where he was educated, and whether he ever learnt 
 the art and mystery of printing, and so qualified himself 
 as a master printer, will probably never be certainly 
 known. The presumption is that he was educated either 
 at the Crypt Grammar School, or Gloucester College, and 
 that he did learn his business. Certain it is that he 
 understood it, and, at times, used a composing "stick,"* 
 the same as the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine might 
 have done, he having been apprenticed to that celebrated 
 printer Bowyer. He also had the jealousy of a craftsman 
 for the reputation of his office, and refused a valued 
 customer point-blank to put his name to a book which 
 he did not print. 
 
 The handwriting of these Ladbroke letters is bold and 
 vigorous, and in no instance is there the slightest trace of 
 confusion of thought. She lived in much seclusion with 
 
 *See Chapter XVII.— " Raikes Family : Gloucester Branch." 
 
214 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 an old family servant. The Rev. Mr. Read, writing to 
 the Author after the funeral, says : 
 
 " I much regret to say I can render you no help, for 
 during her last illness I was not permitted to see her. 
 . . . This I much regret, for one more truly excellent 
 I never met with than the lamented lady, with whom I 
 had much pleasant intercourse during many of the last 
 years of her life." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE MOVEMENT WEIGHED. 
 
 "The Sunday schools established by Mr. Raikes, of Gloucester, at 
 the close of the century were the beginnings of popular education." — 
 Green's History of the English People. 
 
 " In my mind the Sunday schools have been the foundation of much 
 of what is good amongst the millions of our people." — John Bright. 
 
 SUNDAY schools were commenced as an experiment 
 in the city of Gloucester in 1780, and in 1783 some 
 results of that experiment were made public. In 1787 
 the Gentleman's Magazine published a letter from Mr. 
 Raikes, estimating the number of children under Sunday- 
 instruction at 250,000. This may have been an over- 
 estimate, or else there was a falling off afterwards, for in 
 1800 the same magazine recorded the numbers as 156,400 
 — presumably for England and WaleS; In the year 1818 
 a Parliamentary return showed the number of Sunday 
 scholars in England and Wales to be 477,225, or rather 
 more than 4 per cent, of the population. In 1833 a 
 second Parliamentary return gave a total of 1,548,890, or 
 nearly 11 per cent, of the population. In 1851 the 
 educational census return gave the numbers as 2,407,642, 
 or nearly 13J per cent, of the population. In the absence 
 
 215 
 
2i6 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 of an official return, the Hon. Secretary of the Sunday 
 School Union (Mr. Fountain J. Hartley) estimated the 
 number of scholars in 1887 to have increased to 5,733.325. 
 or about 20 per cent, of the population in England and 
 "Wales. In June, 1898, the total number of scholars for 
 England and Wales as published by the Sunday School 
 Union is 7,456,108. For the United Kingdom and 
 Ireland the totals are : Number of schools, 53,590 ; 
 teachers, 704,955 ; scholars, 7,875,748. Total member- 
 ship, 8,580,703 — about 25 per cent, of the population. 
 
 If it were possible for the Founder and Organiser of 
 this system to have a knowledge of these figures, surely 
 his soul would be satisfied.* 
 
 The Author endeavoured from time to time to obtain 
 the opinions of men of " light and leading " as to the 
 value of Sunday schools and their influence on the rising 
 generation. A few of the replies have been mislaid, and, 
 notably, one from the Rev. Dr. Guthrie, and another 
 from Mrs. Beecher Stowe. There still, however, remain 
 a large number of letters from men representing many 
 shades of thought in the Christian Church in England, 
 the United States, and Australia, and from them the 
 following selection is made. 
 
 * The extension of the Sunday school system in America would, if 
 possible, increase his joy. The figures collected for the World's third 
 Sunday School Convention, held in London in July, 1898, showed that in 
 the United States the number of schools was 132,697 ; teachers, 1,394,630 ; 
 and scholars, 10,893,533. For Canada the number of schools was 8,986 ; 
 teachers, 75,064; and scholars, 582,070. Not only do the numbers in the 
 Vnited Kingdom and the United States yearly increase, but the percentage 
 of scholars to the population steadily increases also. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 217 
 
 [Elihu Burritt — January yth, 1863.J 
 
 " I thank you most cordially for your kind and 
 interesting letter, awaiting me on my arrival from 
 America. I thank you for your good words and wishes 
 for my personal welfare. 
 
 " I do indeed feel a deep and lively interest in the 
 history and influence of Sunday schools, and feel that 
 Robert Raikes was to the youth world of humanity 
 what Isaac Newton was to the world of matter and 
 motion. 
 
 "To attempt to measure the influence of the great 
 institution he founded would be like applying a two-foot 
 rule to infinite space, or the measure of a moment to eternity. 
 They have come to rank among the very first agencies of 
 our great Anglo-Saxon race in both hemispheres. 
 
 " They have been developed to a remarkable expan- 
 sion and power in America. There is probably not a 
 church or chapel of any denomination between the 
 oceans that has not a Sunday school connected with it. 
 
 " Sunday school anniversaries are becoming seasons 
 of popular interest in every community. Perhaps the 
 largest and best organised schools in America are those 
 connected with Rev. Dr. Tyng's church in New York, 
 and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's church in Brooklyn. I 
 think each numbers one thousand pupils. Dr. Tyng is 
 an eminent episcopal clergyman, and has given his heart 
 and soul to the work of building up these institutions to 
 be a working power in the land. All the scholars under 
 
2i8 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 his care form themselves into Missionary Societies — 
 Home and Foreign — and raise a large amount of money 
 for such operations in the year. . . . 
 
 " I am sorry that I cannot tell you who founded 
 the first Sunday school in America,* or when it was 
 established. I remember attending one in my own native 
 village t forty-five years ago [1818]. 
 
 " Should you write to Dr. Tyng, he would be 
 exceedingly interested in receiving one of the letters of 
 Robert Raikes, just to show to his multitude of pupils the 
 handwriting of a man whose name is so revered by the 
 youth of America." . . 
 
 [Richard Cobden4 m.p. — March 16th, 1864.] 
 
 " The American schools are strictly religious in their 
 objects and organization. They are not intended for 
 teaching reading, as all children in that country are 
 expected to attend the 'common schools,' which are 
 open gratis on the weekdays for all the children in 
 the country. This makes the Sunday schools a totally 
 different institution from what was contemplated by 
 
 * Said to have been founded by Ludwig Hacker between the years 
 1740 and 1747 at Ephrata, Lancaster county, Penn., among the German 
 Seventh-day Baptists. The schoolroom was used as a hospital after the- 
 battle of Brandy-Wines, fought in 1777. The school is said to have beea 
 discontinued about that time — four years before Robert Raikes gathered 
 the first children together in Sooty Alley, Gloucester. 
 
 t New Britain, Connecticut. 
 
 t " He is above all in our eyes the representative of those sentiments, 
 and those cosmopolitan principles before which national frontiers and 
 rivalries disappear." — M. Drouyn de Lhuys. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 219 
 
 Raikes and his successors, who had to teach the poor 
 children to read. 
 
 " I am not aware of any Government returns respect- 
 ing the Sunday schools of the United States." 
 
 [letter no. 2.] 
 
 " I really don't know that I can add anything to my 
 former note. The Sunday schools of the United States 
 are exclusively for religious, and, indeed, denominational, 
 training. 
 
 " They are not relied on for teaching children to read. 
 Weekday secular schooling is offered gratis to every child 
 in America. It is the boast in some of the New England 
 States that you cannot walk a mile without coming to a 
 school house where education, books, &c., are to be had 
 free of all charge. 
 
 " Where such is the case, you must see that Sunday 
 schools can claim no merit for affording elementary 
 education. If a child cannot read, his parents would be 
 open to censure for not having sent him to school; and as 
 the weekday school is always ready to welcome him, it is 
 there that he would be taught to read and not at the 
 Sunday school. 
 
 "In Canada, a system of common schools was 
 inaugurated during Lord Elgin's governorship very similar 
 to that of the United States. Of course all denomina- 
 tional religious teaching is forbidden in the weekday 
 schools both in America and Canada. 
 
 " In this country, where there has never been a system 
 
220 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 ■of national education deserving the name,* the Sunday 
 schools have often supplied, in a most important way, the 
 deficiency by imparting a knowledge of the alphabet and 
 a little reading to the poor children. 
 
 " In the time of Raikes this was almost the only 
 chance for the children of the working class ; but to rely 
 on such a resource now would be to leave us behind every 
 civilized Christian nation." 
 
 [Dr. H. Clay Trumbull,! Philadelphia — December "jth, 
 
 1898.] 
 
 " America has been practically saved to Christianity 
 and the religion of the Bible by the Sunday school. At 
 the opening of the nineteenth century, Bible study and 
 Bible teaching were at a low ebb in America — at a lower 
 ebb than at any earlier period. At the close of that 
 century, Bible study and Bible teaching are at a higher 
 point than ever before in the Western Hemisphere, and 
 that chiefly through God's blessing on the agency of the 
 modern Sunday school. But not only has the Sunday 
 school been the means of bringing up the standard of 
 Christianity in the regions first settled by the Pilgrims 
 and Puritans in New England, by the Cavaliers in Vir- 
 ginia, and by the Huguenots in South Carolina; but in the 
 newer portions of the United States, the Sunday school 
 has been the chiefest agency of pioneer evangelisation. 
 
 * It will be remembered that this was written in 1864, one year before 
 he died. Had he lived he would have been a generous supporter of the 
 Education Act, 1870. 
 
 t Yale Lecturer on the Sunday school, 188S. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 221 
 
 " In our Churches of every name, in city and country 
 alike, the children of our choicest Christian homes are 
 largely dependent on their Church Sunday school 
 teaching and influence for their religious training and 
 upbuilding. This is recognised by the best Christian 
 parents, as well as by many of the more careless ones. 
 Statistics, and all historic evidence, go to show that just 
 in proportion as the Sunday school has prominence in a 
 church community, the family life and the home training 
 are uplifted ; and that as the Sunday school is neglected, 
 the family life declines. 
 
 " There is no agency of city missions comparable with 
 the Sunday school in our more crowded cities, East 
 and West. By this agency is stayed the relapsing into 
 practical heathenism of the districts deserted by the 
 Protestant churches, as their congregations move into 
 more attractive quarters, carrying the church organisation 
 with them. 
 
 " In our newer communities, on the advancing and 
 extending borders of our country, it is the Sunday school 
 that is the pioneer religious agency that secures an out- 
 post of evangelistic progress, as nothing else does or 
 could. This gathers the children of varied sorts and 
 nationalities into a new religious centre, that prepares the 
 way for a Church and pastor, when the parents could not 
 have been won or reached except through their children. 
 
 " Of course, the American Sunday school is different, 
 in many respects, from the Sunday school in England, 
 having been adapted in its form and methods to the 
 
222 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 peculiar nature and needs of the New World commu- 
 nities ; but it took its new start from the Robert Raikes 
 movement, and it gives grateful credit accordingly. 
 
 " Observant foreigners have noted and commented on 
 ■the dominant influence of the Sunday school in American 
 religious life. M. Buisson, at the head of a French 
 Commission sent here, in 1876, to study the educational 
 methods of the United States, reported accordingly to 
 his Government. He said that the Sunday school ' aims 
 to fill by itself the complete mission which elsewhere is 
 in large measure assigned to the family, the school, and 
 the church.' Professor Emile de Laveleye, of Belgium, 
 wrote about the same time of his careful observations : 
 ' The Sunday school is one of the strongest foundations 
 of the Republican institutions of the United States.' 
 The more familiar a student of facts and principles is 
 -with America as it was and is, the firmer will be his 
 conviction that these observers are correct in their 
 estimate of the importance of the modern Sunday school 
 as a basal support of American institutions and religious 
 power." 
 
 [The Rev. John H. Vincent, D.D.,* Topeka, Kansas, 
 U.S.A. — February lotli, 1899.] 
 
 " I am delighted to read of your plan for a unique life 
 of Robert Raikes ; and, certainly, if your plan is carried 
 out, it will be a most charming and valuable contribution 
 
 * Former Editor of the Methodist Episcopal Sunday School Union 
 publications, the present Chancellor of the Chautauqua Society, and 
 Bishop over the Methodist Episcopalian Church, New Yorlc. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 223 
 
 to philanthropic literature, and especially to the literature 
 of the Sunday school. 
 
 " Robert Raikes represented the activity of the laity 
 in religious effort ; his movement not only anticipated the 
 mission-form of the modern Sunday school, but the 
 intelligent effort of laymen to which, in these days, on 
 both sides of the sea, the Christian churches owe so 
 much. I shall look forward with great interest to the 
 reading of your volume." 
 
 [Rev. W. Morley Punshon — May gth, 1863. J 
 
 " I suppose at this time of day there is but little 
 •difference of opinion about Sunday schools, when properly 
 conducted and worked, so that the salvation of the 
 scholars is kept in view as the main design. 
 
 " I believe that as an educational agency simply, 
 Sunday schools have fulfilled their mission ; but it would 
 be rash to deny that they have been in multiplied instances 
 effectual for lasting spiritual good. 
 
 "Their chief lack just now seems to be an appliance 
 to meet the case of those who are, or think themselves, 
 too big to be classed among the scholars, and who are 
 not yet ripe for the fellowship of the Church." 
 
 [Rt. Hon. Sir John Packington, M.P.* — April i8th, 1863.} 
 
 " I have had the honour of receiving your letter of 
 the i6th inst. I am not aware that I have it in my 
 
 * The Rt. Hon, Member for Droitwich was, during his long and 
 honourable career, very active in all matters relating to National educa- 
 tion : and his labours — not always appreciated — did much to make the. 
 Education Acts of 1S70 and since possible. 
 
224 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 power to offer you any suggestions which would be of 
 service to you in the interesting and laudable work you 
 have in hand. 
 
 " The educational agencies of the present age, deficient 
 as they still are, are a fresh advance, as compared to those 
 we possessed half a century ago, and amongst those 
 agencies the Sunday school system has occupied a high 
 and important place. 
 
 " With reference to religious instruction especially, 
 they have done much good, and, though for general 
 educational value they are not to be compared to the 
 day school, those who have favoured and supported them 
 are entitled to respectful gratitude. 
 
 " In expressing these opinions, I believe I am only 
 expressing the opinions of almost all who have studied 
 the education question." 
 
 [The Rev. C. H. Spurgeon — May 2nd, 1863.] 
 
 " My first attempts at public speaking were made in a 
 Sunday school in which I was a teacher. The exercise 
 of addressing the school was very useful to me, and led 
 me to engage in giving addresses to other assemblies. 
 I was never a Sunday scholar in a Sunday school. I wish 
 you every success in your work." 
 
 [Dr. John Gumming — May i;^fh, 1863.] 
 
 " In answer to your enquiry, I may state : (i) That in 
 the great number of instances I have found that Sunday 
 school pupils have become afterwards Sunday school 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 225 
 
 teachers. (2) That the most devoted teachers are, many 
 of them, young persons engaged in shops, warehouses, 
 and dressmaking estabhshments, ten, twelve, and fourteen 
 hours a day during the week. (3) In many cases I have 
 found Sunday school teaching become a passion and an 
 enjoyment of singular intensity and endurance." 
 
 [The Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, M.A. (President of the 
 Conference) — December 1st, i8g8.] 
 
 " The benefit of the modern Sunday school is so vast 
 and so manifest everywhere that it seems almost as super- 
 fluous to name it as to mention the benefit we derive 
 from the sun at noonday. You are possibly aware that 
 we Methodists maintain that there was a Methodist 
 Sunday school before Mr. Robert Raikes started his, 
 and I think the evidence of the fact is demonstrative. 
 It does not, however, in the least degree detract from the 
 immense and imperishable services of the Great Philan- 
 thropist of Gloucester, who, in the popular mind, enjoys 
 the credit of starting the Sunday school movement. 
 
 " I beheve that he is entitled to the great credit which 
 popular opinion assigns to him, inasmuch as it was he 
 who led to the national movement on the part of all the 
 Churches, consequently we are deeply interested in any 
 investigation which can throw more light upon his ever- 
 blessed career." 
 
 In 1870, the Author addressed a circular letter to the 
 
 Anglican Bishops in Great Britain and the Colonies. 
 
 16 
 
226 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 The following replies were received, and they are 
 supplemented by letters recently received by the Editor: 
 
 [Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterhury — August -zgth, 1870. J 
 
 " I write a line on behalf of the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury to say, in reply to your letter, that it would be 
 almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of 
 Sunday schools. They have rendered great service to 
 religion and education ; and if the secular system should 
 gain ground in England, this importance would become 
 even greater than it has hitherto been. 
 
 " Believe me to be, very faithfully yours, 
 C. W. Sandford, 
 
 Commissary to the Anhhishop of Canterbury." 
 
 [Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London — Septemher 6th, 1870.] 
 
 " I am sorry that I am unable to give you any 
 information to assist you in your biography of Robert 
 Raikes ; but even with want of leisure I will briefly enter 
 on the wide subject of the influence of Sunday schools 
 on the formation of religious character. 
 
 "It is obvious to remark that this influence has varied 
 somewhat in kind, while it has increased in extent, during 
 the period over which it has been exerted. 
 
 "When Sunday schools were first established they 
 provided a large proportion of their scholars with the 
 only education they received : as reading and spelling, as 
 well as Bible truths, were learnt in them for the first and 
 only time. Day schools were rare, and by many, even 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 227 
 
 by good men, were suspected and discouraged ; and 
 the duty of catechising was much neglected, although 
 required by the law and canons of the Church of 
 England.* Sunday schools were then invaluable as being 
 to multitudes the only instrument, however imperfect, for 
 opening their minds and awakening their intellectual 
 faculties, as well as for giving them some acquaintance 
 with revealed truth and the duties it involves, and the 
 motives it supplies. And this office such schools still 
 discharge in too many cases, especially in populous 
 parishes where the children are either not sent to the 
 day school, or attend too irregularly and leave too early 
 to derive any benefit from them. 
 
 " But in proportion as day schools have become more 
 general and day scholars more numerous, the secular 
 position of the instruction given in the Sunday school at 
 any rate has, happily, become less important, and even 
 the religious teaching is only supplemental to the more 
 systematic instruction which most of the scholars are 
 receiving in the week. And the question has been asked 
 by many whether Sunday schools have not, under these 
 circumstances, become an evil — even if it be a necessary 
 evil,— and whether it would not be better and more 
 consonant to the true idea of the Christian family if the 
 children, being carefully instructed during the week in 
 the Bible and the truths contained in it, were on Sunday 
 taught only by their parents, and with them went to the 
 House of God ? 
 
 * See "Catechising in Churches," Chapter XI. 
 
228 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 " Unhappily, this question does not call for an answer. 
 As a matter of fact, parents for the most part cannot, or 
 do not, teach their children at home on Sunday, nor take 
 them with them to the House of God ; and the question 
 is not between the Sunday school and the influence of 
 the Christian home, but between the Sunday school and 
 neglect and idleness — the fields or the streets. 
 
 " Nor is the religious teaching of the Sunday school 
 without its special advantage now, when the scholars are 
 also carefully instructed in a good and scriptural day 
 school, especially if the Sunday school be properly 
 organised and the teachers duly equipped. In the day 
 school the classes are usually too large : the teaching 
 general, although systematic ; individual application 
 difficult ; and the doctrines and precepts of the Gospel 
 are in danger of being accepted rather as lessons to be 
 learnt than as truths to be felt and acted on. But in 
 the Sunday school (supposing the scholars to be well 
 grounded in the day school), where the classes ought 
 always to be small, the teachers should always have 
 God's love in their hearts. The individual application of 
 the truths taught in love should be the main object in 
 view, and is more effective as the teaching not only of 
 mind to mind, but of heart to heart. And this leads 
 me to the expression of a doubt whether the happiest 
 influence of Sunday schools has not been as great, if not 
 greater, on adults as on children, on the teacher as on 
 the taught. 
 
 " Our religion is worth nothing until it has made us 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 229 
 
 take trouble for God's sake, and active charity in some 
 form or other is necessary for the soul's health. But 
 the greater part of our more educated population are 
 occupied unceasingly in the week by their work, 
 professions, or home duties. Sunday only is their own. 
 And the Sunday school gives them the opportunity of 
 dedicating some part of their only leisure to a good 
 work for God's sake. It is an unspeakable blessing to 
 them. 
 
 " And it is a thought of great comfort when anxious 
 and dispirited on account of the vice and immorality, the 
 irreligious infidelity, which seem to surge up all around 
 us, to remember that there are tens of thousands of men 
 and women of all ranks — from some of the highest in 
 the land, the most learned, the most accomplished, to 
 those who owe all their knowledge and love of their God 
 and Saviour to what they themselves learnt in Sunday 
 school — who are teaching every Sunday in the schools of 
 our land, giving often to God what rest they might fairly 
 feel they needed themselves, learning, not seldom, what 
 they teach, and always knitting more closely the 
 bond of Christian fellowship, and bringing together 
 classes which, even in a Christian land, want so sadly 
 severs. 
 
 " This view of the character of Sunday schools, as 
 supplying work for those who wish to work for God, has 
 been more generally recognised, perhaps, by those who 
 are without the Church of England, than by those 
 within it ; and they have had their reward by their 
 
230 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 attaching more closely to their own community many 
 who find with them what the church neglected to give. 
 But the principle, while good in itself, may be, and is, 
 carried too far; and I have regretted to find among 
 those who are allowed to teach others, persons who are 
 discreditably ignorant themselves. This is unjust to the 
 scholars, and not always beneficial to the teachers, whom 
 it may confirm in their conceit instead of convincing 
 them of their deficiencies. 
 
 " But this evil may be in a great degree prevented, 
 and another important benefit be deduced from Sunday 
 schools, if the clergyman, or other superintendent, will 
 take the pains carefully to teach the teachers themselves ; 
 and by forming a class of all those who are not sufficiently 
 educated to be qualified to act for themselves, and by 
 talking with them previously what they in turn are to 
 talk with their children in the Sunday school — to prevent 
 the risk of mistake, teaching and at the same time 
 conveying a lesson to the teachers which, thus given and 
 thus repeated, will not easily be forgotten by them. 
 
 " But I have written more at length than I had 
 intended, and begging you to pardon my prolixity, 
 " I am. Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 "J. London." 
 
 [Dr. Temple, Bishop of Exeter — jfuly 8th, 1870. J 
 
 "I am desired by the Bishop to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letter of zgth June, and to say that his 
 Lordship thinks it almost certain that Sunday schools 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 231 
 
 will greatly increase in importance as all education is 
 
 better appreciated. 
 
 "Yours very faithfully, 
 
 " E. G. Sandford, 
 
 " Chaplain." 
 
 [Lord Arthur Dr. Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells — 
 August i^th, 1870. j 
 
 " You ask for my opinion about Sunday schools. 
 I think that more than ever they are becoming a most 
 important part of the Church's work in carrying out our 
 Lord's command to feed His lambs. In the present state 
 of the educational question through the country, and 
 with the restrictions which, even under the act lately 
 passed,* are placed upon religious teaching in our paro- 
 chial schools, it becomes of vital consequence, for the 
 maintenance of an intelligent faith among our people, 
 to make use of the Sunday school. 
 
 " I also think that the opportunity afforded to volun- 
 tary teachers to lend their aid on the Sunday is of great 
 value, with a view to the promotion of Christian sympathy 
 among the members of our congregations ; and that 
 without some such opportunity, love is likely to wax cold. 
 " I remain, your humble Servant, 
 
 "Arthur C. Bath and Wells." 
 
 [Dr. Jackson, Bishop of Chester — August 1st, 1870.] 
 
 " I am sorry to be thus late in acknowledging your 
 ■letter, and I do not know that I have any better way of 
 
 * The Education Act of 1870 is here referred to 
 
232 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 doing this than by sending you a passage from my Charge, 
 1868. 
 
 " I beg to remain, your faithful servant, 
 
 "William Chester." 
 
 Then follows an extract from the printed Charge, 
 p. 19: 
 
 " It has of late become a sort of fashion in some 
 quarters, to speak disparagingly of Sunday schools. This 
 is very much to be regretted. Such teaching, well con- 
 ducted, has great and abiding influence on after-life ; and 
 if it ever should be abandoned by the Church, it will 
 assuredly be taken up with increased vigour by those 
 who, conscientiously, separate themselves from our 
 Communion. To urge that children had better be at 
 home with their parents is to betray strange ignorance 
 of what home and home associations generally, and the 
 mode of spending the Lord's Day at home in particular, 
 too often are. 
 
 " Whether the practice of dismissing the younger 
 scholars, at all events, at some period short of the 
 conclusion of our full Morning Service, might not be 
 adopted more generally than at present, with great 
 advantage, is well worth considering. And, when circum- 
 stances admit of it, a separate Shorter Service for the 
 children by themselves is most desirable. Some little 
 relaxation of discipline and routine may fittingly 
 characterise the Sunday as compared with the day school. 
 And some of the many appliances which, happily, our 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 233, 
 
 age supplies, for helping in an agreeable wa^ to impart 
 the facts of Sacred History in young minds, will, of course, 
 be employed." 
 
 [Dr. Goodwin, Bishop of Carlisle — August 2gth, 1870.] 
 
 " Owing to circumstances, I have for many years had 
 very little to do with the working of Sunday schools ; 
 and it is, consequently, a subject upon which my opinion 
 is of little value. But it has always seemed to me that 
 when diligently managed, they are very agreeable to the 
 young folks, and the notion of the children being wearied 
 by attendance at Sunday school has no support in actual 
 experience. 
 
 " The weak part of them appears to me to be the 
 subsequent attendance at Church without sufficient and 
 proper accommodation for the children. I am disposed 
 to think that this conjunction of the Sunday school with 
 much discomfort and weariness in church, is one reason 
 why so many young people cease going to church when 
 they cease going to school. But this is mere speculation. 
 
 " Your truly, 
 
 " Harvey Carlisle." 
 
 [Dr. Bickersteth, Bishop of Ripon — August igth, 1870.] 
 
 " I am glad to find that you have been successful in 
 finding materials for a biography of Robert Raikes, the 
 reputed founder of Sunday schools. 
 
 " It is impossible to over-estimate the good results 
 which have arisen out of the establishment of Sunday 
 
234 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 schools. They were at one period about the only 
 channel for the communication of religious instruction 
 to the children of the poorer classes, and their bene- 
 ficial influence is still so great, notwithstanding the 
 enormous advances which have been made in the cause 
 of education, that they could not be dispensed with without 
 serious injury to the best interests of the whole community. 
 " Believe me, very faithfully yours, 
 
 "R. RiPON." 
 
 [Dr. Knox, Bishop of Down — September yth, 1870.] 
 
 " I need hardly assure you of the deep interest I feel in 
 Sunday schools, and from time to time I have brought 
 them before my clergy at my visitations. 
 
 " I consider Sunday schools have conferred a lasting 
 benefit, not only on our Church, but on the nation at large. 
 Were it not for this noble institution a large number of 
 children (especially in the manufacturing districts) would 
 be in total ignorance, for pulpit ministrations hardly 
 reach them. To the Founder of Sunday schools every 
 Christian man and woman in the country, from the 
 Queen to the humblest of her subjects, owes a deep debt 
 of gratitude. 
 
 " The amount of Scriptural knowledge conveyed in 
 properly conducted Sunday schools throughout the 
 country, under the management of various Christian 
 bodies, cannot be over-estimated. Let us only remember 
 ' Children are the morrow of society ; it is in our power 
 to prepare for the coming day, but when that day has 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 335 
 
 risen upon the earth, its destinies have escaped beyond 
 
 our control.' 
 
 " I am, yours faithfully, 
 
 "Thos. Down and Conner." 
 
 [Dr. Butcher, Bishop of Meath — September ^th, 1870.] 
 
 " Having been requested to state my opinion ' as to 
 the influence of Sunday schools upon the rising genera- 
 tion, and the part they may be fairly said to play in 
 forming the religious character of the nation,' I have no 
 hesitation in saying that I believe their influence to be 
 most salutary where the schools have a sufficient staff of 
 duly qualified and earnest teachers, and are under the 
 direction of sensible and careful managers. 
 
 " Under these conditions I am sure that Sunday schools 
 
 are calculated to play an important part in forming the 
 
 religious character of a nation. 
 
 " Samuel Meath." 
 
 [Dr. Broderick, Bishop of Tuain — October i^th, 1870.] 
 
 " If the experiences of thirty-five years are of any 
 Value, I can add my hearty testimony to the blessings of 
 Sunday schools. 
 
 " My knowledge of them has been in large scattered 
 country districts and in well peopled town parishes, and 
 the same happy work is the fruit in all. 
 
 " I have had the old and the young filling every room 
 of the farmhouse upon the wild hillside, and grey hairs 
 bending over the Scriptures and learning from lips of 
 
236 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 almost childhood. What could be the result when every 
 word (almost) spoken in those houses came direct from 
 the Fountain of Wisdom, and when its lessons are enforced 
 by hearts which speak not of their own abundance ? 
 
 "The Sunday school in my town experience was the 
 platform on which all classes met, as teachers and as 
 scholars, to learn what in God's sight, and by God's good 
 wise provision, respects not persons, but places all upon 
 the equality of the lost or the pardoned, and forms golden 
 ties for lifelong social interests, while it moulds into the 
 surest form the providential distinctions of daily life. 
 
 " You only wish for my testimony, or I would go 
 on. . . . 
 
 " Very faithfully yours, 
 
 "C. B. TUAM." 
 
 [Dr. Williams, Bishop of Quebec — December 8th, 1870.] 
 
 " The Sunday school, so far as my observation enables 
 me to judge, is, when inspired and directed by a zealous 
 'and efficient man, one of the most powerful influences 
 which a clergyman wields. 
 
 " It is very difficult to give systematic religious 
 instruction to older people, and to mixed congregations ; 
 and for want of systematic instruction a preacher's 
 address is too often uninteresting and unintelligible to 
 one half of his audience, while to the other half it is 
 wearisomely trite. 
 
 "This difficulty is, in great part, obviated where the 
 Sunday schools have been efficient. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 237 
 
 "The Sunday school, again, forms a most convenient 
 channel for the conveyance of the clergyman's personal 
 influence — directly and indirectly. Directly, by bringing 
 him into contact with so large a number of his flock at 
 the most impressionable age ; and, indirectly, by the 
 opportunities it gives him to teach the teachers and so diffuse 
 his mind through the mass. 
 
 "The customs of the country, where rich and poor 
 alike attend the Sunday school, add an inestimable 
 advantage in the mixing of ranks and classes, and the 
 practical inculcation of the truth, that in Christ we are 
 all one. 
 
 " In the thinly settled districts, where the clergyman 
 has to be in several places on the Sunday, and where 
 teachers are often found with difficulty, the working of 
 Sunday schools is no easy matter ; but, as a general 
 rule, it is open to observation, that the most successful 
 clergymen are those who are most strenuous in the Sunday 
 school — where, indeed, the seed of their success has been 
 sown, some to appear at once, some after many days. 
 " I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 "J. W. Quebec." 
 
 [Dr. Short, Bishop of Adelaide — December agth, 1870.J 
 
 " My opinion of the value of Sunday schools, properly 
 and systematically taught and managed on Christian 
 principles, is, that they are the seed-plot of the Church. 
 
 " If followed up by regular catechising at stated times. 
 
238 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 I think they will build up children under Divine grace in 
 Christian as well as Church principles. 
 
 " I do not think the minister of any congregation is 
 making full proof of his ministry unless he personally 
 superintends, and catechises, such a school connected 
 with his congregation. 
 
 " The duty is universally recognised in this diocese. 
 A good or poor Sunday school is a tolerable test of the 
 efficiency or inefficiency of the minister. 
 
 " I am, your obedient Servant, 
 
 "A. Adelaide." 
 
 [The Right Reverend Alfred Barry, D.D., formerly 
 Primate of Australia — November 12th, i8g8.] 
 
 " My experience, both here and on the other side of the 
 world, simply confirms what I cannot doubt that you 
 have heard from others — that the Sunday school institu- 
 tion is invaluable, and the main help of the Church in 
 carrying out systematically her catechetical teaching of 
 the young. 
 
 "To make full use of its influence, it should be, 
 I think, united with a regular system of periodical 
 catechising in Church, and made to lead up to the pre- 
 paration for confirmation. Nor can it, of course, be a 
 substitute for the more complete and technical teaching 
 of the Church day schools. For, naturally, its influence 
 is exercised over the heart and the spirit even more than 
 the understanding, and that influence makes itself felt, 
 both socially and spiritually, over the whole life of each 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 239 
 
 parish. That it might be extended more largely still, 
 is obvious. 
 
 " In England generally we need that extension in two 
 directions : first, over a longer period of age of the 
 scholars, including the formation of adult classes; and 
 next, as consequent on this, an enlargement of the 
 curriculum, which, after Holy Scripture and the Prayer 
 Book, should certainly include some elementary know- 
 ledge of Church history. But even as it is, it is impossible 
 to exaggerate its usefulness ; and I am convinced that no 
 systematising of the catechising in Church, however 
 desirable, can ever supersede it with advantage. 
 
 " As one chief means, moreover, of lay ministration, 
 
 harmonised with the pastoral duty of the clergy, it is 
 
 invaluable, and it indirectly promotes all other forms of 
 
 the ministration. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "Alfred Barry."* 
 
 [Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester — November lyth, 1898.] 
 
 " I hasten to acknowledge your letter about Sunday 
 schools. I have really nothing more to say about them than 
 this — that if the teachers seriously prepare their teaching, 
 and the clergyman of the parish wisely superintends, they 
 will bear blessings to the children and to the parish. 
 "Very faithfully yours, 
 
 " C. J. Gloucester." 
 
 * Dr. Barry is now the Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, the church 
 wherein Robert Raikes was married in 1767. The facsimile of the entry in 
 the church register (see p. 267) is from a tracing by Mr. J. Redman, Clerk. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE RAIKES FAMILY. 
 YORKSHIRE ROOTS. 
 
 THE county of Gloucester claims Robert Raikes as a 
 son, but the county of York claims, as it is entitled 
 to, the honour of producing, and nurturing, and develop- 
 ing those sterling racial qualities which have distinguished 
 an ancient and honourable family. There does not appear 
 to be any known authority enabling us to say what is the 
 origin of the race.* 
 
 The name is variously spelt, but the stock has been 
 vigorous and productive, and there has been no failure of 
 issue in the direct line since 1507, when Johanna Rakys, 
 of Kelfield, in Stillingfleet, near York, widow, made her 
 will, brief and to the point : " My body to be buried in 
 Stillingfleet. To William, my son, a cow ; to Thomas, 
 my son, 6/8; to Thomas, son of William Rakys, a cow 
 
 * Dr. Max MuUer, Oxford, writing to the Editor, says the name seems 
 to be Saxon. Mr. Henry St. John Raikes thinks the family originally came 
 from Denmark. The name does not appear in the indexes bound up with 
 Sir Henry Ellis's General Introduction to Domesday Book, comprising tenants 
 in chief and other tenants, as well as the holders of land anterior to the 
 formation of that record. The Patronymica Britannica suggests a Scotch 
 derivation from rake or raik — sheep raik (or walk), cattle raik, &c. Sir 
 John William de la Pole, editor of Sir William Pole's description of the 
 county of Devon, speaks of Sir Adam Rake, of Rake, who served in 
 France, and was knighted about the forty-third year of Edward III. 
 
 240 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 241 
 
 and an heifer. Residue to George, my son." Husband 
 and wife did not always think it necessary to spell their 
 names alike ; for example, Alison Raks was the widow 
 of William Rackes, of Kelfield. She was a lady of some 
 consideration. By her will, proved at York in 1545, she 
 bequeathed "to Richard, my son, one stott [bull] of 2 
 yeres olde. To Isabell Jackson one quye [cow] of one 
 yere olde, my best gowne, a kirtle, a petticote, a mattres 
 and one sheit. To Robert, my son, one holdinge swynne. 
 To Elisabeth Jackson, my daughter, my marble gowne, 
 a cape, a hate and a kirchif, a smoke and a pair of hose. 
 To Katheryne Raks a kirchif; to Elisabeth Raks, my son 
 Thomas, daughter, a kirchif and one pair of silver crooks 
 [tongs] ; to Agnes Raks one kirchif and one piece of hose; 
 to Elisabeth Raks, a kirchif; to Thomas Raks, my son, 
 I2d., whom I make supervisor of this my will. Residue 
 to ■ Roger Raks, my sone, whome I make my full 
 executor."^^ 
 
 The Raikes family at this period were " husbandmen," 
 and dairy produce occupied their attention, for grazing 
 lands were mostly occupied by them at Kelfield and 
 Eskrigg. The name was also spelt Rakys and Rakes, 
 but Raikes seems to have been adopted towards the end 
 of the sixteenth century, at all events by those who 
 forsook farming, and v/ent to Kingston-upon-Hull to live 
 as sailors and merchants. 
 
 In 1599 Robert Raikes was admitted a free burgess of 
 Hull, and became-a Warden of Trinity House in 1616; 
 
 ' . * From the Raikes Pedigree (Lieut. -Col. G. A. Raikes, F.S.A.). 
 
 17 
 
242 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and he was the son of Richard Raikes, " master mariner," 
 who, by his father's will, came into possession of " half of 
 one quarter [an eighth part] of a good ship Richard 
 Bonaveiiture then at sea, or the Marie Thomas, or of the 
 Robucke." This Richard was a younger Brother of 
 Trinity House. So also was William Raikes in 1632, 
 who, by his will, gave a silver cup to the Trinity Brethren 
 which is still in the possession of the Corporation at 
 Tower Hill. Several members of the family were Brethren 
 and Wardens of the Trinity House. Thomas Raikes, the 
 younger brother of this Richard, " master mariner," took 
 a very active and prominent part during the Civil War. 
 He was a merchant, sheriff in 1621, and three times 
 mayor; namely, in 1633, 1642, and 1643, when, the gates 
 of Hull having been shut against King Charles I.'s army, 
 the town underwent the horrors of a siege. 
 
 The following extract from the Corporation Minutes 
 shows something of the character of this Thomas Raikes, 
 and the estimation in which he was held : " At the election 
 of mayor for the year to come, the burgesses assembled, 
 taking into consideration Mr. Mayor's (Thomas Raikes, 
 Esq.) vigilance and carefulness of the Town's affairs the 
 year past [1642-3], and his fidehty to the public cause, 
 and the great danger that the town is now in, being at 
 present strongly beleaguered by the Earl of Newcastle's 
 forces lying nigh, and daily shooting into the town with 
 their great ordnance, earnestly prayed Mr. Mayor either 
 to continue mayor as he is, or that he would be elected 
 mayor again for the year to come. He consented when 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 243 
 
 Lord Fairfax, Governor, came into the said assembly and 
 requested him to do so." 
 
 These were anxious and perilous times, and Tickell 
 , in his History of Hull shows that this Thomas Raikes 
 was a prudent man. The King had set up his standard 
 at Nottingham, and there being a rumour that peace 
 would ensue, Thomas Raikes (then mayor) "began to 
 apprehend no small danger to himself and his brethren, 
 and thought it prudent to provide in time both for his own 
 and their safety. In order to this he summoned the 
 Bench, and laid before them the danger they were in of 
 being called to an account for their remarkable adherence 
 to the Parliament, and the active part they had taken 
 against the King during the whole course of this unhappy 
 dispute, should they not be included in the Act of 
 Oblivion. . . . They therefore unanimously determined 
 to write to Henry Vane, knight, and Peregrine Pelham, 
 their representatives in Parliament, in order to entreat 
 them to make use of their influence ' that the town and 
 all its inhabitants, without exception, be fully included in 
 the said Act, and, on that condition, to endeavour, as 
 much as in them lay, to put an end to the calamities and 
 afflictions which had so long oppressed, and threatened 
 still more to oppress, this unhappy and divided nation.' 
 After a few messages and answers, however, all hopes of 
 peace entirely vanished, and the nation saw itself involved 
 in all the horrors of a civil war." 
 
 Tickell calls this Thomas Raikes a man of " anti- 
 monarchical principles." He was a staunch man, and 
 
244 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 when Sir John Hotham, the Governor of Hull, and his 
 son, Captain Hotham, entered into a plot to surrender to 
 the King, Thomas Raikes (Allen's History of the County of 
 York) held a consultation with the Parliamentary party, 
 and resolved to defeat the project by seizing the Governor 
 and his son. This was done, and on January ist, 1643, 
 Captain Hotham was executed, and on the 2nd Sir John 
 followed his son. Thomas Raikes succeeded Sir John 
 Hotham as Governor. 
 
 This Thomas Raikes died in 1662, and both he and 
 his brother Robert left issue, but their descendants in the 
 male line became extinct before 1700. The line was, 
 however, continued through Richard, the eldest brother, 
 the master mariner and merchant in Hull, who had two 
 sons, Richard and Joshua, and five daughters, the second 
 of whom, Hester, married William Wilberforce, from 
 whom descended William Wilberforce, the philanthro- 
 pist and poHtical leader of the anti-slavery party in 
 England.* 
 
 Richard, the eldest son, M.A. Emanuel College, 
 Cambridge, entered the Church, and was vicar of Hessle, 
 in Yorkshire. Dying in 1671, he left three sons and three 
 daughters, of whom the eldest, Timothy, also entered 
 the Church, and was, first. Vicar of Tickhill. Afterwards 
 he succeeded his father as Vicar of Hessle. He took his 
 degree at St. John's, Cambridge, but his wife from 
 Gloucester, having married Sarah, the daughter of — 
 Partridge, Esq. By his marriage he had three sons— 
 
 * He sometimes visited his relative, Robert Raikes, in Gloucester. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 245 
 
 namely, Robert, Richard, and Timothy — and three 
 daughters. 
 
 Robert, the eldest, settled in the city of Gloucester, 
 and was three times married. By his third wife, Mary, 
 daughter of the Rev. Richard Drew, of Nailsworth, he 
 had one daughter, Mary, married to Francis Newberry, 
 of Heatherford Park, Sussex, and five sons ; namely, 
 Robert, Richard, William, Charles, and Thomas. 
 
 We here reach the point in the family history of the 
 greatest interest to us, and have to some extent enabled 
 the reader to account to himself for some of those traits 
 in the character of Robert Raikes which have been so 
 prominently brought forward in this volume. From his 
 ancestors in Hull he had hereditary leanings towa.rds 
 popular rights. He was by hereditary strain to be found 
 on the side of the people. His father (Robert), the first 
 settler in the city of Gloucester, was a bold and progres- 
 sive man, and showed that the traditions of Thomas — 
 Mayor of Hull — were not lost in him. His conduct in 
 the management of his newspaper brought him into 
 conflict with the House of, Commons.* This is not the 
 place to enlarge on the subject, but it may be fairly said 
 that the whole body of journalists of to-day owe some 
 gratitude to this Robert Raikes for reporting the minutes 
 of the House in 1728 and again in 1729. The action of 
 Parliament was tyrannical, and so was the resolution of 
 the House passed after the second offence. The subject 
 may be pursued in May's Constihitional History and Lord 
 
 * See Appendix D. 
 
246 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Mahon's History by those who are interested in the 
 evolution of the English Press towards freedom. 
 
 Only two of the five sons of Robert remained in 
 Gloucester; namely, Robert and Richard. Two, namely^ 
 William and Thomas, succeeded to the business of a 
 distant relative, an eminent Russian merchant; and 
 Charles settled in Cambridge, married his cousin, Eleanor 
 Raikes, and died without issue. 
 
 The Raikes family left Hull for several generations, 
 and it was not till 1789 that Robert, a son of William 
 Raikes, the Russian merchant, and a nephew of Robert 
 Raikes, of Gloucester, re-established their connection 
 with the ancient borough by marrying the daughter of 
 Mr. Williamson, banker and iron merchant, in Hull. He 
 succeeded to the Welton estate ; and his sister, Mary 
 Anne, marrying Mr. Isaac Currie, the Raikes-Curries, 
 once so well known in the commercial world, were born. 
 
 It was, however, from Thomas that the literary and 
 political honours of the family came. Thomas Raikes, 
 of the city of London, in his day was usually referred to 
 as "eminent" or "great." He had wealth, but, in 
 addition, he had probity, and his name stood in the 
 commercial world as a synonym for honour. He was 
 Governor of the Bank of England during the crisis of 
 1797, and reckoned Pitt and Wilberforce amongst his 
 friends. He was considered to be an authority on finance, 
 and told Pitt that there was something wrong in Dundas's 
 accounts, as appears from the Report of the Select 
 Committee on the Naval Report, printed in 1805. Pitt 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 247 
 
 disregarded the warning, and Lord Melville's trial was a 
 result. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Raikes had three sons and five daughters. 
 One daughter married Lard William Fitzroy, fourth son 
 of the Duke of Grafton ; and Harriet, the youngest, 
 married Sir Stratford Canning, then envoy to the Swiss 
 Cantons. This Sir Stratford Canning, afterwards Viscount 
 Stratford de Radcliffe, is the " Great Elchi " at Constanti- 
 nople to whose fine abilities Kinglake has done full justice 
 in his Invasion of the Crimea. 
 
 The eldest son, Thomas, is Raikes, the fashionable 
 lounger at courts and clubs, and the diarist par excellence 
 of the "best "society of his day. His Diary was dedicated, 
 when published, to Napoleon IIL, and Charles Greville 
 wrote the preface. He was a shrewd, observant man, but 
 gave up business, for which he was trained after leaving 
 Eton, and became a fashionable lounger. His Diary is 
 well known and appreciated for its fund of anecdote. 
 His Letters from St. Petersburg and Paris since 1830 is also 
 a well-known volume. 
 
 The second son, the Rev. Henry Raikes, M.A. St. 
 John's, Cambridge, entered the Church, and became 
 eminent as a leader of the Evangelical School. In 1832 
 he was appointed Chancellor of the Diocese of Chester. 
 He married in 1802 the eldest daughter of Jacob 
 Whittington, Esq., of Theobarton Hall, Norfolk, and 
 died in 1854. Canon Hugh Stowell, knowing him 
 intimately, says of him : " His personal endowments 
 were distinguished, his mind of no common compass 
 
248 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and power, his imagination rich, his taste refined, his 
 literary attainments varied and elegant, his fortune 
 ample, the respect paid him universal, the prospects held 
 out to his ambition full of prorfiise ; yet he was perfectly 
 free from arrogance or assumption. . . . He was as 
 accessible to the poor as to the rich. It was touching to 
 see his stately figure bent down to hearken to the tale of 
 some ragged mendicant, or to catch the accents of some 
 suppliant child." Yet he suffered greatly: "Not even 
 his own family suspected the anguish he must have 
 undergone, so signally was it veiled by his patience." 
 Again, he was " the nursing father " of charities. 
 
 With these words in our minds, we get a fuller 
 knowledge of the man than we otherwise should in the 
 letter which he wrote to his brother Thomas, June 5th, 
 1840. He was in London, and he wrote: "London is 
 overflowing ; the Park, the streets, are all too small for 
 the multitudes that circulate through them ; but the world 
 does not look cheerful. The shops are splendid, the 
 houses beautiful, the town itself in many respects 
 improved ; but whether I look at things with a graver 
 eye, or whether the selfish spirit of the day is visited on 
 Itself, and the love of pleasure is the cause of its own 
 disappointment, the Great City does not seem a happy 
 city." 
 
 The son of the Chancellor — also Henry Raikes— 
 inherited many of the finest qualities of his father, by 
 whom he was appointed Registrar of the Diocese of 
 Chester. He was also a Cambridge man : graduated at 
 
THE MAN AND. HIS WORK. 249 
 
 Corpus Christi College, obtained a Mawson Scholarship, 
 and left the University with a " double second." He 
 entered the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar in 
 1836. He married the youngest daughter of the Ven. 
 Archdeacon Wrangham, and became Registrar of Chester 
 in 1837. Hs wrote an elaborate, but not well-known, 
 treatise on the English Constitution. On the death of 
 his father his fortune was larger than his needs, and his 
 private charities were on the most liberal scale. For 
 example, to the necessitous clergy he gave ^f 1,100 a year. 
 All the panegyrics which appeared in the Press on his 
 death in 1863 fell short of what those who knew and loved 
 him best would have. 
 
 "The memoirs," wrote one of the family,* "can give 
 no idea of the strength of his domestic affections, the 
 playful brightness of his humour at his own dinner table, 
 the wonderful clearness of his memory, and the extreme 
 and self-denying simplicity which characterised all the 
 habits of the man, whose heart and head were ever 
 open to the claims of poverty, or to schemes for 
 advancing the interests of our Church and helping the 
 ministers." 
 
 When we hear so much of " selfishness " amongst 
 men, such tributes are refreshing to the heart. 
 
 The public, well-informed as they usually are, have not 
 been in the habit of associating the late Right Hon. 
 Henry Cecil Raikes, M.P., Chairman of Ways and Means, 
 and Postmaster -General, with the Founder of Sunday 
 
 * In a letter to the Author. 
 
250 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 schools. He was, however, the son of the Registrar of 
 Chester, and the great-grandson of Thomas, the younger 
 brother of Robert, " the Man of Gloucester." 
 
 Now that he is dead, it may be said that the literary 
 traditions of his family passed into safe keeping. He was 
 educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the public 
 are now acquainted with the volumes of his letters and 
 correspondence, edited by Henry St. John Raikes, his 
 son, on whom literary gifts have descended. 
 
 As far as the limits of this volume will allow, we have 
 given a sketch of the members of the Raikes family 
 outside of Gloucester ; and the reader is now in possession 
 of certain strongly-marked individual traits which have 
 not been weakened by descent. Whatever their weak- 
 nesses, the Raikeses were a progressive race, apparently 
 tenacious in matters of principle, shrewd in business, 
 and showed much forethought in their marriages. Not 
 only has there been a survival, but an improvement in 
 descent of an old and vigorous stock, and, underlying the 
 shrewdness and caution wanted for advancing family 
 interests, there seems to be always a benevolent and 
 sympathetic spirit. It was not in one member only, but 
 in all of whom we get the most knowledge ; and, with 
 this in our minds, we may return to Gloucester with some 
 hope of understanding both Robert the father and Robert 
 the son differently, if not better, than they have hitherto 
 been understood. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 251 
 
 THE GLOUCESTER BRANCH. 
 ROBERT RAIKES THE ELDER 
 
 was baptized at Hessle, in Yorkshire, on the 22nd April, 
 1690, and, bearing in mind what were the habits of the 
 period amongst Church people with regard to early 
 christenings, we may assume that he was born about this 
 date. It has already been mentioned that he came into- 
 Gloucester when about thirty years of age, and it is 
 the fact that his previous life had not been entirely 
 colourless. 
 
 Whether he was regularly apprenticed to the business 
 of a printer is not known, but it is probable that he was, 
 and that he served his time at York. Thomas Gent, the 
 eminent printer of York, wrote an autobiography, and he 
 and Raikes, who were of one age, were so friendly in the 
 year 1718 that Gent, not himself able to accept an offer 
 of partnership, "or take so much standing wages as 
 would subsist me" with Mr. Hasbert, of Norwich, recom- 
 mended Raikes in his room. This is the first glimpse we 
 have of the young man on the look out to settle himself 
 somewhere. He must also have known his trade,* or a 
 practical printer would not have recommended him to 
 Mr. Hasbert, of Norwich, or have referred to him later as 
 a "master" at Gloucester. If Raikes went to Norwich 
 he did not stay there, for in the same year (1718) he went 
 
 ♦ He turned out some excellent work. "I possess," writes Mr. 
 H. Y. J. Taylor, "'Cantatas and Songs,' by B. Gunn, organist, 
 Gloucester Cathedral, both music and type splendidly printed by R. 
 Raikes, Gloucester, 1736." 
 
252 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 to St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire, and started a newspaper 
 — a new and rare thing in the provinces in those days. 
 
 He appears to have had a passion for starting news- 
 papers, which, however, differed very Httle in size from 
 pamphlets, and it was the custom amongst the educated 
 to call them so to a much later date. His lirst venture 
 was the St. Ives Post Boy ; or, The Loyal Packet. It is 
 described as " A Collection of the most Material Occur- 
 rences, Foreign and Domestick. Together with an 
 Account of Trade." This was to be a weekly production, 
 and its price three halfpence. R. Raikes appears in the 
 imprint, and the place of publication is " Water Lane, 
 near the Bridge, where Advertisements are taken in, and 
 all sorts of Books Printed." 
 
 The Post Boy, however, galloped too fast, and gave 
 way to the St. Ives Mercury in 1720, about which time he 
 appears to have been on friendly terms with a young 
 man of the same habits and pursuits, and with whom he 
 formed a partnership. This was Mr. William Dicey, of 
 Northampton, and Messrs. Raikes and Dicey started the 
 Northamptojt Mercury ; or. The Monday's Post (a. weekly) on 
 the 2nd May, 1720. Messrs. Raikes and Dicey next set 
 up a printing press in the city of Gloucester, and the 
 ■Gloucester Journal was established in 1722. It seems 
 probable that Raikes came to Gloucester alone, leaving 
 Dicey to look after the Northampton business ; and when 
 the partnership was dissolved, on or before 1725, Mr. 
 Dicey retained the Northampton Mercury, which became a 
 very valuable family property. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 253 
 
 It is probable that the inducement to Raikes to settle 
 in Gloucester was his engagement to Sarah, daughter of 
 John Niblett, of Fairford. This was a lady with property ; 
 but she did not survive her wedded happiness long, but 
 died and was buried at Fairford, and her husband took 
 out letters of administration on the 19th August, 1724.* 
 There was one daughter, Sarah, who died in 1839. 
 
 The first number of the Gloucester Journal appeared 
 April gth, 1722, and a descriptive advertisement was 
 issued about one month previously — March loth. Robert 
 Raikes was by this time an adept in drawing up these 
 notices. It ran as follows : — " At the Printing Office 
 against the 'Swan Inn' in Gloucester will be shortly 
 pubHshed Weekly a Newspaper entitled the Gloucester 
 Journal, which will contain not only the most authentic 
 Foreign and Domestick News, but also the price of Corn,. 
 Goods, &c., at Bear Key in London, and all the Trading 
 Cities and Market Towns 50 miles herewith. The Paper 
 will be suitable to all Degrees and Capacities and will be 
 collected with all the care that money or industry is 
 capable of procuring. N.B. — At the aforesaid Printing 
 Office any Shopkeeper or others may have all sorts of 
 Bills and Advertisements Printed in the best Fashion, as 
 
 ♦ The marriage took place on the 25th February, 1722, not quite two 
 months before the Gloucester Journal was started. The letters of adminis- 
 tration were granted to " Robertum Raikes, de civit. Glouc., stationer." 
 The lady was probably very young, for in the official entry it appears that 
 administration of the estate of Sarah Raikes, of Gloucester, was granted 
 to Robert Raikes, her father. He was then thirty-four years of age. No 
 mention is made of the nature or value of the wife's effects. The place of 
 interment is mentioned in Biglands Gloucestershire. 
 
254 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 also their Signs with any other Ornaments very curiously 
 Engraved on Wood at reasonable Rates." 
 
 The business was that of newspaper proprietors and 
 general jobbing printers, and they also did book work. 
 It may be mentioned that the press used was of a very 
 primitive construction, namely, a screw press. The use 
 of the lever, as in the old " Stanhope " press, was not at 
 that date invented. The rate of production by a screw 
 press was very slow, and it may safely be presumed that 
 the circulation of the Journal was, at first, very limited. 
 
 Robert Raikes pere was, as already stated, three times 
 married. His second wife was Ann, sister of William 
 Mond, M.D., of Walthamstow, Essex. 
 
 The second wife, married about one year after the 
 death of the first, had at least three children, two of 
 whom died in infancy. Mr. Raikes lived in the parish 
 of St. Mary de Crypt, and the registers of baptisms and 
 burials furnish the only information about his family 
 which we possess. 
 
 The first entries are : October i8th, 1726 : Robert, 
 
 son of Robert and Raykes, of St. Mary de Crypt, 
 
 was born, and died the month following, namely, Novem- 
 ber 8th. In both entries the name is spelt " Raykes." 
 The next entry is — "1729, March i8th : Elizabeth, 
 daughter of Mr. Robert Raikes, printer, by Ann, his 
 wife." This Elizabeth survived and was married on the 
 16th May, 1751, to Thomas Jeffreys, of London. This 
 was in her father's lifetime and no more seems to be 
 known about her. The next entry is — " 1731, September 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 255 
 
 loth : Martha, daughter of Robert Raikes, by Ann, his 
 wife." This Martha was buried on the 26th September, 
 1732, and on September loth, 1733, the sickly children 
 were followed by their sickly mother, the entry being 
 simply — " 1733, September loth : Ann, wife of Robert 
 Raikes." 
 
 The third marriage was to Mary, daughter of the 
 Rev. Richard Drew, of Nailsworth, but the date is not 
 known, and she became the mother of one daughter and 
 five sons, all of whom, as we have already seen, succeeded 
 very well in the world. The third wife was twenty-five 
 years her husband's junior, and survived him twenty-two 
 years, so that her numerous family had all the benefit 
 of her tenderness and judgment at periods of life when 
 they were most needed. 
 
 This third wife alone is mentioned on the memorial 
 tablet in St. Mary de Crypt Church.* As stated, Sarah, 
 the first wife, was buried at Fairford; the second, Ann, 
 
 * The tablet is in Latin, and, translated, reads as follows :— 
 
 SACRED TO THE MEMORY 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES, 
 
 LATE PRINTER IN THIS CITY, 
 
 WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE ON THE 7TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, 
 
 COF OUR SALVATION, 1757, 
 
 IN THE YEAR-! .. ,„ . 
 
 lOF HIS AGE, oa , 
 
 ALSO OF 
 
 MARY, 
 
 HIS BELOVED WIFE, DAUGHTER OF THE REV, RICHARD DREW, 
 
 WHO DIED THE 30TH OCTOBER, 
 
 fOF OUR SALVATION, lyyQf 
 
 IN THE YEAR{ ,, 
 
 loF HER AGE, 05. 
 
256 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and the third, Mary, lie in the family vault in the south 
 chancel of St. Mary de Crypt Church. The two first 
 marriages seem to have been quite forgotten when the 
 marble monument was fixed on the church wall, not where 
 it is now but above the vault. 
 
 Robert Raikes the elder lived the whole of his life in 
 the parish of St. Mary de Crypt. All his children were 
 baptized in St. Mary de Crypt Church, and it seems 
 probable that he never removed from the dwelling-house 
 next to the " Swan (or Black Swan) Inn," where he started 
 in business.* Part of the house is still standing, and is 
 described " as old and heavily timbered, spacious and 
 roomy." Robert, the son, was probably born and lived 
 in this house until after his father's death, when he 
 removed to the Southgate Street. What makes it pro- 
 bable that Robert the elder never removed from this 
 house is, that the premises extended into the Black Fryars, 
 and it was from the Black Fryars that Robert theyounget 
 removed in 1758. 
 
 Little is known in the city of Gloucester of Robert 
 the elder, except that he lived there. He held no 
 municipal office ; but was an enterprising man, as shown 
 by his getting his London news from the celebrated 
 Edward Cave, founder of the Gentleman's Magazine, and 
 printing Parliamentary minutes and votes when it 
 was a serious offence to do so. That he had artistic 
 tastes which he was unable to satisfy is shown by his 
 
 * The "Swan Inn" originally stood at Pye Corner, near the Southgatei 
 and in the parish of St. Mary de Crypt. — Mr. Taylor. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 257 
 
 constant changes in the headlines and "make-up" of his 
 newspaper. He took an interest in parish affairs, and 
 was elected Overseer for St. Mary de Crypt in 1729. He 
 wrote a cramped, old-fashioned, hand, and always signed 
 his name in full — Robert Raikes, — whilst the son, who 
 was guardian to the poor for the years 1775, 1776, and 
 1779, always signed his name R. Raikes. This signature 
 he used throughout his life. 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine of 1749 gives us one 
 of the very few references in existence on which we 
 may rely for an appreciation of the character of Robert 
 the elder. It was the custom of the time to collect 
 money for charitable purposes by what was known as 
 " Briefs " — the word is now disused, except in a technical 
 sense amongst lawyers. The Gentleman, in an article 
 entitled " Charges for Briefs," showed that newspaper 
 proprietors were, on occasion, sufficiently philanthropic 
 not to charge for them as advertisements ; and by way 
 of illustration it is said : " R. Raikes, printer of the 
 Gloucester Journal, inserted gratis many acknowledgments 
 concerning Honiton fire, and by his zeal, and that of 
 other considerate persons, such handsome collections 
 have been made upon that and the like occasions in the 
 said county, that though its numerous monasteries and 
 such religious houses are no more, there is not less room 
 for that old saying, ' God 's in Gloucestershire.' " 
 
 Three things he set his face against in his Journal : 
 the waste of grain foods in the distillation of spirits, the 
 inhuman treatment of debtors and criminals, and cock 
 
 18 
 
258 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 fighting. With regard to the latter, the following sarcastic 
 notice appears in his paper a year before his death : 
 
 "This is to give notice. to all lovers of cruelty and 
 promoters of misery that at the ' George Inn ' on 
 Wednesday, in Whitsun week, will be provided for their 
 diversion that savage sport of cock fighting, which cannot 
 but give delight to every breast thoroughly divested of 
 humanity : and for the musick and oaths and curses 
 [which] will not fail to resound round the pit, so that this 
 pastime must be greatly approved of by such as have no 
 reverence for the Deity, nor benevolence for His creatures." 
 
 Those who at this distant date would make a study 
 of the son, will share in the regret that so little is known 
 of the father. There is, however, just sufficient preserved 
 to enable us to see that there was in the son an hereditary 
 bias towards unselfish social reforms. 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES THE YOUNGER. 
 
 The " Man of Gloucester " was probably born in the 
 old premises next to the " Swan (or Black Swan) Inn," 
 in the month of September, 1736,* and he was baptized 
 
 * The Dictionary of National Biography says Raikes was born 14th 
 September, 1735. This is a common error. In the latest Raikes pedigree, 
 " corrected to January 25th, 1897," no date for birth is given. The entry 
 is — "b. at Gloucester, bapt. at St. Mary de Crypt, 24 Sep., 1736." The 
 date 14th September, 1735, is apocryphal, and the error commenced with 
 Fosbroke's History of Gloucester, 1819. The mural tablets in St. Mary de 
 Crypt Church do not record the date of birth. The old practice was to 
 baptize children so soon after birth that the baptismal register was relied 
 on as evidence of age, in the absence of some entry made at the time in a 
 Family Bible or Prayer Book. The age "75" at the time of death is 
 right or wrong according to the mode of computation, whether from the 
 last birthday or to the birthday next ensuing. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 259 
 
 in the church of St. Mary de Crypt, in the city of 
 Gloucester. The official entry in the Register of 
 Baptisms is : — " Sep. 24, 1736. Robert, son of Robert 
 and Mary Raikes, of this parish." 
 
 A much more classical quarter has been selected for 
 the birthplace of the man who made the name of Raikes 
 illustrious and enduring ; namely, in Palace Yard, under 
 the shadow of the Cathedral. This old house still stands, 
 and is looked upon by strangers with veneration. It is, 
 however, in the neighbouring parish of St. Mary de Lode, 
 and has been the habitation of some of the aristocratic 
 families of the city. The Mee family, one of whose daughters 
 was an ancestress of Lord Palmerston, at one time lived 
 there. The Rev. Richard Raikes (Robert Raikes' brother), 
 who married Ann Mee in 1774, is said to have resided 
 there for a short time, and so birth may have been given 
 to an error now quite respectable for its antiquity. 
 
 So little is known of the childhood and early manhood 
 of Robert the younger, that he has long been the despair 
 of the biographer. "Where he was educated is still open 
 to conjecture. Mr. Charles Raikes, C.S.I., writing in 
 1880 to the Author, says: "My own idea — for I know 
 nothing for certain — is that Robert Raikes must have 
 been educated at or near Gloucester. No sooner was he 
 of age than, by the death of his father, he was at once 
 made editor of the Gloucester Journal. He could not 
 have succeeded as he did in so diiiiicult a work unless 
 he had been specially trained, and, possibly, under his 
 father's eye and in his father's office." 
 
26o ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 The late Canon Samuel Lysons, Hempstead Court, 
 writing in 1870, says: "The knowledge I possess of the 
 Raikes family is more scanty than it ought to be, con- 
 sidering that I am doubly connected with it. The Rev. 
 Richard Raikes married a second cousin, and Mr. 
 William Matthew Raikes a first cousin of my father's. 
 . . . I cannot tell you where Robert Raikes was 
 married or where he was educated, but probably [he 
 was educated] either at the College school or the Crypt 
 school in Gloucester." 
 
 Mrs. Weller-Ladbroke was equally without knowledge 
 as to her beloved father's place of education, his pro- 
 fessional training, and the place of his marriage. 
 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, having been mostly 
 affected by the Raikes family, and Richard Raikes 
 having been educated there, the following letters on the 
 subject will not be without interest : — 
 
 " 29 Jesus Lane, Cambridge, 
 
 "March 2nd, 1863. 
 "Dear Teasdale, — Robert Raikes, the benefactor 
 to the city of Gloucester, is usually stated to have studied 
 at this University, but it is certain he never graduated. 
 I have an impression that he was a member of St. John's 
 College. Unfortunately, however, the volume containing 
 the matriculations at that College for the period at which 
 Mr. Raikes would have entered the University has been 
 lost. The only chance, therefore, of finding Mr. Raikes' 
 College is by searching the Matricula at the Registrar's 
 office. This I will do at the earliest opportunity, and, 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 261 
 
 if successful, will forward you the results of my 
 investigation. 
 
 " I should feel obliged to your correspondent, Mr. 
 Harris, for any information respecting this Robert 
 Raikes, whom we propose to notice in some future volume 
 of A thencB Cantabrigienses. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 "Thompson Coopee." 
 
 " Clare College, Cambridge, 
 
 " February zjth, 1863. 
 
 " Sir,— I am strongly of opinion that the statement 
 in the Gentleman's Magazine, to which you refer, that 
 Robert Raikes was a graduate of this University, is an 
 erroneous one. I have referred to the published list of 
 the graduates (the so-called ' Graduati Cantabrigienses'), 
 and find only two graduates of the name of Raikes — one, 
 Richard, of St. John's College, who took his A.B. degree 
 in 1767 and his A.M. in 1770 ; the other, Henry Raikes, 
 also of St. John's, who took his A.B. degree in 1804 and 
 his A.M. in 1807. 
 
 " It is in the highest degree improbable that Robert 
 Raikes should have graduated here and his name have 
 been omitted from the ' Graduati Cantabrigienses.' The 
 absence of his name from that list leaves me without any 
 means of ascertaining any particulars respecting him. If 
 he ever was a student of Cambridge without graduating, 
 it would be likely that he was entered at St. John's 
 
262 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 College, since the other two gentlemen of the same 
 name were both of that College.* 
 
 " If you think there is any probability of this, it 
 might be worth while writing to the Master or one of 
 the tutors of St. John's College, mentioning, if you can, 
 the year of Mr. Raikes' birth as a guide to them in 
 consulting their Admission book. I have little doubt 
 that they would be willing to refer to that book if there 
 were any probability of the name being found there. 
 " I am. Sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 " E. Atkinson, Vice-Chancellor." 
 
 " St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 
 "March i8th, 1863. 
 " Sir,— Finding no trace of Robert Raikes in our 
 Register, which is, indeed, defective about the period in 
 question, I placed your note in the hands of Mr. Mayor, 
 who has great acquaintance with the archives of the 
 College and the University; but he, I am sorry to say, 
 can give me no further information than what is con- 
 tained in the enclosed note. 
 
 " I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 "W. H. Bateson." 
 [Enclosure.'] 
 
 "St. John's, 
 
 " March xyth, 1863. 
 "My dear Master,— R. Raikes, of St. John's, has 
 Latin Alcaics in the Cambridge verses published in 1763, 
 
 * Also Timothy Raikes, his great-grandfather. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 263 
 
 signature *S. This, however, is probably Richard R., 
 B.A. in 1767. I seem to have no other note in the 
 name. I enclose the letter, and remain. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 John E. B. Mayor." 
 
 A search vi^as made by the Rev. John Griffiths, M.A., 
 keeper of the archives of the University of Oxford, with 
 the result that Robert Raikes did not take a degree 
 there. The Crypt Grammar School was founded by 
 John Coke, an alderman of Gloucester, in 1528. John 
 Moore, D.D., afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
 George Whitefield were educated there ; and if the young 
 Raikes was also educated there, the old Grammar School 
 will have no reason to be ashamed of three of its scholars.* 
 
 The trouble taken in this search is not to be regretted, 
 because it strengthens the presumption that the young 
 Robert was, from the first, intended to carry on the busi- 
 ness of his father, and that his education was such as 
 best fitted him for it. The search at Cambridge has also 
 made us more familiar with his brother Richard, whose 
 name in the city of Gloucester is, even to-day, as a sweet 
 incense from good deeds. 
 
 The latest investigations render it almost certain that 
 the young Robert learnt his trade in the ordinary way, 
 though there cannot be found any trace of indentures. 
 It is, however, known that he was in the habit of using 
 
 * Dr. Moore obtained his Pembroke Scholarship from the Crypt 
 Grammar School. He was translated to the See of Canterbury in 1783, 
 and died 1805. 
 
264 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 a " composing stick " on occasions, and there is now in 
 the Museum at Gloucester a compositor's metal " stick " 
 which a former old compositor in the Journal office 
 declared was, in his time, always called " Mr. Raikes' 
 stick." This man, named Cox, entered the Journal 
 office after Mr. Raikes' time, and became foreman 
 printer, or overseer ; and he made a declaration to Mr. 
 H. Y. J. Taylor to the effect that the " stick" which he 
 offered to the Museum was known in the office as Mr. 
 Raikes', and that he had heard the old compositors in 
 the office say that they had seen Mr. Raikes use it when 
 they were busy. This is not conclusive of anything 
 except of a practical knowledge, which, though it might 
 be easily acquired without indentures of apprenticeship, 
 is yet seldom acquired except by skilled workmen.* This 
 is the only Raikes relic in the Museum, and it is not 
 generally known to be there. 
 
 The business of a printer in the early part of the 
 seventeenth century appealed much more to the imagi- 
 nation of the public than it does to-day. The compara- 
 tively small number of persons who could read, and the 
 rarity of printing presses invested printing, as an art, 
 with something mysterious and supernatural. To have 
 seen a thing in print was, in the popular estimation, to 
 have seen the truth. To " swear the print out of the 
 Bible " and to deny the truth of what had been " read 
 
 * Mr, Taylor informed me that a person whom he told that Mr. 
 Raikes was "a printer by trade" was highly offended with him, thinking 
 that some offence to the man's memory was intended. The trade of 
 printer is rooted in honour, and no man can disdain a printer for ancestor 
 without betraying his own littleness. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 265 
 
 in a paper," amongst masses of people in country 
 districts in our own century, was a current saying 
 implying a hardihood not to be surpassed. Lord 
 Macaulay, quoting from Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, says 
 although there had been a great increase in printing 
 presses within a few years, yet in 1724 there were 34 
 counties in which there was no printer, one of these 
 counties being Lancashire ! When the elder Raikes set 
 up his press in Gloucester, he was, perhaps, the only 
 printer from Exeter to Hereford, the whole of Wales, 
 and part of the Midlands. A printer had a great deal 
 to learn outside of the art and mystery of his craft, so 
 hemmed in and hedged about was he with laws designed 
 to make his very existence a terror. That the young 
 Raikes was well equipped for his work is evidenced by 
 the fact that on his father's death he " stepped into his 
 shoes," and almost immediately afterwards extended and 
 improved the business and the newspaper. 
 
 His father altered the headlines and make-up of the 
 paper three or four times between the years 1722 and 
 1742. He seemed dissatisfied with the appearance of 
 the sheet, and in 1760 Robert (the son) made a final 
 alteration, the title being in large ornamental scrip, 
 Glocester Journal, between a female figure (Prudentia) 
 and the arms of the city between two lions as sup- 
 porters. The original size of the paper was I2| by 7I, 
 inches. In August, 1742, it was enlarged to 16 by io\ 
 inches. After the young Robert succeeded it was en- 
 larged to 18 by II inches, and in 1792 to 20 by 14 inches ; 
 
266 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 and it was not again permanently enlarged during his 
 proprietorship. On the first number the price of the 
 paper is not stated ; but it was 3d. for many years, then 
 3jd. (the halfpenny being for the Government stamp), 
 then 4d. in 1793, when the impressed Government stamp 
 was increased to id. In 1797 it was 6d., and was sold 
 at this price when transferred to Mr. D. Walker in 
 1802.* 
 
 At the age of 21 the young Raikes suddenly found 
 himself the responsible head of a family ■ — -children, 
 still growing, to be educated and placed in positions 
 becoming their rank in life. He did not marry until he 
 was 31 years of age, and then he married Anne, 
 the daughter of Thomas Trigge, of Newenham, in the 
 county of Gloucester, and the only sister of General Sir 
 Thomas Trigge, K.C.B., and Rear-Admiral John Trigge. 
 The marriage was by Bishop's license, and took place 
 in St. James' Church, Piccadilly, December 23rd, 1767. 
 The mother of the bride (Mrs. Napier on her second 
 marriage) and Thomas Trigge, her brother, were two of 
 the witnesses. On the opposite page is given a tracing of 
 the entry in the church register: — 
 
 * The paper remained in the Walker family until 1871, when it was. 
 transferred to Mr. Thomas Henry Chance, who was sole proprietor until 
 1881, when Mr. E. Bland and Mr. Harry Godwin Chance, M.A., became, 
 his partners. In the Raikes' time the paper was non-political. It became 
 Whig, or Liberal, with the Walkers, and has never altered its political 
 tone. The Jourml has for many years been published on a Saturday at 
 one penny. An evening paper is now printed on the new premises, called the 
 Citizen, and the old office clock — two centuries old — ticks calmly above a 
 scene of activity which would astonish the old Raikeses could they but 
 witness it. This clock is one of the very few Raikes relics in Gloucester. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 267 
 
 NO 
 
 § 
 
 i!i-; 
 
 
 ^ ^ ^ >-^ J *s 
 
 ^ s 1^ V V \ 
 
 4 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 %i 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 I i- 
 
268 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 The bride was at the time residing with her mother 
 in Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square, W. All that 
 we know is that the bride was 23 years of age, and that 
 the wedding appeared amongst the Society paragraphs 
 of the day. The bride was brought home, and lived in 
 the Southgate Street in the fine specimen of an old 
 Gloucester house, with varnished timbered front, at which 
 every passing stranger looks with interest. In Raikes' 
 time they were two houses, and he occupied the one 
 nearest to Bolt Lane, wherein the printing office was 
 after its removal from the Blackfriars in 1758. Here 
 the family were born, and here he laid the foundations 
 of his claim to public gratitude for his labours and the 
 quiet, persistent manner in which he developed his suc- 
 cessive schemes for prison reform, and the education of 
 children. In both these matters he regarded himself as 
 the "instrument" of Providence. 
 
 Altogether nine children were born to him. The first, 
 a son, Robert Powell, died in infancy ; his second son, 
 also named Robert Powell, died when 11 years of age. 
 His family consisted of daughters — five of them — until 
 1783) when (happy omen !) on the very day on which 
 he announced to the world his plan of Sunday 
 schools, a son was born. The name of " Powell " 
 had overshadowed the first two, and fortune was not 
 to be tempted again, so this boy was christened 
 Robert Napier, and he was followed the next year 
 by another son, William Henley, both of whom survived 
 — the one going into the Church, and the other into 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 269 
 
 the Coldstream Guards, in which he attained to the 
 rank of colonel. 
 
 The eldest son graduated B.A. Oriel College, Cam- 
 bridge, and took holy orders. In 1811 he was presented 
 by the Bishop of Norwich to the vicarage of Gayton, 
 near Lynn, Norfolk ; the following year he became Rector 
 of Hillesden with Drayton, in the same county, and was 
 lastly preferred to the living of Longhope, Gloucester, 
 in 1837. He married, September, 1810, Caroline, the 
 second daughter of the Very Rev. John Probyn, by 
 whom he had five sons and four daughters. Two of the 
 sons attained to the rank of general and major in the 
 army, and three died in India. Three of the daughters 
 married, and became respectively the wives of General 
 Sir Henry Gee Roberts, Captain John Henry Dighton, 
 and Admiral Sir Thomas Thompson, Bart. 
 
 The Rev. Robert Napier Raikes (their father) was a 
 very amiable man, of domestic habits and evangehcal 
 tendencies. It is related of him that he used to write 
 texts of Scripture on fly-slips of paper, and give them 
 on appropriate occasions to the servants. One evening, 
 seeing a maid-servant very tired after a day's work, he 
 wrote and gave her the following : — " It is in vain for you 
 to rise up early and to go late to rest from labour, eating 
 the bread of sorrows ; for to His beloved ones He will 
 give food and sleep."* 
 
 Mr. Robert Raikes never held any municipal office in 
 
 * This came from the possession of the servant to whom it was given, 
 living at or near Redmarley in 1862. 
 
270 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Gloucester, and it is not quite certain what is to be 
 understood by his appointment on a city commission, 
 unless it was for city improvement or in connection with 
 the improvements in the County Prison. There exist no 
 records of this prison prior to 1783.* He was not a 
 magistrate, and " no trace or record of his exertions " in 
 -obtaining the great prison improvements of the place — 
 writes Mr. H. Cartwright, an official in the prison — can 
 ■now be found. So were it not for the existence of the 
 old files of the Gloucester Journal, and a few fugitive 
 notices by Howard in his book, we should possess no 
 reliable knowledge of Robert Raikes's exertions as a 
 prison reformer, and also be without the most useful 
 means of knowing under what circumstances, and in 
 what atmosphere, his own plan of Sunday schools was 
 evolved and the purpose which he intended it to play. 
 What these circumstances and atmosphere were may be 
 faintly understood by reading Howard's description of 
 the condition of Gloucester Castle, which was also the 
 county Bridewell. There was one court for all the 
 prisoners, and one day-room (11 ft. 9 ins. by 10 ft. 7 ins.) 
 for men and women felons. "The free ward for debtors 
 is 19ft. by lift., where, having no window, part of the 
 
 * Letter from Mr. J. Huddleston, deputy governor, to Mr. Harris: 
 '■ We have no record books in this prison prior to 1783. I am, therefore! 
 unable to give you the information required. I failed to discover any 
 traces of either Mr. Robert Raikes or Howard from the above period, 
 -excepting the Grand Jury at the Gloucestershire Assizes, 29th March, 1783! 
 recommended that proper places of confinement and discipline, similar to 
 those recommended by the humane and intelligent Mr. Howard, should 
 -be erected in the county." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 271 
 
 plaster wall is broke down for light and air. . . . The 
 whole prison was much out of repair, and had not been 
 whitewashed for many years." Many prisoners died of 
 small-pox and gaol fever. " There is no separation of 
 the women or of the Bridewell prisoners. The licentious 
 intercourse of the sexes is shocking to decency and 
 humanity. Many children have been born in the gaol. 
 There is a small chapel, but all the endeavours of the 
 chaplain to promote reformation among the prisoners 
 must necessarily be defeated by the inattention of the 
 magistrates, and their neglect of framing and enforcing 
 good regulations. Perhaps this is the reason the chaplain 
 seldom attends." The chaplain, whose salary was £^0 a 
 year, was the Rev. A. B. Evans, curate of St. Mary de 
 Crypt. This gentleman was afterwards headmaster of 
 the Gloucester College School. Mr. Raikes says of him 
 that it was not until at the end of six years' work that 
 he "at last condescended" to take notice of the Sunday 
 school movement. 
 
 Robert Raikes's was almost the only kindly, pitying 
 eye which the prisoners saw. He enlisted others to join 
 him in contributing towards the feeding and clothing of 
 these poor creatures, so brought up and treated as 
 scarcely to be held responsible before God or man. It 
 was here that Mr. Raikes learnt his lesson. Mr. 
 Howard perceived this, and said so: "This gentleman 
 [Mr. Raikes] is also the founder of a benevolent and 
 useful institution for the children of the poor of this 
 city, . . . Perhaps Mr. Raikes's frequent visits to the 
 
272 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Castle suggested to him this plan as the best means of pre- 
 venting youth from coming there." 
 
 Here is the secret and sustaining motive of Mr. 
 Raikes's Sunday school work. He may himself have 
 revealed it to Howard. In any case, it is a most sug- 
 gestive and valuable sentence, and it at once places Mr. 
 Raikes apart from all others who, at various times, gave 
 Sunday instruction to children, either contemporaneously 
 with or before him. 
 
 The printing and newspaper business was carried on 
 from 1757 to 1802, when it was transferred to Mr. David 
 Walker, the former printer of the Hereford Times, a part 
 of the consideration being an annuity on the joint lives 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Raikes. The value of the business was 
 estimated at pf 1,500 per annum. The sum paid for the 
 copyright is not known. The annuity was ;if5oo, being 
 estimated at one-third of the net profit, and it was paid 
 down to 1828. 
 
 The honorary freedom of the city was presented to 
 Mr. Raikes in 1804; and with this exception, from the 
 date of his retirement from business the whole of his life 
 is a blank to us, except for the impressions upon the minds 
 of the aged witnesses who have left their testimonies 
 behind them. He was a member of the Stationers' 
 Company, which, since 1556, had exercised extensive 
 powers and privileges ; but as his interest was a mere 
 money investment, this did not occupy his time, and he 
 was not a member of any of the literary or scientific 
 societies of his day. Not a scrap of paper written on by 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 273 
 
 him after his retirement has been preserved. When he 
 retired from business his Hfe was finished but for his own 
 family, and the Httle children whom he had watched grow 
 in obedience and love towards him, and exhibit to all 
 mankind the divine image which before seemed to have 
 been hopelessly overlaid with ignorance and filth. The 
 reforms having been carried out at the County Prison 
 and Bridewell, his attention was mostly devoted to the 
 Sunday schools, and he showed an increased and in- 
 creasing fondness for having the children around him in 
 his house and on his grounds in Bell Lane. 
 
 And when the end came, it came suddenly. His 
 daughter says he was alarmingly ill for only half an hour. 
 He may have had premonitory warnings, for he some- 
 times told his " children " that one day he must leave 
 them, and, in his own language, made them sorry. In 
 the evening of the fatal day he was in his " study," and 
 bad been reading. When he was removed his spectacles* 
 were lying upon some papers, just as though they had 
 fallen from his hand. He was found sitting at his desk 
 by a member of the household, into whose possession 
 the spectacles afterwards passed as a remembrance. This 
 was Mrs. James, the housekeeper (distantly connected 
 with their present possessor) ; but she kept no account 
 of the last moments of Mr. Raikes, probably knowing no 
 
 * These spectacles are still in existence, and in the possession of Mr. 
 Richings, of Gloucester, who showed them to the Editor in November, 
 1898. They are one of the few, very few, genuine Raikes relics in the 
 city. The glasses are small pebbles, thick tortoise-shell rims, and short 
 side clips, about 3 inches long, with perforated ends. The hinges and 
 
 mounts are of silver. 
 
 19 
 
274 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 more than that there was a sudden illness followed by a 
 sudden death. 
 
 His will was not made until about two years before 
 death, and there are no specific bequests to servants or 
 institutions. His family knew his wishes and he trusted 
 them to act loyally. He remembered his "children," 
 and wished them to attend his funeral and be made 
 happy (even at the parting) with a shilling and cake 
 apiece. They had never had such a foster-father, and 
 when they went out into the world and met men who 
 frowned on them, the remembrance of Raikes grew 
 fresh again ; and so it was that in 1863, when the Author 
 visited those who had been Raikes's " children," their 
 aged hearts grew young and soft when his name was 
 mentioned. 
 
 The personal devotion which Mr. Raikes took in his 
 own schools and school children renders it unnecessary 
 to do more than mention the statement made again and 
 again, and with much confidence, by the Rev. John Adey, 
 an Independent Minister, who died at Bexley Heath, 
 Kent, in i86g. He was a Gloucester man, and in his 
 lifetime wrote and stated that in Mr. Raikes's lifetime 
 Sunday schools were extinct in Gloucester, and that he and 
 others resurrectionised them. The " Memorial Adey 
 Schools Fund" was got up in 1870 by way of recognition 
 of his invaluable services in re-establishing Sunday schools 
 in Gloucester. 
 
 The statement has been so often repeated, that, as a 
 matter of history, we give the personal narrative of one 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 275 
 
 of the young men who were associated with Mr. Adey in 
 establishing new and entirely independent Sunday schools 
 in the city : — 
 
 Mr. Samuel Pitt* said: " When I was about seventeen 
 years of age I used to act as deputy-clerk at St. Mary de 
 Crypt, where Mr. Raikes used to attend. ... I used 
 to attend the church of St. Mary de Crypt on Sundays, 
 Wednesdays, and Fridays in each week. Mr. Raikes 
 used to come to church on every one of those days. I 
 never saw the school children at church on weekdays. 
 . . . I knew Mrs. Critchley and her daughter, Mrs. 
 Packer, and I think I knew the man Cox.t . . . Mr. 
 Raikes's Sunday schools were- never extinct in Gloucester 
 during his lifetime, and Mr. Adey must be under a mistake. 
 I knew Mr. Adey, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Sims, Mr. Taylor, and 
 the rest, who, with myself, joined in getting up a Sunday 
 school in Gloucester. We subscribed 2S. 6d. each to buy 
 books, &c. Our schools were held in Leather Bottle 
 Lane and the Island, and the children were taken to the 
 Lady Huntingdon's Chapel. We started several schools. 
 Mr. Curtis came from Worcester, and was full of zeal. 
 Mr. Raikes's schools were in excellent condition when we 
 started ours. . • . Mr. Adey is mistaken about his 
 ' resurrection ' of Sunday schools in Gloucester. We 
 started new schools, and did not interfere with the old ones. 
 Mr. Adey has confused my name with that of Mr. 
 Thomas, because I was an apprentice with a man named 
 
 * See Chapter III., on Punishment in Sunday Schools, 
 t Charles Cox, the Soot_Alley.schoolboy. See Chapter II. 
 
276 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Thomas at that time. He calls me Thomas, and I 
 explained this to him some time ago when he was here. 
 I know Sunday schools were not extinct at the time, nor 
 looking sickly, because every Sunday evening, when we 
 were trying to get a Dissenters' school up, I used to see 
 the children marching to the church headed by a man 
 named Fream — Daniel Fream, I think. I was never one 
 of Mr. Raikes's schoolboys. I recollect going to Mr. 
 King (who was the master of a school started by Mr. 
 Raikes, I think), and asking him, out of a bit of fun, to 
 let me come, and he said: 'No; the school is not for 
 such ones as you. Your parents can get you taught.' " 
 
 That there was a failure in the historical continuity of 
 Sunday schools in Gloucester, by whomever founded, in 
 the lifetime of Mr. Raikes is not true. He took care of 
 that so far as what he called his own schools were con- 
 cerned, and the city has been spared an indignity which 
 the Christian world would not hesitate to associate with 
 disgrace. 
 
 "When the time came for Robert Raikes to die the 
 event caused no unusual stir in the city. The only 
 narrative which we have with the touch of authenticity 
 about it is that of his daughter's, Mrs. Ladbroke. The 
 Sunday school children who were his " own," alone 
 followed the coffin and sang over it whilst it was being 
 removed from the house into Crypt Alley, and sang over 
 it as it was carried, shoulder high, into the church. It 
 was only for a few yards that this unique procession 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 277 
 
 followed their benefactor, but it now posseses an historical 
 interest. The pulse of the citizens was not stirred ; only 
 Mr. Eycott, a furniture broker, remembered that " there 
 was a many and a respectable lot of people at the 
 funeral." He was about 10 years old at the time, and 
 received his shilling and piece of cake after all was over, 
 like the rest. 
 
 No funeral sermon was preached. Mr. Hanson, an 
 old citizen, was of opinion that " funeral sermons were 
 not much in fashion then in Gloucester" ; that the people 
 of Gloucester did not understand what Sunday schools 
 had done for, and meant to, the world; and that they 
 certainly did not understand and appreciate the man who 
 was, in some respects, their greatest citizen. William 
 Whitehead remembered that the general feeling was "that 
 Gloucester had lost a good man ! " 
 
 The obituary notice which appeared in the Journal is 
 very short, and, in one particular, wrong. It is as follows : 
 
 "Died on Friday* evening, April 5 [1811], suddenly, 
 
 at his house in this city, Robert Raikes, Esq., aged 75, 
 
 who in the year 1783 first instituted Sunday schools, and 
 
 by his philanthropic exertions contributed to the adoption 
 
 of them in different parts of the kingdom." 
 
 * This mention of Friday enables us to test the accuracy of the state- 
 ment made by Anne Hannam in 1862, who said that Mr. Rail<es's funeral 
 was on a Saturday morning. This is quite true. Mr. Railies was buried 
 on the Saturday week following his decease. According to modern practice, 
 this seems an unusually long time ; but it appears to have been customary 
 in his family to keep the body above ground until the eighth day. Mrs. 
 Raikes (his widow) died March gth, and was buried March 17th, 1828 — 
 also eight days after death. Miss Hannam was 73 when she made her 
 statement. See Chapter II. — " Human Documents." 
 
278 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 No wonder that so many people laid claim to having 
 priority over Robert Raikes in the matter of teaching 
 children on Sundays, when the published date was some 
 three years after the opening of the schools in Sooty Alley, 
 and elsewhere, in the city of Gloucester. 
 
 After the funeral Mrs. Raikes removed to the " Spa," 
 London Road. Although she was a nervous and delicate 
 woman, she attained her 85th year, and the immediate 
 cause of death was severe shock to the system when it 
 was discovered that burglars were in the house. Mrs. 
 Raikes was a lady with a slight touch of disdain in her 
 manner for the lower orders. She was always called 
 " Madam," the same as " Madam " Pitt, the wife of Mr. 
 Samuel Pitt, at one time M.P. for the city. She was in 
 the habit of riding in a Sedan chair, of which Mr. Eycott 
 (above quoted) was one of the bearers. He says of her 
 that she was "a kind-hearted and charitable woman, but 
 did not like being imposed on." The Gloucester Journal 
 says, in an obituary notice, that she was " a lady of pious 
 and benevolent disposition, with an active and well- 
 cultivated mind, and a heart ever open as day to melting 
 charity." 
 
 The immediate connection of the Raikes family with 
 the Cathedral city was now practically closed, but the 
 name remains an imperishable inheritance. 
 
 Note, — For the Raikes' Jubilee year in 1831 numerous hymns for 
 Sunday school children were written and composed. Mr. John Holland, 
 the literary executor of James Montgomery, whose Jubilee hymns were sung 
 in every clime, informed the Author that no letter from Raikes was in the 
 Poet's possession, nor was there any specific allusion to him in any of the 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 279 
 
 Poet's papers. The poor of Gloucester, however, had their poem long before, 
 and were accustomed to hear it sung in their villages and in the streets of 
 their market towns on Saturday nights. The composer, " George Stone, 
 the celebrated poet of Bristol," even for a ballad writer was not very 
 particular about his feet, or his rhymes or his dates, for he made 
 Mr. Raikes io5 years old ! He, however, knew his audience and the 
 string to play on. The copies of the "poem" are scarce now, and so we 
 reproduce it : — 
 
 "VERSES ON ROBERT RAIKES OF GLO'STER CITY. 
 Composed by George Stone, the Celebrated Poet of Bristol. 
 
 "' A man Robert Raikes up in Gloucestershire dwelt, 
 And for the dear souls of young children he felt 
 
 When they did in ignorance lie ; 
 And there he did form out those wonderful rules 
 To build in the city some good Sunday schools 
 
 That children might know God on high. 
 
 "His heart was the temple of mercy and love. 
 For he praised God for his mercies above. 
 
 And done good for children also ; 
 And if he once found their parents in want, 
 Then to their mothers and fathers would grant 
 
 Some money and clothing below. 
 
 " He was the first founder of schools in this land. 
 And to this grand cause he put forth his hand, 
 
 And hope God his labours would bless ; 
 So now in this nation his name will be dear, 
 Because he did help the poor when he was here 
 
 And beg God to bless their distress. 
 
 " He was born in seventeen hundred and five, 
 For there up in Glo'ster for years he did thrive, 
 
 And was a great help to the poor ; 
 While he up in Glo'ster was living long there, 
 He kept a few schools open for children where 
 The Gospel of Christ was taught pure. 
 
 "But when the dear Saviour saw fit he should die 
 A great many schools he did quickly supply 
 
 With money and clothing and food ; 
 And when he departed this life full of years, 
 The people then shed a few penitent tears, 
 
 In wishing him back to do good." 
 
280 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 THE REV. RICHARD RAIKES, W.A. 
 
 This brother of Robert's passed through life without 
 calling forth either the env}' or the antagonism of men. 
 The gentle and refined nature he possessed was singularly 
 out of touch with the pushing combativeness of the 
 Raikes of Hull, of his own father, and of his brother 
 Robert, whose look of prosperity sometimes gave offence as 
 
 he walked along the streets. 
 He may not have been 
 more charitable in deeds 
 and opinions than his 
 brother, but he had none 
 of the arts of the man who 
 had his way to make in the 
 world, and none of the 
 swagger of the man who 
 knew himself to be success- 
 ful. The one name for 
 Richard Raikes is that of 
 Christian gentleman. 
 He was a St. John's College, Cambridge, man, and 
 after taking orders he returned to Gloucester, and was 
 appointed tutor to the daughters of Lady Guise. In 1793 
 he was appointed to the Perpetual Curacy of Maisemore, 
 and the reputation he left behind him is that of a learned 
 but simple-hearted gentleman, full of sympathy and good 
 desires, and untouched by personal vanity. Maisemore 
 was a village, and he did not reside there but in the 
 
 The Rev. Richard Raikes, M.A. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 281 
 
 city ; and it is in the city that his deeds of charity were^ 
 forty-four years after his death, well remembered.* He 
 rode over to Maisemore on a little pony, and when he 
 could no longer ride he emancipated it, leaving it in the 
 care of a gentleman at Maisemore Lodge, and in the 
 enjoyment of perpetual freedom. 
 
 Sixty years of his life were passed in much suffering 
 and bodily weakness, and so when he saw suffering in 
 others he knew it well, and approached the sick and poor 
 and abandoned with almost feminine gentleness. The 
 streets of the city were either not lighted, or only badly 
 lighted occasionally, and many tales were treasured up in 
 the hearts of the aged about " Parzun Reekes " and his 
 horn lantern, seeking in the dark and worst quarters of the 
 city whom he could comfort and rescue. " He was like 
 a glow-worm of charity," said one. 
 
 " He married," says Canon Samuel Lysons, " a lady 
 named Mee,t a cousin of my great-grandmother, and also 
 a cousin of the late Lord Palmerston's mother." He 
 died without issue on September 5th, 1823, in the 80th 
 year of his age ; and on the south wall of the chancel 
 
 * This is equally true to-day. There is much confusion now about 
 the two brothers, and even at the Centenary in 1880 old scholars talked 
 about Robert when they meant the parson. It is also said and believed 
 that many good things attributed to Robert belong by rights to Richard. 
 — Editor. 
 
 t This lady's name was Anne, sister to Thomas Mee, twice Mayor 
 of Gloucester, in 1793 and 1S04. It was during his mayoralty in 1804 
 that the freedom of the city was presented to Robert Raikes. She died 
 in 1812, aged 66 years. This is the lady whose family resided in the 
 Palace Yard, wherein it has erroneously been stated that Robert Raikes 
 was born ! — See ante. 
 
282 ROBERT -RAIKES. 
 
 of Maisemore Church is an In Memoriam tablet, on 
 which it is said of him : 
 
 " Pious and benevolent, learned and meek, he here 
 laboured almost thirty years as a faithful minister of the 
 Church of Christ. Through sixty years of peculiar 
 suffering and bodily weakness, he manifested to all who 
 knew him the power of faith by the cheerfulness and 
 diligence with which he fulfilled his duties, rejoicing to 
 prove his love for the Redeemer whose mercy he adored, 
 and on whose merits alone he relied for salvation, by 
 entire submission and devotion to His holy will. 
 
 " Reader, whosoever thou art, profit by this memorial 
 of one whose delight and enjoyment consisted in doing 
 good to others." 
 
 On a tablet in the Cathedral it is said of him, that 
 " he was eminent from his youth as a scholar, but still 
 more eminent as a Christian." 
 
 The promise of his youth at St. John's, Cambridge, 
 where he obtained Latin Alcaics in the Cambridge verses, 
 published in 1763 — as already stated — was not belied in 
 maturer years ; but it is the fact, that if he published 
 any books or sermons, copies of them are not to be 
 found in the Cathedral library at Gloucester. In 1797 
 he was appointed Treasurer, and afterwards Canon, of 
 St. David's. 
 
 His name does not appear in any document or 
 newspaper in connection with the founding and mainten- 
 ance of Sunday schools. His brother, Robert, never spoke 
 of him by name in any private letters which we have 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 283 
 
 had the privilege of copying, but it may be that he is 
 included in the reference — made more than once — to the 
 " two clergymen " in the city who gave the movement 
 their active support. It has been suggested, and with 
 every probability, that the Rev. Thomas Stock is the 
 other. At present there is nothing enabling us to 
 identify the two clergymen — his brother certainly must 
 be one ; but, then, it is difficult to understand Robert, 
 when he complains to Mr. Lewelyn, by letter, that he is 
 "walking alone in the city ! " He must mean that he is 
 "walking alone" in his own parish. 
 
 The Rev. Richard Raikes took a great personal 
 interest in Sunday schools, and it must have been his 
 own desire that his name was never mentioned. He 
 seems to have been a constant visitor at all schools 
 established in the city, and it is to him that the schools 
 started by the Rev. Thomas Stock mainly owed their 
 existence after the rev. gentleman's death. He was also 
 in advance of his time in respect of popular education, and 
 commenced building a day school, for the education of 
 the poor, in Lower Northgate Street, in the year 1810. 
 The schools were opened in 1813, when Mr. Thomas 
 Holmes was appointed master, as appears on the fly-leaf 
 of the Teachers' Assistant, by Mrs. Trimmer, given to 
 him by the rev. gentleman.* The British and Foreign 
 Bible Society was established in 1805, and the Rev. 
 Richard Raikes was among its earliest promoters, 
 
 *The Author had an interview with Mr. Holmes, who showed him 
 the boolc. He said he believed " Richard Raikes was an evangelical 
 clergyman, and of his piety no man doubted." 
 
284 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 subscribed to it annually, and acted as Secretary to 
 the Gloucester Branch. His more wealthy brother, 
 Thomas, was an annual donor of ^50. Scores of Bibles 
 given away by Richard were, in the course of years, 
 attributed to Robert. So far back as 1862, the Author 
 could not find any person in Gloucester possessing a 
 Bible on the fly-leaf of which Robert Raikes had written. 
 To have believed report, these Bibles and Testaments 
 were quite plentiful in districts such as Leather Bottle 
 Lane, but not a single one was found. The handwriting 
 of Richard Raikes on Bibles and other books was 
 fairly common then, but became much less so after 
 the Centenary. 
 
 Mr. Raikes Currie, writing to the Author in 1870, 
 says: "The Rev. Richard Raikes, whom I personally 
 knew when a boy, was the perfect model of a Christian 
 gentleman."* 
 
 And this is the highest type of man ! This chapter 
 contains more than one of the same family answering 
 to this description, and it can nowhere close more 
 satisfactorily than where showing that over a period of 
 three centuries the evolution of this English family has 
 been steadily towards an ideal, possible, though difficult, 
 of attainment. 
 
 * " We have no conception of the true grandeur of his life or character. 
 The language of eulogy, of reverence and admiration, would exhaust itself 
 in the following short and simple sentence: He was a true Christian" 
 — H. Y. J. Taylor. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 285 
 
 Note. — There is some character in the following entries by the Rev. 
 Richard Raikes in the Parish Register of Maisemore, supplied to the 
 Editor by Mr. Conway Dighton : — 
 
 1795. Burials. — Sep, 5. Joseph Smith, aged 51. Fractured leg and 
 amputation. 
 Oct. 25. John, son of Thos. and Sarah White, a youth setat 13. 
 Fall from a tree. 
 1797. April 14. William Clark, an alien, aged 20. Fever. 
 
 April 27. Emma Wadley, aged 20. Consumption. From London. 
 May 14. Richard Townsend, a poor traveller from Ross, aged 49. 
 1812. G. C, a stranger taken up drowned in Severn, aged about 35. 
 
 These and all the other entries show the direct personal interest taken 
 in the affairs of his parishioners. 
 
 The Rev. Richard Raikes was buried with his wife in a vault in the 
 churchyard of St. Mary de Lode. Mr. Taylor says : "The tomb is in a 
 sad state, the grass is growing over and is corroding or obliterating the 
 inscription on it." With reference to the monument in the Cathedral, 
 Mr. Taylor says: "It is becoming faint and partially obliterated." See 
 next chapter for remarks on the tombs of Robert Raikes and the Rev. 
 Thomas Stock. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LAST WORDS. 
 
 "Very little is actually known of Raikes's life and character."— 
 Mayor of Gloucester, 1880. 
 
 "No new thing has been known about Raikes for fifty years." — 
 W. H. Groser, 189S. 
 
 " We are deeply interested in any investigation which can throw more 
 light on his ever blessed career." — President of Wesleyan Conference, 
 
 A REVIEW of all the facts and probabilities leads to 
 the conclusion that the true birth of Sunday schools 
 was not until November 3rd, 1783. All that went before 
 was tentative and experimental ; and what was done by 
 others than Raikes, either contemporaneously or before 
 him, seems lacking in the purpose and design of growth 
 and continuity. Unless we go back to the sainted Arch- 
 bishop of Milan, there is an entire absence of design 
 except so far as it is immediate and personal. 
 
 With Robert Raikes, all the evidence points to a 
 slowly maturing purpose, tending towards popular 
 national education. He proceeded by steps. First, the 
 awakening of a spiritual life by discipline. To bring the 
 unruly "savage" elements under control was the first 
 step. The second was to provide elementary education 
 on Sundays, which should (third) merge into a more 
 
 286 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 287 
 
 complete system of national education in day and indus- 
 trial schools by voluntary effort. His horizon did not 
 extend beyond, but it did extend so far as this. His 
 ideas were somewhat cramped by the prevailing notion 
 that the education of the masses must be done by 
 charity. He worked on this line. For years Sunday 
 schools were charities, and in his own school the girls 
 wore white bonnets and tippets when they went to 
 church, and were as distinguishable as " Raikes's 
 children " as in the neighbouring city of Bristol were 
 " Colston's children." Limited as we now know his 
 ideas were, he was far in advance of his time in his 
 application of them. Pausing here, we may see for 
 ourselves the tremendous distance travelled in little more 
 than a century. 
 
 It is not claimed by the most earnest supporters of 
 any layman or divine, preceding or contemporaneous with 
 Mr. Raikes, that they had any set purpose beyond the 
 present, or idea that Sunday schools might merge into, 
 or lead up to, the establishment of something urgently 
 demanded and national. For the scholarly Mr. Stock 
 it is not claimed that he saw beyond the present, nor is 
 it even suggested that his experiences eminently fitted 
 him for working out the evolution of a new race from 
 the lees of Society. 
 
 Mr. Raikes always treated 1783 as the birth of the 
 movement. He was like a modern inventor who does 
 not take into account all the time taken up with his 
 experiments, but dates the birth of his invention from 
 
ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 the day whereon he files " his complete and final specifi- 
 cation." So far as the world is concerned, what has 
 gone before is of little account. In Mr. Raikes's case, 
 he had consumed his time in proving that by discipline 
 and education a "new life" leaped into existence in the 
 souls of the ragged, filthy, badger loving, cursing infants 
 whom he selected from the mass. This was his problem 
 — the creation of a new life, and the Sunday school was 
 his invention, sealed and dated November 3rd, 1783. 
 Writing to Mrs. Harris, of Chelsea, he once makes a 
 reference which points to 1781 as the date when he first 
 put his ideas into operation. This was a friendly, chatty 
 letter, and too much importance should not be attached 
 to it. He says : "Within this month [November, 1787], 
 the minister of my parish has condescended to give me 
 assistance in the laborious work which I have now carried 
 on for six years alone, with little or no support." There 
 is a looseness in Mr. Raikes's composition in the sixty odd 
 original letters which came into the Author's possession, 
 which precludes the idea that he wrote them with any 
 intention of their preservation, or of their ever being 
 appealed to on matters of history. He is very elliptical ; 
 so also is he in his newspaper, where space was precious, 
 and his punctuation often leaves very much to be desired. 
 The absence of certainty when the experiment was 
 first begun destroys, to some extent, the interest which 
 has attached to certain kitchens and dwelling-houses in 
 the city of Gloucester in which " the very first Sunday 
 school in England was started." Within certain radii 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 
 
 these "very first Schools" sprang up in the city with the 
 demand for them. There were more at the " Centenary" 
 than in 1863, and in 1863 than at the Jubilee in 1831. 
 From henceforth there is not likely to be any increase, 
 and it is even now difficult to sa)- when the legend that 
 the first Sunday school was opened in the month of July, 
 1780, became current. It is said that Mr. Raikes gave 
 James King a Bible in Jul_\-, 17S0, and wrote his name 
 and the date of the gift on the fiy-leaf; and because ]\Irs. 
 King was at some time engaged " to mind the children " 
 on Sundays, it 
 is assumed that 
 
 the date of the ■■•'-'--■ '^* 
 
 gift and the 
 opening of the 
 school are iden- 
 tical. It was 
 not, however, 
 until after the 
 Jubilee, in 1S31, 
 that the year 
 1780, instead 
 of 1781, was 
 adopted, with- 
 out sufficient regard to positive testimony. The utmost 
 which can now be said is that Raikes employed Mrs. }ilere- 
 dith to open a " school " (if such it can be called) in Sooty 
 Alley, and Stock employed Mrs. Roberts to open a "school" 
 at a house 103 Northgate Street, and that Mrs. James King 
 
 20 
 
 UA 
 
 -r^WU^ 
 
 Mrs. A'/z/^'-'s School. 
 
290 ROBERT R AIRES. 
 
 was employed about the same time by Raikes or Stock, 
 or by them conjointly. About this last schoolmistress, it 
 must not be forgotten that she was the wife of James 
 King, the steward to " Madam " Pitt, wife of the local 
 Member of Parliament,* It is hardly credible that she 
 and her husband would consent to receive into their 
 dwelling the fine collection of filthy young savages which 
 Raikes first tried his hand on in Sooty Alley. Other 
 " schools " ruled over by respectable women were opened 
 by Stock and Raikes, either separately or conjointly; and 
 some of the large rooms now shown in antiquated houses 
 in the city lanes were the places of schools, but no further 
 interest attaches to them. 
 
 Mr. Raikes did open several schools — he speaks of 
 four, — but he took particular interest in one, and one set 
 of children. The editing and printing of his newspaper 
 did not leave him too much time on Sundays, and he 
 devoted what he had to one set of children, whom he 
 grew accustomed to call " my " children, and these were 
 assembled at Mrs. Critchley's, in the Grey Fryars, about 
 a good stone's throw from his editor's den, in Bolt Lane. 
 
 * In St. Catherine's Church, Gloucester, is a monument, now scarcely 
 legible, bearing the following inscription : " Sacred to the memory of 
 James King, of this parish, gent., who died February 27th, 1832, aged 79. 
 Also of Anne King, wife of the above. She died March 7th, 1824, aged 
 72." In 17S0, Mr. King and his wife would be respectively 27 and 26 years 
 of age, and although they do not answer the description of persons paid 
 two shillings per week for their services, they certainly were amongst the 
 first Sunday school teachers in Gloucester. Mr. King was personally very 
 charitable to the poor, and this decaying tombstone may in future be an 
 object of interest to lovers of Sunday schools and those who helped to 
 establish them. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 291 
 
 This school was almost opposite the south porch of St. 
 Mary de Crypt Church. There was a great advantage 
 in the situation, which Mr. Raikes could not have been 
 slow to appreciate. It was so near to the church, that if 
 the boys commenced sticking pins into each other, 
 swearing and fighting, or were inclined to run, he would 
 not be for any length of time subjected to the cross-fire 
 of unkind criticism and easy banter, cutting to the soul 
 of a vain but earnest man. Unless things were very bad 
 indeed, the jeer of " Bobby Wild Goose " would scarcely 
 reach him before his "ragged regiment" — some with logs 
 trailing from their legs, perhaps — would be within the 
 south porch of the church. In these early days the 
 situation was admirable. Mrs. Bradburn's story, so far 
 as it relates to the ridicule of the populace when the 
 children were marching from school to church, points to 
 the fact that the school was, at the time she refers to, at 
 some distance. Had it been in the Grey Fryars, there 
 would have been but little opportunity for jeers and 
 laughter, aiid her description would not have been acmirate. 
 Mrs. Bradburn (Sophia Cooke) had been accustomed to 
 ridicule, and so may be taken as a trustworthy witness on 
 this point. 
 
 There is a sufficient motive in the desire to escape 
 too much popular attention of this sort, to account for 
 the abandonment of the Sooty Alley premises for those 
 in Grey Fryars; and so this building, still in splendid 
 preservation, may fairly be looked at by strangers to the 
 city as the cradle of Robert Raikes's Sunday school. For 
 
2g2 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 this reason we give a reproduction from a sketch in the 
 possession of Mr. Taylor. 
 
 One good and sufficient reason for associating this 
 d^velling with the early history of the Sunday school 
 movement is, that it was here that Mr. Railces ■\^■as in 
 
 the habit of bringing 
 the illustrious men and 
 women who visited him 
 from all parts to see 
 this " new thing " in 
 operation. Mr. Jonas 
 Hanwa)', Mr. Fox, Mr. 
 Howard, the Wesleys, 
 Mrs. Hannah More, the 
 French savants, Prince 
 \A'ilIiam of Gloucester, — 
 all these and more ma}' 
 be reckoned, without un- 
 due presumption, to have 
 entered this dwelling. 
 When we imagine to ourselves a man daintily clean 
 in his habits, and personally vain of his dress and ap- 
 pearance as Robert Raikes undoubtedly was, we shall 
 commence to understand the depth of his convictions and 
 the tenacity of his purpose. The city of Gloucester was 
 built in the fashion of a cross — the four main streets being 
 joined together by innumerable narrow lanes and alleys, 
 like an immense cobweb in stones and brick. It wanted 
 courage to go into some of the purlieus, and when children 
 
 Mrs. Critcliky's School. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 293 
 
 were captured the sight was offended, the nostrils were 
 offended, the ears were profaned and the soul was 
 sickened ! That Raikes, naturally so clean that he had a 
 crossing made and swept for him between his houses, so vain 
 as to be called " buckish," should have endured a daily 
 martyrdom for fifty years when slumming in Littleworth 
 and the criminal dens of the city, evidences an earnestness 
 and depth of character which has Been sometimes over- 
 looked, and sometimes flatly denied. One object of this 
 book has been to show the man as he was, and the work 
 which he assuredly did accomplish. 
 
 It is, however, the truth, and it would not be right to 
 pass it by, that evil days fell like a blight upon the two 
 historical schools in the city, drying up the living sap 
 and leaving them withering. It is no part of the design 
 of this book to account for the phenomenon. Both 
 schools were attacked, and Robert Raikes's was nearly 
 destroyed. For fifty years the sinister epidemic was 
 warded off, but it fell surely, and almost with equal 
 virulence upon Mr. Stock's. A gentleman, writing with 
 all the weight of responsibility and the authority of 
 knowledge, says : " From 1854 to 1881 the less said about 
 this unfortunate parish the better." After the Centenary 
 the outside influences made themselves felt and things 
 began to improve, and are now, as compared with the 
 description of things on the nth January, 1863, fairly 
 prosperous — about 150 children out of a parish of 1,200 
 being on the register. Then comes this sentence : " The 
 old tradition has entirely passed away ! " The name of 
 
294 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 Stock is preserved in marble in his church and in the 
 
 Cathedral, but the music and magic of the name have 
 
 disappeared! The spiritual hfe of Sunday schools in the 
 
 Cathedral City is most active amongst Dissenters. 
 
 Robert Raikes's school suffered earlier and more 
 
 severely. After the death of its founder, it was seized 
 
 by an atrophy and withered. It did not absolutely die, 
 
 but at times was so like death that people mistook it for 
 
 death. It was in this state in January, 1863, when the 
 
 Author of this book visited it, and the Rev. Mr. Bayers 
 
 was the Rector of St. Mary de Crypt. The present Dean 
 
 of Gloucester (the Rev. H. D. M. Spence) followed Mr. 
 
 Sayers, but was preferred to the Deaner}' before his 
 
 beneficial influence was well felt. The Rev. Mowbray 
 
 Trotter followed in 1877, and, during his rectorship, the 
 
 Old Crypt Grammar School — where Raikes was probably 
 
 educated — was purchased, became a Church Sunday 
 
 school and a new centre for parochial and Church life.* 
 
 The rev. gentleman remained in Gloucester until 1894 ; 
 
 and on "the children's day," during the Centenary 
 
 celebration, the number of children from Raikes's parish 
 
 marching in the procession was 200, out of a total of 
 
 3,500 belonging to the various Sunday schools in the 
 
 city alone — a vast improvement on the previous state of 
 
 things. The parish is not large; but under the personal 
 
 superintendence of the present rector (the Rev. G. 
 
 * " I have been assured by the granddaughter of Mrs. Critchley that, 
 without any break, our present Sunday school has continued to be held 
 ever since the days of Robert Raikes." — Rev. Mowbray Tkotter, noia 
 Vicar of East Farkigh, Maidstone, 1898. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 295 
 
 Milner), Robert Raikes's school is continued in three 
 places — in the body of the church, in the old Crypt 
 school, and, thirdly, the infants assemble in a part of 
 the house in Bell Lane in which Raikes died.* The 
 number of children at present on the register is 264, the 
 average attendance being 197. 
 
 These details are given in justice to those who have 
 laboured, and so far successfully, in wiping off the 
 reproach which rested on schools which the whole world 
 calls " historical," and claims to have a direct and per- 
 manent interest in. Who would not be saddened, as the 
 Author was, at the exhibition of Sunday, January nth, 
 1863 ? t 
 
 But what still strikes a chill to the heart of a stranger 
 glowing with enthusiasm for Raikes, and for Sunday 
 schools, is the atmosphere of indifference in the city 
 itself about the Raikes traditions. In no part of the 
 civilised world are they so weak as here. A stranger 
 comes from America or Australia to the City of Raikes, 
 and asks for his " relics," and all that he finds in the 
 Museum is one metal "composing stick." His house- 
 hold furniture, books, pictures, everything belonging to 
 him, was sold by public auction after Mrs. Raikes's death, 
 and the City purchased— nothing ! The Author in 1863 
 saw his silver-plate and the oil painting, a copy of which 
 forms the frontispiece to this volume, in the possession 
 
 * This is only a temporary arrangement, through the courtesy of Mr. 
 Frank Brereton, solicitor, the present owner. The house was empty and 
 for sale in 1898. 
 
 t See Chapter I.—" Why these Materials were Gathered." 
 
296 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 of a private gentleman ; and the Editor in 1898 saw and 
 handled the spectacles, which were probably the last 
 thing which he fingered with conscious touch. The 
 Raikes " relics " are truly scarce ! 
 
 There have been a "Jubilee " and a " Centenary," and 
 at the Centenary the city of Gloucester presented all 
 the appearance of genuine worshippers. The Earl of 
 Shaftesbury, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Mr. W. H. Smith, 
 Lord Herschell,* Mr. Henry Cecil Raikes were amongst 
 those who spent the week in Gloucester and kindled 
 enthusiasm. Every building echoed with the name. The 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, with the tremulous pathos of tears, 
 unveiled the model of a statue to the memory of Robert 
 Raikes. The philanthropist, with the Bible under his 
 arm, was kindly leading a little child in the right way. 
 This was to have been chiselled in Sicilian marble, and 
 placed in the Cathedral. 
 
 After the first flush of enthusiasm the old indifference 
 succeeded. It was found that a statue of a man in wig 
 and knee-breeches would not be in harmony with the 
 Gothic design of the Cathedral! A satirical paper of the 
 day, called the Gloucestershire Wasp, reproduced the 
 model, and labelled it "The Raikes Progress." The first 
 breath of opposition killed the project. 
 
 The outcome of all the enthusiasm of the Centenary 
 year was the erection of a hall, which is let for lectures on 
 occasion, and is used as a school on Sundays. It is 
 
 * His Lordship was a Vice-President of the Sunday School Union, 
 and his lamented death was made known whilst this volume was passing 
 through the press. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 297 
 
 called the " Raikes's Memorial Hall," and the head of 
 Raikes appears on the outside as a medallion. 
 
 The only thing which the city possesses which has 
 the outward seeming of love and affection is a Memorial 
 Tower, built in 1864 on the grounds of the house in Bell 
 Lane where Mr. Raikes died. It was built by the late 
 Mr. Addison, who was residing there in 1863, when the 
 Author visited him, as stated in Chapter IV. of this book. 
 A stranger is not likely to notice the Tower, which is a 
 pity, as it was built at much personal sacrifice, and bears 
 a tablet, on which is the following inscription : 
 
 ROBERTUS RAIKES 
 
 SCHOLARUM SABBATICARUM PRIMUS AUCTOR 
 
 JEDBS PROXIMUS OLIM HABITABAT 
 
 IBIQUE EST MORTUUS MDCCCXI. 
 
 CORPUS EJUS IN ECCLESIA 
 
 SANCT^ MARIA DE CRYPTUS 
 
 SEPULTUM JACET. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 MDCCCLXIV. 
 
 And this is all ! Mr. Taylor records that the Dean and 
 Chapter of the Cathedral accepted the offer of Mr. 
 J. D. T. Niblett to place in the Cathedral a stained-glass 
 window in memory of Catharine Boevey, Thomas Stock, 
 and Robert Raikes — three nursing parents of Sunday 
 schools. The window was executed by an eminent 
 foreign artist, and was constructed of " the purest, finest, 
 oldest, and the best old mellow Munich glass." When it 
 arrived it was found that all the suitable vacant windows 
 
298 
 
 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 in the Cathedral had been appropriated. The window 
 
 found its way into the School of Art.* 
 
 The Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral have not yet 
 
 recoj:;nised Robert Raikes's title to honour b}' placing a 
 
 memorial tablet within 
 its walls. 
 
 At the east end of the 
 south wall of St. Mary de 
 Crypt Church is a mural 
 tablet with a Latin in- 
 scription to the Raikeses 
 — father and son. The 
 marble tablet is supposed 
 to be above the vault 
 where their remains rest 
 in peace, hut it is not. 
 
 The Raikes tablet was 
 removed, and a tablet 
 sacred to the members 
 of the Willej- family put 
 
 in its place. Abo\'e this tablet, now in the wrong place, 
 
 ■' Mr, Taylor tells an amusing story by way of illustrating the way in 
 which the citizens of Gloucester forget or misunderstand some great men 
 whom the world outside delight to honour. He was making certain 
 inquiries about George Whitefield, and said to a respectable man : 
 
 "You know about George Whitefield, don't you? " 
 
 " Oh ! yes, I know all about him. A terrible blackguard and disturber 
 of ihe peace. I was forced to have him up once for wallopin,g his wife. 
 He 's the worst scamp in the place ! " 
 
 " I don't believe," said Mr. Taylor in conversation, " that four^ipfths of 
 the people in Gloucester know of Robert Raikes except by name, and very 
 few know the difference between the brothers liobert and Richard ! Old 
 Sunday scholars speak of Mr. Reekes, meaning the parson, Richard liaikes." 
 
 MIcinoyial Tablet. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 299 
 
 one sees upon the wall the outline of the apex of the 
 tablet originally there— the Raikes tablet. It has been 
 washed over with coloured lime, but the outlines remain 
 as plain as the " handwriting on the wall." 
 
 After the Centenary celebration the encaustic tiles 
 over the Raikes vault were removed, and the fiat stone 
 with an inscription on it was uncovered. The site of the 
 vault was immediately under the place where the mural 
 tablet with its inscription in Latin was originally fixed. 
 People from America, Australia, and from all parts of the 
 world come to this church and read the inscription on 
 the tablet in the extreme east corner of the south wall, 
 and go away with the belief that they have been standing 
 above the ashes of Robert Raikes. For them the spot is 
 consecrated. As a fact they pass by the tomb of Raikes, 
 and are deceived. 
 
 The special correspondent of The Times was present 
 with Mr. Taylor when the encaustic tiles were removed, 
 and two recommendations were then made : (i) to 
 restore the Raikes tablet to its proper place ; and (2) to 
 inlay a brass plate over the tomb. In November, i8g8, 
 when the Editor visited the church neither recommenda- 
 tion had been carried out, and the lines on the wall still 
 spoke reproachfully of the slight to a memory which the 
 world thinks sacred.* 
 
 * Mr. Taylor says : " It was during the so-called restoration of 
 the church that this change in the position of the Raikes monument 
 was made. It was done at the instance of the executors of the late 
 James Wood, and for a ' consideration.' The transaction was truly 
 Simonical. I drew the attention of Mr. Nisbet — The Times' special 
 
300 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 At the Centenary in 1880 there were three very- 
 aged women — Mrs. Summerhill, Mrs. Allen, and Mrs. 
 Perks, and one old man — Mr. John Oakley Packer, who 
 recollected Robert Raikes and went to his Sunday school ; 
 and it is very much to the credit of these old people that 
 they did not enlarge upon the Raikes traditions. They 
 were courted and feasted, and lionised — the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury drank tea out of a cup having the portrait of 
 Robert Raikes upon it, belonging to one of the three old 
 women. She declared it was given to her on the day of 
 Mr. Raikes's funeral, and prized it highly.* All their 
 statements were taken down in writing, and it is to 
 the credit of all four that no traces of invention are 
 discoverable. Mr. Packer's statement in 1880 ran on all 
 fours with that which he made to the Author in 1863, 
 seventeen years previously. No stronger or better test 
 of absolute sincerity can be applied. With regard to the 
 three women— the oldest being 87— they had no knowledge 
 of the earliest days of Sunday schools— the scholars, the 
 conditions under which they were got together, their 
 
 correspondent during the Centenary— to the facts, and he was truly 
 shocked." 
 
 It is singular that the mural tablet to the memory of the Rev. 
 Thomas Stock has disappeared from the Church of St. Aldate, where his 
 body lies; that the mural tablet to Robert Raikes in St. Mary de Crypt 
 Church has been removed, and that the tombstone over the remains of 
 the Rev. Richard Raikes is perishing from neglect in the churchyard of 
 St. Mary de Lode. This want of reverence and care, to say the least, 
 must stamp the citizens of Gloucester most unfavourably in the eyes of 
 the Sunday school world. Public opinion will, perhaps, insist on a very 
 different course of conduct in future. 
 
 ♦ Mr. Evans, in the Cathedral Choir, now possesses Mrs Allen's 
 cup.— Mr. Taylor. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 301 
 
 behaviour in school and in church. But for the more 
 aged people, long before dead, whose testimonies are 
 preserved in this book, important parts of the story of the 
 first days of Sunday school work would never be known. 
 
 To the old witnesses in 1880, the earliest recollections 
 which they had of Sunday schools were of harmony and 
 love. One said : " I longed for Sunday to come again." 
 The schools had been at work for more than twenty 
 years when she went to one of them ; and so we must 
 go back to first scholars, like Charles Cox, who came 
 under the hands of Mrs. Meredith, of Sooty Alley, in 
 order to read aright the first pages of Sunday School 
 History, and to learn what rules and standards to apply 
 to Mr. Raikes, the Thinker and the Worker. 
 
 The Editor has completed the task which he set for 
 himself. The Reader, with his knowledge of men, and 
 the motives which actuate them, will determine for him- 
 self what position Robert Raikes is entitled to hold in 
 his affections and esteem. The Editor does not presume 
 to do more than focus certain stray, and often weak, rays 
 of light in order to reveal Robert Raikes at work, the 
 nature of his work, and the conditions under which the 
 work was performed. The secret, inspiring, and sustain- 
 ing principle the Reader must determine for himself, as, 
 indeed, he must if this sketch of a good and benevolent 
 man is to be of any aid to his own spiritual growth. 
 Writing to Mr. Lewelyn, in 1789, on his Exposition of 
 ■Genesis and Romans, Mr. Raikes says : 
 
302 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 " Your work is calculated only for minds which have 
 been strongly impressed with the love of God. ... I 
 question if anyone here would read it but myself. Cal- 
 vanists and Socinians abound here; but there abound 
 more who consider this world as the only abiding place, 
 and, therefore, give themselves no concern about the 
 preparation for another." 
 
 Again, in 1791, he writes to the same gentleman : 
 
 " There is some pleasure in printing works that purify 
 and elevate the heart, and fit it for an intercourse with 
 the Mansions of Eternity." 
 
 These passages may assist the reader in his conclu- 
 sions, and he must not overlook the fact that they occur 
 in a business correspondence. They may also help him 
 to decide what value to put upon the opinions of gentle- 
 men of great intellectual capacity, and good social 
 positions, quoted in this book, to the effect that Mr. 
 Raikes's conduct was inspired by a vain but benevolent 
 disposition, and not by any religious motive.^'- 
 
 One regret the Editor has ; namely, that Josiah Harris 
 (his father) was unable to complete the labour of love 
 he contemplated with a sense of joy. For himself, he 
 only asks it to be believed that he has done his best 
 to make this history "as truthful and profitable as 
 possible." 
 
 " See chapter IV. Opinions of Mr. Paul Hawkins Fisher, Stroud 
 and Mr. John J. Powell, Q.C., M.P, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 CHAPTER V. — ROBERT RAIKES'S OWN STORY 
 TOLD IN THE PRESS. 
 
 ^r^HE first notice of Sunday schools appeared in the 
 L Gloucester Journal of November 3rd, 1783, quoted as 
 in Chapter V., and the next appeared the following year, 
 namely, May 24th, 1784, as follows : 
 
 " Whilst the public-spirited exertions of the most 
 distinguished characters in our country are meditating 
 a reform in our Police by rendering our prisons, if 
 possible, the reverse of what they have hitherto been, 
 seminaries of every species of villainy and profligacy, several 
 of the clergy in the county are setting forward a model 
 of general instruction for the children of the lower class 
 of the people, by establishing schools for their reception 
 on Sundays, — a day upon which they are given up to 
 follow their wild and vicious inclinations free from 
 restraint. 
 
 "The promoters of this design seem to concur in 
 the idea that prevention is better than punishment, and that 
 
 303 
 
304 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 an attempt to check the growth of vice at an early period, 
 by an effort to introduce good habits of acting and thinking 
 among the vulgar, is at least an experiment, harmless 
 and innocent, however fruitless it may be in its effect. 
 
 "A gentleman who adopted this plan about the month 
 of January last has lately written to a friend on the 
 subject, from whose letter we have been favoured with 
 the following extract." 
 
 Mr. Raikes then quotes at some length from the 
 letter, and the quotation rhetorically concludes : 
 
 " ' View it (the misery around them) ; view it — the 
 total disregard to morals in the higher orders of Society, 
 and the general depravity and profligacy of the vulgar ! 
 Have not causes like these in all ages produced similar 
 effects ? ' " 
 
 Mr. Raikes continued : 
 
 " The good effects of Sunday schools estabhshed in 
 this city are instanced in the account given by the 
 principal persons in the pin and sack manufactories, 
 wherein great reformation has taken place among the 
 multitudes whom they employ. From being idle, un- 
 governable, profligate, and filthy in the extreme, they 
 say the boys and girls are become not only cleanly and 
 decent in their appearance, but are greatly humanised 
 in their manners— more orderly, tractable, and attentive 
 to business, and, of course, more serviceable than they 
 ever expected to find them. The cursing and swearing 
 and other vile expressions, which used to form the sum of 
 their conversation, are now rarely heard among them. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 305 
 
 " Such, we are well assured, is the fact. The London 
 Chronicle of Tuesday last mentions that the plan of 
 Sunday schools is taken up with such general concurrence 
 in Leeds and Yorkshire that the spirited inhabitants of 
 that place have them in all quarters of their populous 
 town, and have already admitted near 2,000 poor 
 children ! " 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1784, contains the 
 following letter, which Mr. Raikes, in the November 
 previous, had written to Col. Townley, then residing at 
 Sheffield. The document made a great demand upon 
 the space of the Magazine ; and " Mr. Urban " employed 
 commendatory words having a prophetic ring with them. 
 "It is with pleasure," said he, "we give place to this 
 benevolent plan, which bids fair to transmit the name of 
 Mr. Raikes to latest posterity." The letter reads : 
 
 " Gloucester, November z^th, 1783. 
 
 " Sir, — My friend, the Mayor [Mr. Colborne] has just 
 communicated to me the letter which you have honoured 
 him with, enquiring into the nature of Sunday schools. 
 The beginning of this scheme was entirely owing to 
 accident. Some business leading me one morning into 
 the suburbs of the city, where the lowest of the people 
 (who are principally employed in the pin manutactory) 
 chiefly reside, I was struck with concern at seeing a 
 group of children, wretchedly ragged, at play in the 
 streets. I asked an inhabitant whether those children 
 belonged to that part of the town, and lamented their 
 
 21 
 
3o6 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 misery and idleness. 'Ah! sir,' said the woman to 
 whom I was speaking, ' could you take a view of this 
 part of the town on a Sunday, you would be shocked 
 indeed ; for then the street is filled with multitudes of 
 these wretches, who, released on that day from employ- 
 ment, spend their time in noise and riot, playing at 
 " chuck," and cursing and swearing in a manner so 
 horrid as to convey to any serious mind an idea of 
 hell rather than any other place. We have a worthy 
 clergyman (said she) curate of our parish, who has put 
 some of them to school ; but upon the Sabbath they 
 are all given up to follow their own inclinations without 
 restraint, as their parents, totally abandoned themselves, 
 have no idea of instilling into the minds of their children 
 principles to which they themselves are entire strangers.' 
 " This conversation suggested to me that it would be 
 at least a harmless attempt, if it were productive of no 
 good, should some little plan be formed to check the 
 deplorable profanation of the Sabbath. I then enquired 
 of the woman, if there were any decent well-disposed 
 women in the neighbourhood who kept schools for 
 teaching to read. I presently was directed to four : to 
 these I applied, and made an agreement with to receive 
 as many children as I should send upon the Sunday, 
 whom they were to instruct in reading and in the Church 
 Catechism. For this I engaged to pay them each a 
 shilling for their day's employment. The women seemed 
 pleased with the proposal. I then waited on the clergyman 
 before mentioned, and imparted to him my plan ; he was 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 307 
 
 so much satisfied with the idea, that he engaged to lend 
 his assistance, by going round to the schools on a Sunday 
 afternoon, to examine the progress that was made, and 
 to enforce order and decorum among such a set of little 
 heathens. 
 
 " This, sir, was the commencement of the plan. It 
 is now about three years since we began, and I could 
 wish you were here to make enquiry into the effect. A 
 woman who lives in a lane where I had fixed a school 
 told me some time ago, that the place was quite a heaven 
 upon Sundays, compared to what it used to be. The 
 numbers who have learned to read and say their 
 Catechism are so great that I am astonished at it. 
 Upon the Sunday afternoon the mistresses take their 
 scholars to church, a place into which neither they nor 
 their ancestors had ever before entered, with a view to 
 the glory of God. But what is yet more extraordinary, 
 within this month these little ragamuffins have in great 
 numbers taken it into their heads to frequent the early 
 morning prayers, which are held every morning at the 
 Cathedral at seven o'clock. I believe there were nearly 
 fifty this morning. They assemble at the house of one 
 of the mistresses, and walk before her to church, two 
 and two, in as much order as a company of soldiers. 
 I am generally at church, and after service they all come 
 round me to make their bow; and, if any animosities 
 have arisen, to make their complaints. The great 
 principle I inculcate is, to be kind and good natured to 
 each other ; not to provoke one another ; to be dutiful to 
 
3o8 ROBERT R A IKES. 
 
 their parents ; not to offend God by cursing and swearing ; 
 and such httle plain precepts as all may comprehend. 
 As my profession is that of a printer, I have printed a 
 little book, which I gave amongst them ; and some 
 friends of mine, subscribers to the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, sometimes make me a present of 
 a parcel of Bibles, Testaments, &c., which I distribute 
 as rewards to the deserving. The success that has 
 attended this scheme has induced one or two of my 
 friends to adopt the plan, and set up Sunday schools 
 in other parts of the city, and now a whole parish has 
 taken up the object ; so that I flatter myself in time 
 the good effects will appear so conspicuous as to become 
 generally adopted. The number of children at present 
 thus engaged on the Sabbath are between two and 
 three hundred, and they are increasing every week, as 
 the benefit is universally seen. I have endeavoured to 
 engage the clergy of my acquaintance that reside in their 
 parishes ; one has entered into the scheme with great 
 fervour, and it was in order to excite others to follow the 
 example that I inserted in my paper the paragraph which 
 I suppose you saw copied into the London papers. 
 
 " I cannot express to you the pleasure I often 
 receive in discovering genius, and innate good dis- 
 positions, among this little multitude. It is botanizing 
 in human nature. I have often, too, the satisfaction of 
 receiving thanks from parents, for the reformation they 
 perceive in their children. Often I have given them 
 kind admonitions, which I always do in the mildest and 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 309 
 
 gentlest manner. The going amongst them, doing them 
 httle kindnesses, distributing trifling rewards, and in- 
 gratiating myself with them, I hear, have given me an 
 ascendancy greater than I ever could have imagined ; for 
 I am told by their mistresses that they are very much 
 afraid of my displeasure. If you ever pass through 
 Gloucester, I shall be happy to pay my respects to you, 
 and to show you the effects of this effort at civilization. 
 If the glory of God be promoted in any, even the smallest 
 degree, society must reap some benefit. If good seed be 
 sown in the mind at an early period of human life, 
 though it shows itself not again for many years, it may 
 please God, at some future period, to cause it to spring 
 up, and to bring forth a plentiful harvest. With regard 
 to the rules adopted, I only require that they may come 
 to the school on Sunday as clean as possible. Many 
 were at first deterred because they wanted decent 
 clothing, but I could not undertake to supply this defect. 
 I argue, therefore, if you can loiter about without shoes, 
 and in a ragged coat, you may as well come to school and 
 learn what may tend to your good in that garb. I reject 
 none on that footing. All that I require are clean hands, 
 clean face, and their hair combed ; if you have no clean 
 shirt, come in that you have on. 
 
 "The want of decent apparel at first kept great 
 numbers at a distance, but they now begin to grow wiser, 
 and all pressing to learn. I have had the good luck to 
 procure places for some that were deserving, which has 
 been of great use. You will understand that these 
 
310 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 children are from six years old to twelve or fourteen. 
 Boys and girls above this age, who have been totally 
 undisciplined, are generally too refractory for this 
 government. A reformation in society seems to me to be 
 only practicable by establishing notions of duty, and 
 practical habits of order and decorum, at an early age. 
 But whither am I running ? I am ashamed to see how 
 much I have trespassed on your patience ; but I thought 
 the most complete idea of Sunday schools was to be 
 conveyed to you by telling what first suggested the 
 thought. The same sentiments would have arisen in 
 your mind, had they happened to have been called forth 
 as they were suggested to me. I have no doubt that you 
 will find great improvement to be made on this plan. 
 The minds of men have taken great hold on that 
 prejudice, that we are to do nothing on the Sabbath day 
 which may be deemed labour, and therefore we are to be 
 excused from all application of minds as well as body. 
 The rooting out of this prejudice is the point I aim at as 
 my favourite object. Our Saviour takes particular pains 
 to manifest, that whatever tended to promote the health 
 and happiness of our fellow creatures, were sacrifices 
 peculiarly acceptable on that day. I do not think I have 
 written so long a letter for some years. But you will 
 excuse me — my heart is warm in the cause. I think this 
 is the kind of reformation most requisite in this kingdom. 
 Let our patriots employ themselves in rescuing their 
 countrymen from that despotism which tyrannical 
 passions and vicious inclinations exercise over them, and 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 311 
 
 they will find that true liberty and national welfare are 
 more essentially promoted than by any reform in 
 Parliament. 
 
 "As often as I have attempted to conclude, some new 
 idea has arisen. This is strange, as I am writing to a 
 person whom I never have, and, perhaps, never may see — r 
 but I have felt that we think alike. I shall, therefore, 
 only add my ardent wishes, that your views of promoting 
 the happiness of society may be attended with every 
 possible success, conscious that your own internal enjoy- 
 ment will thereby be considerably advanced. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, Sir, yours, &c., 
 
 "R. Raikes." 
 
 In reply to an enquiry from Bradford, Yorkshire, Mr. 
 Raikes wrote, June 5th, 1784, recapitulating in substance 
 what he had already informed Colonel Townley, and then 
 he says of the children : 
 
 "They are frequently admonished to refrain from 
 swearing, and certain boys who are distinguished by 
 their decent behaviour are appointed to superintend the 
 conduct of the rest, and make report of those that swear, 
 call names, and interrupt the comfort of the other boys 
 in their neighbourhood. When quarrels have arisen, the 
 aggressor is compelled to ask pardon, and the offended is 
 enjoined to forgive. The happiness that must arise to 
 all from a kind, good-natured behaviour is often incul- 
 cated. 
 
 "This mode of treatment has produced a wonderful 
 
312 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 change in the manners of these little savages. I cannot 
 give a more striking instance than I received the other 
 day from Mr. Church, a considerable manufacturer of 
 hemp and flax, who employs great numbers of these 
 children. I asked him if he perceived any alteration in 
 the poor children he employed. ' Sir,' says he, ' the 
 change could not have been more extraordinary, in my 
 opinion, had they been transformed from the shape of 
 wolves and tigers to that of men. In temper, disposition, 
 and manners, they could hardly be said to differ from the 
 brute creation ; but since the establishment of Sunday 
 schools, they have seemed anxious to show that they are 
 not the ignorant, illiterate creatures they were before. 
 When they have seen a superior come and kindly instruct 
 and admonish them, and sometimes reward their good 
 behaviour, they are anxious to gain his friendship and 
 good opinion. They are also become more tractable and 
 obedient, and less quarrelsome and revengeful. In short, 
 I never conceived that a reformation so singular could 
 have been effected amongst the set of untutored beings 
 I employed.' 
 
 " From this little sketch of the reformation which has 
 taken place, there is reason to hope that a general estab- 
 lishment of Sunday schools would, in time, make some 
 change in the morals of the lower class. At least, it 
 might in some measure prevent them from growing 
 worse, which, at present, seems but too apparent. 
 
 "I am, Sir, &c., 
 
 "R. Raikes. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 313 
 
 " P.S. — The parish of St. Nicholas has lately estab- 
 lished two schools, and some gentlemen of this city 
 [Gloucester] have also set up others. To some of the 
 schoolmistresses I give 2s. a week extra to take the children 
 when they come from work and during the week days." 
 
 Replying to Mr. William Fox, formerly a merchant of 
 London, and afterwards a resident at Lechdale, in Glou- 
 cestershire, Mr. Raikes says, June 20th, 1785 : 
 
 " With respect to the possibility of teaching children 
 by the attendance they give upon the Sunday, I thought 
 with you, at the first, that little was to be gained, but I 
 now find it has suggested to the parents that the little 
 progress we made on the Sundays might be improved, and 
 they have therefore engaged to give a teacher a penny a 
 week to admit children once or twice a day during the 
 recess from work, at dinner-time, or evening, to take a 
 lesson every day in the week." 
 
 In a second letter to Mr. William Fox, with reference 
 to the formation of the Sunday School Society, Mr. Raikes 
 gives an account of the endeavour to civilise the young 
 savages at Mitchel-Dean, on the borders of the Forest of 
 Dean. After a year's trial, he says : 
 
 " The promoters of the undertaking did me the 
 honour to invite me to dine with them on their anniver- 
 sary, to witness the progress that had been made in this 
 effort at civilisation. The children, though many of them 
 in apparel very ragged, were extremely clean. They 
 
314 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 walked in great order two and two to the church, where 
 they were placed in the gallery, exposed to the view of 
 the whole congregation; their behaviour during the 
 service was perfectly silent and becoming. In the 
 repetition of the Lord's Prayer they all joined, and 
 formed a charm that made every heart dilate with 
 joy. 
 
 "After church the children were conducted to the inn, 
 where an examination took place of the progress made 
 in reading. I was highly pleased to see the proficiency 
 some of them had made. Several could read in the New 
 Testament, and I found among them two or three with 
 extraordinary memories. They have learned to repeat 
 several chapters. 
 
 " Near fifty of them were perfect in their Catechism, 
 and all could repeat some of Dr. Watts's hymns. The 
 children were so much pleased with these pieces, that 
 two or three of them could repeat the whole book. But 
 what pleased me most of all was the result of my enquiry 
 into the effect upon their manners. ' That boy,' said 
 one of the gentlemen (pointing to a very ill-looking lad, 
 about thirteen), ' was the most profligate little boy in 
 this neighbourhood. He ^^^the leader of every kind of 
 mischief and wickedness. He never opened his lips 
 without a profane or indecent expression. And now he 
 is become orderly and good natured, and, in his conver- 
 sation, quite left off profaneness.' 
 
 "After dinner the gentleman called in six boys who 
 had previously been taught a hymn, which I can assure 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 315 
 
 you they sang to admiration. I observed that one of the 
 singers was the boy before mentioned. 
 
 " The silence that prevailed among these children was 
 remarkable ; their benefactors dined in a room adjoining, 
 but were not disturbed with their talking. 
 
 " I have given you this little recital, and if it tends to 
 prove the practicability of doing good to our fellow-creatures, 
 I hope it may prove an incitement to the work you are 
 bringing forward. 
 
 " I am, with great respect, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient Servant, 
 
 " R. Raikes. 
 
 " Gloucester, Monday, August zgth, 1785." 
 
 On the 2nd September, 1785, Mr. W. Fox, writing 
 with reference to his efforts and those of Mr. Jonas 
 Hanway — the Persian traveller — to form the Sunday 
 School Society, made use of these words : 
 
 " The fire which you have had the honour to light up 
 in Gloucester having now reached the Metropolis, will, 
 I trust, never be extinguished but with the ignorance 
 of every individual throughout the kingdom." 
 
 The letter from Mr. Raikes to the Sunday School 
 Society, of which he was elected an hon. member in 1785, 
 is in one sense historical. The Mr. Webb mentioned is 
 the Mr. Samuel Webb briefly noticed in Chapter XII., 
 and the date of the first Sunday school in Painswick is 
 definitely fixed as in the summer of 1784. This letter 
 
3i6 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 was published in the Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1787, 
 vol. Ivii. It, however, bears date October 7th, 1786 : 
 
 " The parish of Painswick exhibited on Sunday, the 
 24th ult,, a specimen of the reform which the establish- 
 ment of Sunday schools is likely to introduce. 
 
 "An annual festival has from time immemorial been 
 held on that day : a festival that would have disgraced 
 the most heathenish nations. Drunkenness and every 
 species of clamour, riot, and disorder formerly filled the 
 town upon this occasion. Mr. Webb, a gentleman who 
 has exerted the utmost assiduity in the conduct of the 
 Sunday schools in Painswick, was lamenting to me the 
 sad effects that might be naturally expected to arise from 
 this feast. It occurred to us that an attempt to divert the 
 attention of the vulgar from their brutal prostitution of 
 the Lord's Day, by exhibiting to their view a striking 
 picture of the superior enjoyment to be derived from 
 quietness, good order, and the exercise of the benevolence 
 which Christianity peculiarly recommends, was an experi- 
 ment worth hazarding. We thought it could do no 
 mischief — it would not increase the evil. It was imme- 
 diately determined to invite the gentlemen and people of 
 the adjacent parishes to view the children of the Sunday 
 schools, to mark their improvement in cleanliness and 
 behaviour, and to observe the practicability of reducing to 
 a quiet, peaceful demeanour the most neglected part of 
 the community, those who form the great bulk of the 
 people. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 317 
 
 " In the parish of Painswick are several gentlemen 
 who have a taste for music, they immediately offered to 
 give every assistance in a church service, and my 
 benevolent friend, the Reverend Dr. Glasse, complied 
 with our entreaty to favour us with a sermon. Mr. Camp- 
 bell, a very active Justice of the Peace, Mr. Townsend, 
 Mr. Sheppard, Mr. Webb, of Ebworth, and several other 
 gentlemen engaged to give their countenance : We were 
 highly gratified, too, with Mr. Boddington's company, 
 who kindly came from Cheltenham to take a view of this 
 progress of civilisation ; he is one of your vice-presidents, 
 and from his report you will receive a far more perfect 
 idea than my pen can give. On this Sunday afternoon 
 the town was filled with the usual crowd who attended 
 the feast ; but instead of repairing to the alehouses, as 
 heretofore, they all hastened to the church, which was 
 filled in such a manner as I never remember to have seen 
 any church in this country before ; the galleries, the aisles 
 were thronged like a playhouse. Drawn up in a rank 
 around the churchyard appeared the children belonging 
 to the different schools to the number of 331. The 
 gentlemen walked round to view them— it was a sight 
 interesting and truly affecting ; young people lately more 
 neglected than the cattle in the field, ignorant, profane, 
 filthy, clamorous, impatient of every restraint, were here 
 seen cleanly, quiet, observant of order, submissive, 
 courteous in behaviour, and, in conversation, free from 
 that vileness which marks our wretched vulgar. The 
 inhabitants of the town bear testimony to this change in 
 
3i8 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 their manners. The appearance of decency might be 
 assumed for a day, but the people among whom they 
 live are ready to declare that this is a character fairly 
 stated. 
 
 "After the public service a collection for the benefit 
 of the institution was made at the doors of the church. 
 When I considered that the bulk of the congregation 
 were persons of the middling rank, husbandmen and 
 other inhabitants of the adjacent villages, I concluded 
 that the collection, if it amounted to ^24 or ^£"25, might 
 be deemed a good one. My astonishment was great 
 indeed when I found that the sum was not less than 
 £57 ! This may be accounted for from the security 
 which the establishment of Sunday schools has given 
 to the property of every individual in the neighbourhood : 
 the farmers, &c., declare that they and their families 
 can now leave their houses and gardens, &c., and 
 frequent the public worship, without danger of depreda- 
 tion : formerly they were under the necessity of leaving 
 their servants, or staying at home themselves, as a guard ; 
 and this was insufficient, the most vigilant were sometimes 
 plundered. It is not, then, to be wondered at that a 
 spirit of liberaHty was excited on this occasion. A 
 carpenter put a guinea in the plate, and afterwards 
 brought four more to Mr. Webb. ' It was my fixed 
 design,' says he, ' to devote the sum that I received for a 
 certain job of work to the support of Sunday schools. 
 I received five guineas, one only I put in the plate ; it did 
 not become me to put more, it would have looked like 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 319 
 
 ostentation, but here are the other four,' giving them to 
 Mr. Webb. Another instance of spirit occurred in a man 
 upwards of 80 years of age, who seemed about the rank 
 of the yeomanry. ' Oh ! that I should live,' said he, ' to 
 see this day, when poor children are thus befriended, 
 and taught the road to peace and comfort here, and 
 happiness and heaven hereafter.' The old man gave a 
 guinea, and said he would leave another in the hands of 
 a friend, if he should die before the next anniversary. 
 "When the matter of the collection was settled, we went 
 to the schools to hear what progress was made in 
 reading, &c. The emulation to show their acquirements 
 was so very great, that it would have taken up a day to 
 have gratified all the children. In the meantime the 
 town was remarkably free from those pastimes which used 
 to disgrace it ; wrestling, quarrelling, fighting were totally 
 banished ; all was peace and tranquility. I fear I have 
 been too prolix, but I could not convey the complete idea 
 that I was desirous of imparting to the generous promoters 
 of Sunday schools, without writing these particulars. 
 
 " I forgot to mention that Mr. Fox, one of the worthy 
 members of your Committee, was present with us at Pains- 
 wick. The Sunday schools were first established at Painswick 
 in the summer of the year 1784. The children had been bred 
 up in total ignorance. Of the number that attend the 
 school 230 can read, 80 can read in the Sunday Scholars' 
 Companion, and about 21 are in the alphabet. These children 
 had no teaching but on the Sunday ; what they learn in the 
 leisure hours in the week is the effect of their own desire 
 
320 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 to improve ; many have their books at their looms, to 
 seize any vacant minute when their work is retarded by 
 the breaking of threads. 
 
 "To relieve the parish of the burden of clothing these 
 poor creatures, Mr. Webb proposed that such children 
 as by increase of industry would bring a penny each 
 Sunday towards their clothing, should be assisted by 
 having that penny doubled : this has had an admirable 
 effect ; the children now regularly bring their pence every 
 Sunday; many of them have been clothed, and the good 
 consequences of laying up a little are powerfully enforced. 
 It is pretty evident that were every parish in this kingdom 
 blessed with a man or two of Mr. Webb's active turn of 
 and benevolent mind, the lower class of the people in a 
 few years would exhibit a material change of character, 
 and justify that superior policy which tends to prevent 
 crimes rather than to punish them. 
 
 "The liberality with which the members of your 
 Society have stood forth in this attempt to introduce a 
 degree of civilisation and good order among the lowest 
 ranks, entitles them to the thanks of the community, and 
 particularly of an individual who will be ever proud to 
 subscribe himself, &c., 
 
 " R. Raikes. 
 
 "P-S.^The gentlemen of Painswick intend making 
 a request to Dr. Glasse to publish his sermon. 
 
 " The happy choice of the text had a remarkable effect 
 in commanding the attention of the audience. The Scrip- 
 tures could not have furnished a passage more literally 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 321 
 
 applicable to the subject. It was taken from Deuteronomy 
 xxxi., verses 12 and 13: 'Gather the people together, 
 men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is 
 within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may 
 learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all 
 the words of this Law ; and that their children which have 
 not known anything may hear, and learn to fear the Lord 
 your God as long as ye live.' " 
 
 In another letter to Mr. William Fox, July 12th, 1787, 
 2klr. Raikes says : 
 
 " I regret that the variety of my business and my 
 engagements, when I was last in town, prevented me 
 from devoting an afternoon to the enjoyment of your 
 company. 
 
 "The loss was mine, for I find few pleasures equal 
 to those which arise from the conversation of men who 
 are endeavouring to promote the glory of the Creator and 
 the good of their fellow-creatures. 
 
 "I consider you, too, with the greater respect, as I 
 believe you were one of the first of my encouragers at the 
 outset of the little plan I was the humble instrument of 
 suggesting to the world. 
 
 " I thank you, my good friend, for communicating the 
 pleasing recital from Colchester. What a wide and 
 extensive field of rational enjoyment opens to our view, 
 could we allow the improvement of human nature to 
 become the source of pleasure. 
 
 " Instead of training horses to the course, and viewing 
 22 
 
322 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 with delight their exertions at Newmarket, let our men of 
 fortune turn their eyes to an exhibition like that at 
 Colchester. Impart to them a small portion of that solid 
 enjoyment which a mind like yours must receive from 
 the glorious sight. Children more neglected than the 
 beast of the field, now taught to relish the comfort of 
 decency and good order, and to know that their own 
 happiness greatly depends on promoting the happiness of 
 others. When the community begins to reap the benefits 
 of these principles, let us hope that the nation will 
 manifest to the world the blessed effects of a general 
 diffusion of Christianity. The great Reformers of past 
 times have only been removing obstructions in our way. 
 Let us hope that the day is approaching when ' The 
 knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters 
 cover the sea.' The number of children admitted into a 
 state of culture in this short period seems to me little 
 less miraculous than the draught of fishes, and would 
 incline [one] to think that the prophecy above quoted is 
 advancing to its completion. 
 
 " Some French gentlemen, members of the Academy 
 at Paris, were with me last week, and were so strongly 
 impressed with this scheme of civilisation, that they have 
 taken all the pieces I have printed on the subject, and 
 intend proposing establishments of a similar nature in 
 some of their parishes in the provinces by way of experi- 
 ment. We have seen the rapid progress of Christianity. 
 Dr. Adam Smith, who has so ably written in the Wealth 
 of Nations, says : ' No plan has promised to effect a 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 323 
 
 change of manners with equal ease and simphcity since 
 the days of the Apostles.' 
 
 " I have sent you my paper of this week, that you may 
 see we are extending towards Wales, with the improve- 
 ment of a School of Industry. 
 
 " I have only room to add that I am, dear Sir, 
 
 " Your sincere Friend and Servant, 
 
 " R. Raikes. 
 •'July 12th, 1787." 
 
 The Teacher's Magazine, October, 1831, New Series, 
 vol. ii., published a letter to Mrs. Harris, Chelsea, 
 dated November 5th, 1787. The original of this letter 
 is understood to be in the possession of the Committee 
 of the Sunday School Union : 
 
 " My dear Madam, — Amongst the numerous corre- 
 spondents which my little project for civilising the rising 
 generation of the poor has led me to address, I have to 
 no one taken up my pen with more pleasure than to you, 
 my old friend, with whom I formerly passed so many 
 cheerful hours. 
 
 " I am rejoiced to find that the people in your neigh- 
 bourhood are thus ready to listen to that strong and 
 pathetic injunction given by our Saviour a little before 
 His resurrection— ' Feed my lambs'; and if it were 
 possible for me to afford any hints that might be useful, 
 great would be the pleasure I should receive. 
 
 " In answer to your queries, I shall as concisely as 
 possible state that I endeavour to assemble the children 
 
324 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 as early as is consistent with their perfect cleanliness— 
 an indispensable rule. The hour prescribed in our rules 
 is eight o'clock, but it is usually half after eight before 
 our flock is collected. Twenty is the number allotted to 
 each teacher ; the sexes kept separate. The twenty are 
 divided into four classes ; the children who show any 
 superiority in attainments are placed as leaders of the 
 several classes, and are employed in teaching the others 
 their letters, or in hearing them read in a low whisper, 
 which may be done without interrupting the master or 
 mistress in their business, and will keep the attention of 
 the children engaged, that they do not play or make a 
 noise. Their attending the service of the Church once a 
 day has to me seemed sufficient ; for their time may be 
 spent more profitably, perhaps, in receiving instruction 
 than in being present at a long discourse, which their 
 minds are not yet able to comprehend ; but people may 
 think differently on this point. Within this month the 
 minister of my parish has, at last, condescended to give 
 me assistance in this laborious work, which I have carried 
 on six years with little or no support. He chooses that 
 the children should come to Church both morning and 
 afternoon. I brought them to Church only in the after- 
 noon. If this should answer better than my plan, on 
 some future occasion I will let you or Mr. H. know it. 
 "The stipend to the teachers here is a shilling each 
 Sunday; but we find them firing, and bestow gratuities 
 as rewards of diligence, which may make it worth six- 
 pence more. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 325 
 
 " But the success of the whole depends on the atten- 
 tion paid by people of condition. If persons of some 
 consequence will condescend to officiate as visitors, and 
 by kind words encourage the good among these hitherto 
 despised and neglected creatures, and give gentle reproof 
 to those who sway from their duty, a wonderful effect will 
 in a few months be discoverable. Were I among you, I 
 would call forth the gentlemen to visit the boys, and the 
 ladies to superintend the girls. 'Go to Brentford, and 
 learn of Mrs. Trimmer!' This is what I should say to 
 the ladies of Chelsea. I would beg leave to recommend 
 the perusal of Mrs. Trimmer's (Economy of Charity. It 
 may be had at Johnson's, in St. Paul's Churchyard. 
 
 " It had been sometimes a difficult task to keep the 
 children in proper order when they were all assembled at 
 Church ; but I now sit very near them myself, which has 
 had the effect of preserving the most perfect decorum. 
 After the sermon in the morning they return home to 
 dinner, and meet at the schools at half-past one, and are 
 dismissed at five, with strict injunctions to observe a 
 quiet behaviour, free from all noise and clamour. Before 
 the business is begun in the morning, they all kneel down 
 while a prayer is read, and the same before dismission in 
 the evening. 
 
 "To those children who distinguish themselves as 
 examples of diligence, quietness in behaviour, observance 
 of order, kindness to their companions, &c., &c., I give 
 some little token of my regard, as a pair of shoes, if 
 they are barefooted, and some who are very bare of 
 
326 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 apparel I clothe. This I have been enabled to do, in 
 many instances, through the liberal support given me by 
 my brothers in the city. By these means I have acquired 
 considerable ascendance over the minds of the children. 
 Besides, I frequently go round to their habitations to 
 enquire into their behaviour at home and into the 
 conduct of the parents, to whom I give some little hints 
 now and then, as well as to the children. 
 
 "I was taking a woman to task one day, before her 
 husband, because the house was not so clean as it ought. 
 ' Troth, sir,' said the man, ' I wish you would come a 
 little oftener; we should be all the better.' The people 
 tell me they keep their children in more order by the 
 threat of telling Mr. R. than they could formerly by the 
 most severe stripes. 
 
 "It is that part of our Saviour's character which I 
 aim at imitating: 'He went about doing good.' No one 
 can form an idea what benefits he is capable of rendering 
 to the community by the condescension of visiting the 
 dwellings of the poor. You may remember the place 
 without the Southgate called Littleworth ; it used to be 
 the St. Giles of Gloucester. By going amongst the 
 people I have totally changed their manners. They 
 avow at this time that the place is quite a heaven to 
 what it used to be. Some of the vilest of the boys are 
 now so exemplary in behaviour, that I have taken one 
 into my own service. 
 
 " I mention this as an evidence of what may be done. 
 But I fear I am growing too prolix, and that I shall cause 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 327 
 
 you to repent the opening a correspondence with your old 
 acquaintance. 
 
 " I must now tell you that I am now blessed with six 
 excellent girls and two lovely boys. My eldest boy was 
 born the very day that I made public to the world the 
 scheme of Sunday schools in my paper of November 3rd, 
 1783. In four years' time it has extended so rapidly as 
 now to include 250,000 children ; it is increasing more 
 and more. It reminds me of the grain of mustard seed. 
 
 " Remember me in kindest terms to Mr. Harris, and 
 believe me, dear Madam, 
 
 " Both his and your most obedient Servant, 
 
 "R. Raikes." 
 
 B. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. — SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. 
 
 Mr. Raikes states that he was visited by members 
 of the French Academy, Paris ; but it does not appear 
 that Sunday schools were established as the result of that 
 visit. 
 
 M. le Pasteur Henry-Paumier, Societe des Ecoles du 
 Dimanche, Paris, in the course of a letter to the Author, 
 says : " Our Sunday school work here in France may be 
 said to be both very ancient and very new — very ancient, 
 for our French Reformers made it a point of duty for all 
 our churches to teach even the youngest children, and 
 elementary catechisms were established [sic] in the 
 
328 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 churches, the schools, and the famihes by order of the 
 Synods or ecclesiastical authorities ; very new, if you 
 look to the particular mode of teaching as it is now 
 arranged in Sunday schools (groups, teachers, &c.). 
 
 " The first school of the kind was created at Bordeaux 
 about the time of the restoration of the public worship, 
 both for the Catholic and the Protestant, by Napoleon I., 
 about the year 1800. The only thing that I have been 
 able to discover is from one of our members, belonging to 
 the Wesleyan Church, the fact that some English members 
 belonging to the Wesleyan denomination settled, he 
 thinks, in Paris about the year you mention (1790), and 
 may, perhaps, have written to Robert Raikes to help 
 them." 
 
 The Rev. Jean Paul Cook, son of the Dr. Cook whom 
 D'Aubigne called the "Wesley of France," in an inter- 
 view with Mr. Harris at St. Helier's, Jersey, said a Sunday 
 school was founded in Paris in 1815 by the Rev. Mr. 
 Martin. Mr. Jean Paul Cook was born in the South of 
 France, and took an active part in founding and organising 
 Sunday schools in the South of France, in Normandy, 
 and in Paris. He started and edited Les Magasin des 
 Ecoles du Dimanche and I'Evangdiste. At one time he 
 had a special mission to visit all the Protestant churches 
 in France. The mission occupied two years. He said 
 he travelled 12,000 miles, preached in 300 pulpits, and 
 organised or re-organised about 100 Sunday schools. All 
 his expenses were paid by Mr. Woodruffe, salt merchant, 
 Brooklyn, U.S., and a member of the New York Union. 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 329 
 
 He also said : " The influence of Sunday schools in 
 France is very small among us as a nation. Future 
 generations may feel the benefit of them. There are 
 no Sunday schools attached to the Roman Catholic 
 communion. As to political influence, Sunday schools 
 in France, possess none." 
 
 "THE SUNDAY SCHOLARS COMPANION. 
 
 This little book was printed by R. Raikes, and was 
 in use in 1785. The edition quoted in his volume was 
 published in 1794, and its full title is : " The Sunday 
 Scholar's Companion ; Consisting of Scripture Sentences, 
 disposed in such order, As will quickly ground Young 
 Learners in the Fundamental Doctrines of our most 
 Holy Religion ; And at the same time Lead them 
 Pleasantly on from Simple and Easy to Compound and 
 Difficult Words. Gloucester : Printed by R. Raikes ; 
 and sold by Messrs. Rivington, St. Paul's Churchyard, 
 and J. Evans, Paternoster Row, London; J. Washbourn, 
 Gloucester; and T. Stevens, Cirencester, mdccxciv." 
 
 This little book, admirably adapted for its purpose, 
 probably owes its origin to the Rev. C. Moore, Vicar 
 of Boughton Blaen, Kent, who, having formed the 
 nucleus of a Sunday school in 1785, " stuck a printed 
 
330 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 paper on the church doors and dispersed it about," 
 as follows : 
 
 " Sunday schools supported by voluntary subscriptions 
 in the parish of Boughton Blaen, in Kent, 1785 : 
 
 " The points aimed at in the introduction of Sunday 
 schools, are— to furnish opportunities of instruction to 
 the children of the poorer part of the parish, without 
 interfering with any industry of the week days ; and to inure 
 children to early habits of going to church, and of 
 spending the leisure hours on Sunday decently and 
 virtuously. 
 
 "The children are to be taught to read and to be 
 instructed in the plain duties of the Christian religion, 
 with a particular view to their good and industrious 
 behaviour in their future character of labourers and 
 servants. 
 
 "The extent of the plan must be guided by the 
 subscription that may be raised ; and all persons willing 
 to encourage the same, even by the smallest donations, 
 are desired to apply to the Rev. C. Moore, Vicar." 
 
 This very judicious notice was calculated to allay the 
 fear of parents that they might be robbed of the earnings 
 of their children ; and of employers, that education would 
 unfit children becoming labourers and servants in that 
 state of life to which it had pleased God to call them ! 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 331 
 
 D. 
 
 BREACHES OF PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The following is the full story told by the newspaper 
 reports of the day and the Journals of the House : — 
 
 March 28tk, 1722. — Robert Raikes, printer, at Glou- 
 cester, and J. Wilson, bookseller, at Bristol, attending 
 according to order, the former was called to the Bar of 
 the Commons, where he confessed the printing the 
 pamphlet above mentioned, and said he had his intelli- 
 gence relating to the proceedings of the House from 
 Edward Cave, of the Post Office, London, and that J. 
 Wilson was not concerned in the printing thereof. Then 
 he withdrew, and the Commons resolved that Robert 
 Raikes was guilty of a breach of the privilege of the 
 House, and ordered : (i) That the said Robert Raikes 
 be, for his said breach of privilege, taken into the custody 
 of the Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House ; (2) That 
 the said J. Wilson be discharged from his further attend- 
 ance upon the House; (3) That Edward Cave, of the 
 Post Office, London, do attend the House upon Saturday 
 next. 
 
 March ^oth. — Edward Cave attending according to 
 order, he was called in and examined at the Bar of the 
 House of Commons touching his sending to Robert 
 Raikes the intelligence before-mentioned. He owned 
 that he had sent him several written News Letters which 
 
332 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 he said he received from William Wye, John Stanley, 
 John Willys, and Elias Delpench, containing likewise 
 intelligence relating to the proceedings of the House. 
 Being withdrawn, the Journal of the 23rd of January, 
 1722, was read, upon which it was resolved that Edward 
 Cave having presumed to disperse written News Letters 
 containing accounts of the proceedings of the House is . 
 guilty of a breach of privilege of the House, and he 
 was ordered to be taken into custody of the Sergeant- 
 at-Arms. And William Wye, John Stanley, John Willys, 
 and Elias Delpench were ordered to attend the House on 
 the 2nd April. 
 
 April 2rd. — William Wye, John Stanley, John Willys, 
 and Elias Delpench attending at the door were severally 
 called in and examined. Whereupon it was resolved 
 that they were guilty of a breach of the privilege of the 
 House, and they were ordered to be taken into the custody 
 of the Sergeant-at-Arms. 
 
 April 8th. — Robert Raikes, printer at Gloucester, was 
 brought to the Bar of the House, where, upon his knees, 
 having received a reprimand from Mr. Speaker, he was 
 ordered to be discharged, paying his fees. 
 
 Upon the humble petition of John Stanley, William 
 Wye, Edward Cave, and Elias Delpench, the Commons 
 ordered that they be brought to the Bar on Wednesday 
 following, in order to be discharged. 
 
 April 10th.— ]ohn Stanley, William Wye, Edward 
 Cave, and Elias Delpench were brought to the Bar of the 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 333 
 
 Commons, where, having upon their knees, received a 
 reprimand from Mr. Speaker, they were ordered out of 
 custody, paying their fees. 
 
 After Mr. Raikes's second offence, in February, 1728 
 (when it was disclosed that Mr. Gythins was the sender 
 of the news letter), and after, on his petition, he was 
 excused attendance at Westminster, the following entry 
 appears in the Journal of the House of Commons : 
 
 "Resolved, nemine contradicente, That it is an indignity 
 to and a breach of the privilege of this House for any 
 persons to presume to give, in written or printed news- 
 papers, any account or minutes of the debates or other 
 proceedings of this House, or of any Committee thereof. 
 Resolved, nemine contradicente, That upon discovery of the 
 authors, printers, or publishers of any such written or 
 printed newspapers, this House will proceed against the 
 offenders with the utmost severity." 
 
 E. 
 
 A ROYAL ANECDOTE. 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine, 1788, contains the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 "A great female personage hearing lately that Mr. 
 Raikes, of Gloucester, was at Wmdsor on a visit to one 
 of his relations, sent for him to the Lodge, and expressed 
 a desire to know by what accident a thought which 
 
334 ROBERT RAIKES. 
 
 promised so much benefit to the lower order of the people, 
 as the institution of Sunday schools, was suggested to his 
 mind, and what effects were observed in consequence on 
 the manners of the poor. In the conversation, which 
 lasted more than an hour, her Majesty most graciously 
 said that she envied those who had the power of doing 
 good by thus personally promoting the welfare of society 
 in giving instruction and morality to the general mass of 
 the common people, a pleasure from which, by her 
 station, she was debarred. What a glorious sentiment is 
 this for a Queen ! Were this known among the ladies of 
 the British nation, it would serve to animate them with 
 zeal to follow the example which the Queen is desirous to 
 set before them." 
 
 SIR THOMAS B. THOMPSON. 
 
 Nelson's Despatches, vol. iii., p. 51, contains the follow- 
 ing, written by Captain Sir Edward Berry: "Captain 
 Thompson, of the Leander, of 50 guns, with a degree 
 of skill and intrepidity highly honourable to his profes- 
 sional character, advanced towards the enemy's line on 
 the outside, and most judiciously dropped his anchor 
 athwart the hawse of Le Franklin, raking her with great 
 success, the shot from the Leander's broadside, which 
 passed that ship, all striking L'Orient, the flagship of the 
 French Commander-in-Chief." 
 
THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 335 
 
 Again, p. 90, same vol. : " Captain Thomas Boulden 
 Thompson, of the Leander, distinguished himself by his 
 ' gallant and almost unprecedented defence of that ship 
 against Le Genereux, of 74 guns, on the i8th August, 
 1799,' when he was severely wounded and made 
 prisoner." 
 
 He was knighted in 1799 ; lost a leg in command of 
 the Bellona, 74, at Copenhagen, in 1801 ; was made a 
 baronet in December, 1806, a K.C.B. in 1815, and a 
 Knight Grand Cross in 1822. He died on the 3rd March, 
 1828, being then a Vice-Admiral of the Red and Treasurer 
 of Greenwich Hospital. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. 
 
Morhs of jfictlon be tbc BOitor. 
 
 Saint Pokth : The Wooing of Dolly Pentreath. 
 A Cornish Idyl. 
 
 Esther's Pilgrimage: Old Notes on New Strings. 
 A Devon Idyl. 
 
 Faith : A Story of Saint Porth. (Just fvblished.) 
 Studies in the Spiritual Life. 
 
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