Edward Pickard (3 December 1714 - 10 February 1778) was an English dissenting minister who founded the Orphan Working School in 1758. The Orphan school would eventually become a school in

Reigate Reigate ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, around south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as ''Cherchefelle'' and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earliest archaeological evidence for huma ...

in Surrey. He also led a group who tried to change the law restricting the rights of dissenting ministers.

Biography

Pickard was born in

Alcester Alcester () is a market town and civil parish of Roman origin at the junction of the River Alne and River Arrow in the Stratford-on-Avon District in Warwickshire, England, approximately west of Stratford-upon-Avon, and 7 miles south of Reddit ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

in 1714. He attended a number of dissenting schools before taking up with a congregation. However his views changed through

Calvinism Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

to Arianism and he moved on through a number of churches before coming to London as an afternoon preacher. In 1758 he was working as an assistant to Thomas Newman at the Presbyterian meeting in Carter Lane. Whilst there he was the leading light of fourteen people who met and founded the Orphan Working School.John Stephens, ‘Pickard, Edward (1714–1778)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 18 Feb 2010
/ref> In the following year, Newman died and he took over the congregation. Between 1772 and 1774, Pickard gathered together the dissenting ministers in order that the terms of the 1689 Toleration Act for dissenting clergy could be modified. Under his leadership parliament twice considered a bill to modify the law. Both were unsuccessful and it was not until Pickard and many had lost interest that a new attempt was made in 1779. Pickard died of a fever in 1778, outliving Frances Sanderson, his wife. His orphan school went on under the guidance of

Joseph Soul Joseph Soul (1805–1881) was a nineteenth-century British reformer who worked for 36 years to assist the plight of orphaned children in London and in support of the abolition of slavery. He worked at the Orphan Working School in Hampstead and found ...

to arrive in the twentieth century where it was transformed into an orphanage for the poor into

The Royal Alexandra and Albert School The Royal Alexandra and Albert School is an all-through co-educational boarding school near Reigate, Surrey. The headmaster as of 2022 is Morgan Thomas. The Royal Alexandra and Albert School Act, of 1949, united The Royal Alexandra School, whi ...

, a boarding school in Surrey.Founders day speech

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickard, Edward People from Warwickshire 1714 births 1778 deaths English Dissenters Founders of English schools and colleges Burials at Bunhill Fields 18th-century philanthropists