Extract from Robert K Dent
OLD AND NEW, BIRMINGHAM.
[The Charities of Birmingham.1879
In the year 1724 was erected, on the eastern side of the pleasant churchyard surrounding St. Philip's, the Blue Coat Charity School. The object of this excellent institution was to afford orphans, and the children of the poor, clothing, maintenance, a good elementary education, and religious instruction according to the principles of the Church of England. When first erected, as will be seen from Westley's Prospect of St. Philip's, it was but a small, plain and unpretend­ing building, compared with that of the present day. It was greatly enlarged and improved in 1794, (at an expense of £2,800), when the present stone front was added, but the northern angle did not receive its present stone facing until a later date. Although not pretending to any great degree of beauty, the building, says Mr. .Bates, "is remarkable for chasteness of style and pro­priety of arrangement; " and when seen from the churchyard, with an intervening screen of foliage, it is by no means out of harmony with its present surroundings. The only ornaments are two stone figures placed over the main entrance, of a boy and girl, " habited in the quaint costume of the school." These figures were executed in 1770 by Mr. Edward Grubb, (at that time a resident of this town*), the cost being defrayed by a volun­tary subscription. Of these works of a local sculptor, Hutton says "they are executed with a degree of excellence that a Roman statuary would not have blushed to own."
" This artificial family," says our historian, " consists of about two hundred scholars of both sexes, over which preside a governor and gover­ness, both single. Behind the apartments is a large area, appropriate for the amusement of the infant race, necessary as their food. Great de­corum is preserved in this little society, who are supported by annual contribution, and by collec­tions made after sermons twice a year.
" At fourteen, the children are removed into the commercial world, and often acquire an affluence that enables them to support that foundation which formerly supported them."
The children, (as indicated by the name of the institution), are clothed uniformly in blue; the dress of the boys recalling the prevailing costume of a century ago; their swallow-tailed coats, muffin caps, knee-breeches, and blue stockings, presenting an exceedingly quaint, old-world figure in the thronged streets of modern Birmingham. About twenty of the children are supported by a bequest made in 1690, by George Fentham, a mercer of the town. These are distinguished from the rest by being clothed in green instead of blue. The present annual income is. about £5,000.
" It is worthy of remark," says Hutton, " that those institutions which are immediately upheld by the temporary hand of the giver flourish in continual spring, and become real benefits to society; while those which enjoy a perpetual income, are often tinctured with supineness and dwindle into obscurity.