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Robert Raikes ("the Younger") (14 September 1736 – 5 April 1811) was an English philanthropist and
Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
layman. He was educated at The Crypt School Gloucester. He was noted for his promotion of
Sunday school A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West. S ...
s.


Family

Raikes was born at Ladybellegate House,
Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of the ...
, in 1736, the eldest child of Mary Drew and
Robert Raikes Robert Raikes ("the Younger") (14 September 1736 – 5 April 1811) was an English philanthropist and Anglican layman. He was educated at The Crypt School Gloucester. He was noted for his promotion of Sunday schools. Family Raikes was born at ...
, a newspaper publisher. He was baptised on 24 September 1736 at
St Mary de Crypt Church St Mary de Crypt Church, Southgate Street, Gloucester GL1, is an AnglicanSt Mary de ...
in Gloucester. On 23 December 1767 he married Anne Trigge, with whom he had three sons and seven daughters: their oldest son, the Rev. Robert Napier Raikes, was the father of General Robert Napier Raikes of the
Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...
, while another son, William Henley Raikes, was a colonel in the
Coldstream Guards The Coldstream Guards is the oldest continuously serving regular regiment in the British Army. As part of the Household Division, one of its principal roles is the protection of the monarchy; due to this, it often participates in state ceremonia ...
and fought for the British in the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
. Raikes's great-granddaughter Caroline Alice Roberts (1848–1920) was a fiction writer who married the composer Sir
Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
.


Sunday schools

Robert was a pioneer of the Sunday school movement, although he did not start the first Sunday School. Some already existed such as that founded by Hannah Ball in High Wycombe, or the one founded in 1751 in
St. Mary's Church, Nottingham The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the oldest parish churchDomesday Book: A Complete Translation (Penguin Classics) of Nottingham, in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest church after the Cathedral in the city of Nottingham. The church ...
which is the first documented known case. He inherited a publishing business from his father, becoming proprietor of the '' Gloucester Journal'' in 1757. He then moved the business into Robert Raikes' House in 1758. The movement started with a school for boys in the slums. Raikes had become interested in prison reform, specifically with the conditions in Gloucester gaol and saw that vice would be better prevented than cured. He saw schooling as the best intervention. The best available time was Sunday as the boys were often working in the factories the other six days. The best available teachers were lay people. The textbook was the Bible, and the originally intended curriculum started with learning to read and then progressed to the
catechism A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult c ...
. Raikes used the paper to publicise the schools and bore most of the cost in the early years. The movement began in July 1780 in the home of a Mrs Meredith. Only boys attended, and she heard the lessons of the older boys who coached the younger. Later, girls also attended. Within two years, several schools opened in and around Gloucester. He published an account on 3 November 1783 of Sunday schools in his paper, and later word of the work spread through the ''
Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term ''magazine'' (from the French ''magazine'' ...
'', and in 1784, a letter to the ''
Arminian Magazine The ''Wesleyan Methodist Magazine'' was a monthly Methodist magazine published between 1778 and 1969. Founded by John Wesley as the ''Arminian Magazine'', it was retitled the ''Methodist Magazine'' in 1798 and as the ''Wesleyan Methodist Magazi ...
''. The original schedule for the schools, as written by Raikes was ''"The children were to come after ten in the morning, and stay till twelve; they were then to go home and return at one; and after reading a lesson, they were to be conducted to Church. After Church, they were to be employed in repeating the catechism till after five, and then dismissed, with an injunction to go home without making a noise."'' There were disputes about the movement in the early years. The schools were derisively called ''"Raikes' Ragged School"''. Criticisms raised included that it would weaken home-based religious education, that it might be a desecration of the
Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...
, and that Christians should not be employed on the Sabbath. Some leading ecclesiastics—among them Bishop
Samuel Horsley Samuel Horsley (15 September 1733 – 4 October 1806) was a British churchman, bishop of Rochester from 1793. He was also well versed in physics and mathematics, on which he wrote a number of papers and thus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Soc ...
—opposed them on the grounds that they might become subservient to purposes of political propagandism. "Sabbatarian disputes" in the 1790s led many Sunday schools to cease their teaching of writing. Notwithstanding all this,
Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——� ...
gave the movement his strongest commendation: ''"No plan has promised to effect a change of manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the Apostles."'' Despite the controversy, the Sunday Schools grew at a phenomenal rate. By 1788 there were 300,000 children attached to local Sunday Schools. By 1831, Sunday schools in Great Britain were teaching weekly 1,250,000 children, approximately 25 percent of the population. By 1910 there were over 5,500,000 in Sunday Schools throughout the UK. As these schools preceded the first state funding of schools for the general public, they are seen as the forerunners of the current English school system.


References and sources

;References ;Sources * Anita McCONNELL, 'Raikes, Robert (1736–1811)' in ''
ODNB The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'',
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, 200

* Alfred GREGORY, ''Robert Raikes, Journalist and Philanthropist, A history of the origin of Sunday Schools'' published by Hodder and Stoughton, 1800s but undated. * J. M. HARRIS, ''Robert Raikes, the man and his works.'' * Frank BOOTH, ''Robert Raikes of Gloucester'' published 1980. *


Further reading

* Rogers, M. '' Ladybellegate House, Gloucester and Robert Raikes''. Gloucester: Gloucestershire Record Office, 1975.


External links


A Good Man's Miracle

Robert Raikes' House, Gloucester

Robert Raikes' statue Savoy Gardens, London
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raikes, Robert 1736 births 1811 deaths Evangelical Anglicans English evangelicals English philanthropists People from Gloucester People educated at The Crypt School, Gloucester History of Gloucester Raikes family 18th-century Protestants