Records of Katherine Bayley's Charity School

PA180

Records of Katherine Bayley's Charity School

18th - 19th Centuries

Dying on 20th. Feb., 1730 aged 52, Katherine Bayley had provided under her 20th. Nov., 1723 will that the £600 residue of her estate be devoted to the education of children in reading, writing and accounting. Her executor Francis Blythe established a school in 1733, which by 16th. May, 1735 had four trustees, with property initially worth £24 p.a. plus £340 from personal estate. Eight children of either sex were at first admitted but soon 20 boys only were preferred. The school was opened in a house near Drapers' Hall under its first headmaster, Joseph Plant, who held the post from 1733 to 1773; in the time of Francis Marson (headmaster, 1807-1842) the school moved to its foundress's Little Park St. home, where it remained until closure on the retirement of William George Fretton (headmaster, 1856-89). By the early nineteenth century the Frettonian pattern of admitting 10-11 year-olds for three years (who already had a modicum of literacy) obtained, but J.H. Fretton (headmaster, 1842-56) had to revise the school; his system was the basis for his son's introduction of peripheral subjects, such as music and drawing. An annual sermon in aid of the foundation began in 1742. The system of placing boys apprentice with £3 from charity funds was operating during the late eighteenth century (see 382/13, 15, 16), and the school was technically among the city's best a century later. The school's principal benefactors and their donations were as follows: John Lowke (1772, £200), Thomas Cleeve (1778, £50), William Edwards (1792, £300), the Prince of Wales and Duke of Sussex (1807, £36/15/-), Richard Burgh (1815, £500), Mrs. Haycock (1828, 19 gns.), Sir Skears Rew (1828, £89/10/-), Mr. Ford of Leicester (1853, £100), R.S. Cox (1854, £1000), Mrs. Simpson (1856, £50), and Mr. Knibb (1861, £22/10/-). A deposit of material relating to the school has been catalogued (accession 368) and there are other items at accessions 101/147/13-37, 426, 431 and 723. By the will of her father (made 31st. Mar., 1695 and proved 11th. July, 1717) Catherine Bayley received a £3000 portion at £5% p.a. interest and £50 from him for mourning clothes (see 371/6). There are documents concerned with this prosperous family in the Seymour Smith collection (accession 101/5 passim) - see 101/11/111-113 for the school's benefit under Samuel Vale's 1848-66 draft wills. Thomas Timerick was apprenticed from the school to William Cole jun. (of Radford, weaver) in 1838 (see 98/2). 158/2 fols. 9-11 relate to an 1850 apprenticeship from the school. Accessions 180, 368, 426, 431, 723, 767 comprise school records.

This accession was previously numbered 1951/49.

English

128 bundles

Presented by Mrs. M.B. Fretton, Coventry via the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, 17th. Dec., 1951.