[Children at the Ipswich Ragged School]
Richard Dykes Alexander British
Not on view
The motley crew of children pictured here brings to mind Charles Dickens’ description of a similar class he visited in 1846—“a fluctuating swarm of faces young in years but youthful in nothing else.” Such children, victims of poverty and often-truant parents, were wards of “Ragged Schools,” so called because of the students’ shabby, tattered clothing. The school in Ipswich, co-founded by the photographer Richard Dykes Alexander, was a part of Victorian charitable movements aimed at disadvantaged children. Alexander, a member of a wealthy banking family, was a noted philanthropist and abolitionist; he also founded a hospital and temperance hall.
