Erected by Friends
As A Memorial of their Esteem and Respect
FOR
JOHN POUNDS;
Who, while Earning his Livelihood
By Mending Shoes, Gratuitously Educated
and, in part, Clothed and Fed,
Some Hundreds of Poor Children.
He Died Suddenly
On the First of January 1839,
Aged 72 Years.
“Thou Shalt be Blessed:—For they cannot
Recompense Thee.”
Over the grave a monument was erected, the cost of which was defrayed, as the inscription states, “By means of penny subscriptions, not only from the Christian Brotherhood with whom John Pounds habitually worshipped in the adjoining chapel, but from persons of widely differing religious opinions throughout Great Britain, and from the most distant parts of the world.” Another memento took the form of a library for the use of the poor people of the neighborhood in which the philanthropic shoemaker lived and labored. A Ragged School has also been built which bears his name, and in which the good work he inaugurated in Plymouth is now carried on. In 1879 the “John Pounds Coffee Tavern” was opened. Happy are they who can say with Lord Shaftesbury, in the closing words of his speech at the opening of this institution—
“I am a Disciple of John Pounds.”
[CHAPTER IX.]
THOMAS COOPER
