page_title: Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Chapel of the Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool 1829
context_page_description: The Royal School for the Blind in Liverpool, England, is the oldest specialist school of its kind in the UK, having been founded in 1791. Only the Paris school is older, but the Royal School for the Blind is the oldest school in the world in continuous operation, and the first in the world founded by a blind person, Edward Rushton, who was also an anti-slavery campaigner. It was also the first school in the world to offer education and training to blind adults as well as children.
context_section_description: The first building to be used by the school was quite unsuitable. Situated at 6 Commutation Row, Liverpool, opposite the potteries of Shaw's Brow (now William Brown Street), two houses recently erected were rented by the charity for the sole use of the school.  They were much too small and by 1800 enough money had been raised to erect a purpose built school nearby on the site later occupied by the Odeon cinema on London Road. Designed by John Foster junior (later Architect & Surveyor to Liverpool Corporation) the school was now well and truly established and would stay on this site for the next 50 years.
  In 1806 during a royal visit to Liverpool by the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), the royal entourage visited the School for the Blind, where they met pupils and inspected some of the manufactured goods on show.  After being entertained by the choir of the school singing the 'Halleluiah Chorus', the Prince ordered 10 guineas to be distributed among the pupils and bestowed 100 guineas on the school as well as his royal patronage which has continued unbroken to the present day.
  The gift was a great boost to the Institution which was raising funds to extend the site.  Architect John Foster was again engaged, and land to the rear of the building was secured and building began on new facilities in 1807.  Completed in 1812, 53 males and 18 females moved into the buildings which were now fully residential, with work rooms, technical facilities and music rooms.  The mission of the school guardians was that the institution would be 'less of an asylum, where the ease a comfort of the blind were principally considered, and more approaching a school, where pupils could be instructed in some useful art or trade, by which they might be enabled to procure for themselves a comfortable livelihood.'
  In 1819 a chapel was opened by the school on adjoining land, with a connecting tunnel for the pupils to avoid the road and traffic above.  John Foster was asked to draw up plans and being fresh from a tour of Greece and the islands, the classical influence was captured in the Doric frontage to the building.  This influence would be carried over into other local building during his career as the city architect.
  As Lime Street Station began to expand at the height of 'Railway Mania', pressure was being brought to bear on the owners of local properties and the school guardians began to make plans to move once more. The L.N.W.R. agreed in 1849 to exchange land they held in Hope Street and Hardman Street, plus the sum of £9,500 for the entire estate adjoining Lime Street Station owned by the school. A further £2,000 was given to the school for the chapel and its removal.  This was to entail the transfer of the chapel to the new site on the corner block of Hope Street and Hardman Street where it was re-erected in its entirety, apart from its front steps, the local council refusing to grant the necessary space.  The new school building, designed by Arthur Hill Holme, and erected alongside the chapel facing Hardman Street, opened in 1851, with eighty-five pupils.
  With the passing of the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act in 1893, the Hardman Street School could not provide the required facilities laid down by the new legislation.  Thanks to Mary Louisa Hornby, who was a major benefactor, Wavertree Hall was purchased in Church Road, Wavertree,  the original hall demolished and the new school opened in November 1898. Taking in children from the age of five to sixteen, they would then be transferred to the Hardman Street School for technical training.
caption: Chapel of the Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool 1829
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