Laura M. Mair is a Research Fellow at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, UK. She has published on the ragged schools in the Journal of Victorian Culture and Studies in Church History. Mair was a consultant to the V&A Museum of Childhood in connection with the 'On Their Own: Britain’s Child Migrants' exhibition. She is currently an advisor to London’s Ragged School Museum.

• Introduction 1 ‘The Glory of God for its End’: The Ragged School Movement 2 ‘A Real Specimen of the Street Arab’: Constructing the Ragged Child 3 ‘Having a Lark’: Children and Teachers in the Classroom 4 ‘But I Like the Boy’: Ware and the Compton Place Boys 5 ‘The Only Freind I Have Got’: The Scholar-Teacher Relationship After School; ‘Here Ends this Season’: Conclusions

‘Laura Mair has written a book on the history of education in which the views of the schoolchildren can be heard. The Ragged Schools of the mid-nineteenth century, she shows, proved popular with their pupils for rescuing them from grinding poverty and giving them Christian guidelines for life.’ – David Bebbington, Professor of History, University of Stirling, UK‘Laura Mair’s book on the history of ragged schooling is unique. Its detailed analysis of the diaries of Martin Ware and the correspondence between him and children formerly in his care is both illuminating and poignant. This is an important book, which historians of childhood in the nineteenth century will need to take note of.’ – Stephen G. Parker, Professor of the History of Religion and Education, University of Worcester, UK