Old Benny and The Orphans School

It is not easy for us to imagine a time when the children of the poor were not educated but, as we have seen with the story of John Pounds, it was left to the charity of individuals to start the first schools. There is no better example of this than the Portsea Beneficial School. On the night of the 9 December 1754, eight men met at a public house called "Shakespear Head", named after the owner John Shakespear who was one of the eight. They drew up a "Rules and Articles" agreement, under which they formed a "Beneficial Society". Four stewards were appointed who collected a shilling each month from members which was kept in a chest with five locks! This money was then used for paying sick, funeral and widow benefits. The following year, six members, chosen by a lottery, were each allowed to chose a boy (sorry, ladies!) to have free education from a local schoolteacher. This was soon increased to 12 and then to 18. In 1780, a Mr Edward Craft left money "for the schooling of as many boys as the interest will allow to read, write and Arithmetick (sic) to fit them for Trades and my Will is that these Boys be first chosen from poor Widows children And if not enough of them then to be filled up with poor Artificers Children all to be of the parish of Portsea". So started "Old Benny". The first school was in Old Rope Walk, Portsea which is now Kent Street. Astonishingly, by 1837 the school had 280 boys and (wait for it, ladies!) 136 girls. The small teaching staff adopted something called the "Madras" system, so called because it was first used in India, whereby older children were taught and then passed on their knowledge to younger children. Nowadays, we call it cascade training and it is widely used by large organisations. However the Madras system only lasted a few years. "Old Benny" prospered for many years. Perhaps its most famous pupil became Sir Henry Ayres, KC. MG., one time Premier of Australia, after whom Ayres Rock is named. I wonder whether Mike and Marian Dodsworth have seen it on their annual travels in that great country, or indeed Canon Derek Brown or Molly Griffiths, who both lived in Australia for several years? The Beneficial Society, recognising that there was no place for "Old Benny" in the new State education scheme, closed down in 1933, with the school itself closing in 1938. Another remarkable school opened in St George's Square in 1834 with just 27 children. Ten years later, this had increased to 312 children and the school had moved twice into larger premises, first to Lion Terrace and then to St Michael's Road. This was the Royal Seamen and Marines Orphan Home and (take note ladies) it started as a home for orphan girls, with boys only attending daily. The children were fed, clothed and educated and the school prospered until the 1894 Education Act, when it closed to the boys. Other schools which made an important contribution to educating the poor in Portsea were the Seamen, Marines' and Fishermen's School in Ordnance Row and the Union Schools, founded in 1846 under the Poor Law for inmates of workhouses. When we hear criticism of schools today, it does no harm to consider how far we have come since those eight men had their fateful meeting in that public house