Robert Raikes - Addison's Folly, Greyfriars Street, Gloucester, UK
N 51° 51.835 W 002° 14.784
30U E 551891 N 5746171
This building is tucked away to the east of St Mary de Crypt church on the north side of Greyfriars Street in a small garden area. A plaque on the wall of the building explains why it was built and to whom.
Waymark Code: WMKDV0
Location: Southern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/27/2014
Views: 4
The inscription, on the metal plaque, reads:
Addison's Folly
Was built in 1864 by Thomas Fenn Addison in memory of Robert Raikes (1736 - 1811) who, together with Thomas Stock (both pioneers of the Sunday School movement) in 1780 started a Sunday School to teach poor children to read.
The folly is Grade II listed with the entry at the English Heritage website telling us:
The surviving portion of a former house on the south side of the former Bell Lane, now offices. 1864, later alterations. For TF Addison, a lawyer. Ashlar, dressed stone in courses, and rubble rendered in part; some of the masonry probably medieval and from demolished parts of the Franciscan Friary (Greyfriars) (qv), slate roof. An east-west, gabled range, formerly a wing at the rear of house, with the tower attached on the south side at the west end built as a feature within the former back garden of the house.
EXTERIOR: tower of three tall storeys, range of three storeys; the tower at first-floor level on the west and south sides has a raised band, and on all sides a crowning cornice and crenellated parapet with weathered coping; on the west side the entrance doorway in doorcase with pilasters and entablature, on the south side to right on the ground floor a snall square sash, above on the second floor a tall sash, both in openings with flat arched heads with key stones, on the third floor in each face a tall, semicircular arched sash; all in similar openings with plain architraves, raised keystones in the arches and projecting sills on moulded end-brackets. The adjioning range at its east end has a stone-coped, open pedimental gable with moulded verges; on the ground floor a doorway with C20 French doors, on the first floor a tripartite sash, and on the third floor extending into the gable a similar but taller tripartite sash; on the south side on the ground floor two sashes and on the first floor to right a sash.
INTERIOR: not inspected.
HISTORY: plaque attached to west wall is inscribed: "ADDISON'S FOLLY was built in 1864 by Thomas Fenn Addison in memory of Robert Raikes who, together with Thomas Stock (both pioneers of the Sunday School Movement), in 1780 started a Sunday School to teach poor children to read".
The Spartacus Educational website tells us about Robert Raikes:
Robert Raikes was born in Gloucester on 14th September, 1735. His father was the owner of the Gloucester Journal and on his death in 1757, Robert took over the running of the newspaper. Raikes held liberal views and used his newspaper to campaign for prison reform and working class education.
In July 1780 Raikes and a local curate, Thomas Stock, decided to start a Sunday School at St. Mary le Crypt Church in Gloucester. It is claimed that Raikes got the idea when a group of rowdy children were making so much noise outside his office he could not concentrate on his work. Every Sunday the two men gave lessons in reading and writing. Raikes was not the first person to organize a school in a church but by giving it maximum publicity in the Gloucester Journal, he was able to spread his ideas to others.
The bishops of Chester and Salisbury gave support to Raikes and in 1875 a London Society for the Establishment of Sunday Schools was established. In July 1784 John Wesley recorded in his journal that Sunday Schools were "springing up everywhere". Two years later it was claimed by Samuel Glasse that there were over 200,000 children in England attending Sunday schools.
Robert Raikes retired from the Gloucester Journal in 1802. He died on 5th April 1811 and was buried in the church of St. Mary le Crypt.