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Ragged schools is a name given to the 19th century charity schools in the United Kingdom which provided education and, in most cases, food, clothing, and lodging for destitute children. They received no government support.

The movement had its beginning in the magnanimous efforts of John Pounds (d. 1839), a disabled shoemaker of Portsmouth, but the zeal and eloquence of Thomas Guthrie greatly furthered the development and spread of these schools throughout the United Kingdom.

The Ragged Schools were charitable schools dedicated to the free education of destitute children. The movement started in Scotland in 1841, when Sheriff Watson established the Aberdeen Ragged School, initially for boys only; a similar school for girls opened in 1843, and a mixed school in 1845. From here the movement spread to Dundee and other parts of Scotland, mostly due to the work of the Rev Guthrie.

The movement spread to England. In 1844 the "London Ragged School Union" was established under the chairmanship of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury to bring together the various ragged schools in the capital. Cooper was president for 39 years, in which time an estimated 300,000 destitute children received education. At the zenith of the movement, there were 192 Schools, with an average attendance of 20,000 pupils.

It was Charles Dickens' visit to the Field Lane Ragged school in 1843 which eventually inspired him to write A Christmas Carol. Appalled by what he saw there, he first intended on writing a pamphlet highlighting the plight of the children of the poor. Instead, he wrote A Christmas Carol, realising more people would take note of the terrible conditions suffered by the poor, if it was highlighted in a story.

As well as giving very elementary education, the Ragged Schools engaged in a wide variety of social welfare activities such as running Penny Banks, Clothing Clubs, Bands of Hope, and Soup Kitchens. However, despite their alternate name of Industrial Feeder Schools, only three Ragged Schools gave trade instruction, the only form of education for which Government grants were available. With the advent of the board schools as a consequence of An Act to provide for Elementary Education in England and Wales (9 August 1870), the curricula of which did qualify for such grants, the number of pupils at Ragged Schools gradually declined.

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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.