In transcribing the following passage from the Internet Archive online version I have expanded abbreviations and added paragraphing, links, and illustrations. — George P. Landow
Leeds Grammar School, with its chapel to the left. E. M. Barry. School: 1858-59; Chapel: 1862-63. 1875-80.
The Grammar school was founded in 1552, by Sir William Sheafield; has £1,675 a-year from endowment, and a title to compete for an exhibition at Oxford, and for four scholarships at Cambridge; had Archbishop Pullen for a master, and the antiquary Thoresby, the physician Berkenhout, Dean Milner, Bishop Wilson, and Judge Kerrison for pupils; stood originally in North-street.
The Grammar Schoool was rebuilt in 1859, at St John's hill, near Woodhouse-moor, at a cost of £3,000 for the site, and upwards of £11,000 for the structure; occupies an area of 8 acres; is in the decorated English style, in the form of a Latin cross, with pinnacles, dormer windows, and lofty ventilating turrets; includes a handsome chapel, erected in 1863, at a cost of about £3,000; and can accommodate 400 scholars.
The Industrial school, in Burmantofts, was built in 1848, at a cost of £16,000; stands on an elevated plot of 6 acres; is in the Tudor style, with a frontage of 276 feet, above a spacious terrace; consists of centre and wings, with.eight octagonal turrets at the angles; trains boys for a trade, and girls for domestic work; and has accommodation for 160 boys, 160 girls, and 80 infants. St John’s charity school was founded in 1750, by subscription, for educating and maintaining 40 poor children; was changed, in 1815, into an institution for educating, clothing, and industrially training 80 girls; and has an endowed income of about £400. The total number of public schools, within the town and its immediate suburbs, in 1866, was upwards of fifty; and nine of them were endowed, and many of them national The schools within the borough or parish, at the census of 1851, were 76 public day schools, with 13,176 scholars; 295 private day schools, with 8,658 a; and 147 Sunday schools, with 28,761 s.
The Philosophical and Literary Society was established in 1819; supports lectures and publishes transactions on all kinds of scientific subjects; and has an elegant hall in Bond-street, erected in 1819 at a cost of £7,000, enlarged and remodelled in 1862 at a further cost of more than £11,500, and containing a commodious lecture-room, a council-room, a library, and a very valuable museum. A new Wesleyan college, in the early Gothic style, with a clock-tower, was erected on Headinglev-hilL in 1861-8, at a cost of about £12,000. The Mechanics’Institution possesses all the appliances of the best institutions of its class; has connexion with a school of art; and now carries on its operations in a splendid building, opened in 1868, in Cookridge-street This building cast £20,000; is in the Florentine style, two stories high, with lofty entablature; has a lofty arched entrance, flanked by four carvatic female figures, and surmounted by a pediment filled with sculpture; and contains a circular lecture-hall, with accommodation for about 2,000 persons, a newsroom, a library, a picture gallery, ana a dome-shaped observatory.
Church Institute, corner of Albion Place and Lands Lane. Adams (Richard Life Adams, 1840-1883) & Kelly (John Kelly, 1840-1904). 1866-68.
The school of art was previously very ill accommodated; yet had 5,936 pupils in 1864, and 7,430 in 1865. The school of medicine has long had a high character as an extra-academical place of instruction; maintains courses of lectures, both in winter and in summer, on all the branches of medical science; and has a new and convenient building, in the Italian pointed style, erected in 1865, after designs by Corson. The Leeds library, in Commercial-street, was founded in 1768, by Dr. Priestley; is very extensive; and is kept in a room which cost £5,000. The Church institute is now located in an elegant building, opened in 1868, has an excellent library, and maintains classes. There are also other public libraries, a Young Men’s Christian association, a Catholic literary institution, four suburban mechanics’ institutes, two working men’s institutes, and very many mutual improvement, benevolent, and Christian societies.
Left: Leeds General Infirmary. Sir George Gilbert Scott. 1863-69.
The Leeds infirmary, in Wellington and King streets, was built in 1768-71; was a spacious but plain edifice of red brick with stone facings, in the Roman style; stood on a plot of 4,000 square yards, enclosed by a palisadoed wall; had accommoaation for upwards of 150 patients: was pronounced by Howard, in 1788, to be one of the best regulated hospitals in the kingdom; gave relief, for many years, to about 1,600 in-patients, and 3,000 outpatients annually; was eventually found to be much too limited for the demands made upon it; and has been superseded by a very spacious and very handsome structure, near St. George’s church, in the secular Gothic style, after designs by G. G. Scott, at a cost of £100,000, containing accommodation for 300 in=-patients, and opened in 1868 by the Prince of Wales. The House of Recovery, for fever patients, stands at Burmantofts; on an elevated site, within an enclosure, laid out as gardens; succeeded a building of 1803, in Yicar-lane; was itself erected in 1846, at a cost of about £6,000; contains accommodation for about 100 patients, and is conducted on a system of daily payment.
The public dispensary, in North-street, was established in 1824; is conducted on the system of visiting the poor in their own homes; and has now a new building, erected in 1865-6,-after designs by Mr. Hill, at a cost of £5,000.—There are also a lying-in hospital, an eye and ear infirmary, a women and children’s hospital, a sanitary association, an institution for the deaf and dumb, a guardian asylum and penitentiary, a temperance lecture hall, and some other institutions of kindred character. Harrison’s alms-houses were founded in 1653, serve for 64 persons, and have an endowed income of £860. Potter’s hospital was founded for 10 poor widows, and has an endowed income of £160, Jenkinson’s alms-houses were founded in 1643, and have * an endowed income of £37. The total amount of endowed charities is £5,196.
Wilson, John M. (John Marius). The imperial gazetteer of England and Wales: embracing recent changes in counties, dioceses, parishes, and boroughs: general statistics: postal arrangements: railway systems, &c.; and forming a complete description of the country. 8 vols. Edinburgh: A. Fullarton, 1870.Internet Archive online version of a copy in the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Web. 17 September 2022.
Last modified 16 September 2022