Burlington Knitting School

The Burlington Knitting School has long since vanished from the side of the Bayle Gate, in Bridlington’s Old Town. Founded in 1670 by Mr William Bower, the school’s income was derived from a small farm at Birdsall, left in his will as a perpetual endowment.

Mr Bower’s headstone reads: “Here lieth the body of William Bower of Bridlington Key [Quay], Merchant, departed life on 23rd March 1671, in the 74th year of his age. He did in his lifetime erect at his own charge in Bridlington a school-house and gave £20 per annum for ever in maintaining and educating of the poor children of Bridlington and Key in the Art of Carding, Spinning and Knitting of Wool.” The headstone can still be seen in Priory Church.

The school was a low, brick building, having a central door and two small windows. It stood “in the Church Green at the north-east corner of the Bayle Gate, facing east, a low one-storied building with no special architectural features.

The knitting school closed after the introduction of the Education Act in 1870, but revenue from Mr Bower’s farm went towards the building of Burlington School on Marton Road, where young people of Bridlington are still educated.

A fuller history of the knitting school can be found in the Journal of the Bridlington Augustinian Society No.3 of January 1926, owned by Bridlington writer Mike Wilson, author of this article.
 

Mike Wilson