UCL BLOOMSBURY PROJECT

History

It was not an educational establishment, but a charity established in 1842 to prepare young girls for domestic service

In 1850 applications were to be sent to Hon. Mrs Baptist Noel or Hon. Mrs Arthur Kinnaird, with Hon. Arthur Kinnaird as Secretary (Sampson Low, The Charities of London, 1850)

These were the spouses of two men active in Bloomsbury’s charitable endeavours, Rev. Baptist Wriothesley Noel and Hon. Arthur Kinnaird

It apparently had a good reputation, with about 130 girls being trained at any one time, and a waiting list (Sunday School Teachers’ Magazine and Journal of Education, 4th series, vol. 2 (1851)

Of these, 100 were in Bloomsbury, with the other 30 being at a branch opened later in Brighton to allow the children to benefit from the sea air (Thomas Henry Baylis, The Rights, Duties, and Relations of Domestic Servants, their Masters and Mistresses, with a Short Account of Servants’ Institutions and their Advantages, 1857)

The 1851 census shows the premises occupied by Thomas Saxby, joiner and undertaker, with his wife as Matron of the school, along with three teachers and 98 girls ranging in age from 3 to 16

The novelist Elizabeth Rundle Charles, who lived in nearby Tavistock Square (and whose husband Andrew ran a Ragged Sunday School there) taught at the school in the 1850s (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography); according to her autobiography, she gave Bible lessons on Sundays (Elizabeth Rundle Charles, Our Seven Homes: Autobiographical Reminiscences of Mrs Rundle Charles, 1896)

The children (some of whom were younger than six) carried out all the housework in the house themselves, and made their own clothes; they were also taught reading, writing, and arithmetic (Thomas Henry Baylis, The Rights, Duties, and Relations of Domestic Servants, their Masters and Mistresses, with a Short Account of Servants’ Institutions and their Advantages, 1857)

Medical advice was provided free to the children, as were seats in church (Thomas Henry Baylis, The Rights, Duties, and Relations of Domestic Servants, their Masters and Mistresses, with a Short Account of Servants’ Institutions and their Advantages, 1857)

It no longer exists