People

John Pounds

Tags: 1766, Dockyard, Highbury Street

John Pounds (1766-1839) was the inspiration of the ragged schools movement.

Pounds was apprenticed in the dockyard, but was crippled in an accident and forced to earn a meagre living as a cobbler. There was then little schooling for the children of the poor, so he began teaching street urchins the three R’s as he worked. By his death he had taught hundreds. His small shop, with a living-room-cum-bedroom above, stood in Highbury Street.