ALLATT’S CHARITY SCHOOL,
erected in 1800, pursuant to the will of Mr. John Allatt, thirty-eight years chamberlain of the Corporation, who died 2nd November, 1796, and bequeathed his property for the education and clothing of the children of the more respectable classes of poor persons resident in the town, and for providing coats and gowns for a considerable number of indigent men and women. The structure is of freestone, plain but elegant, and comprises commodious houses for the schoolmaster and mistress, connected by arcades with spacious school-rooms.
The interest of the money unexpended in the building of the schools is applied to the maintenance of a master and mistress, who instruct twenty boys, and the same number of girls, in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the girls in sewing. They are clothed once a year, and at a proper age apprenticed. Twenty coats and eighty stuff gowns are also annually distributed to the poor.