April 22, 1813, saw the laying of the foundation stone of Macclesfield Sunday School, now the Heritage Centre and part of Macclesfield Silk Heritage Trust.

A series of events is being planned by Silk Heritage and other users of the building to celebrate this bi-centenary.

John Whitaker, an Alderman and magistrate, had established Macclesfield Sunday School on May 1, 1796, ‘for the education of the children of the labouring poor of Macclesfield and the neighbouring townships’. Children had to be six years of age and free from any ‘contagious distemper’.

An important feature of Whitaker’s School was that, from the outset, none of the teachers was to receive any ‘pecuniary recompense’ for their services. He began in a small way in a room that accommodated about 80 but pupil numbers increased rapidly and in 1813, a committee of Friends determined to erect a building that was to serve both as a Church of England Day school and as a Sunday school. It was to be known as the National School.

In the event, two separate schools were built because the Established Church laid down conditions that John Whitaker and the teachers of the Sunday school could not accept. The upper room, now the auditorium, therefore was built with a gallery so that the annual sermons, an important fund- raising event, could be held within the Sunday school.

The result is a space with excellent acoustics and an ideal venue for the professional orchestral and chamber music concerts regularly promoted by the Northern Chamber Orchestra and Macclesfield Music Society. In their forthcoming seasons, both organisations will be featuring music that has relevance to 1813/1814.

The building cost £5,639 and was opened on April 10, 1814, under the patronage of the Dukes of Kent and Sussex. The 1,127 boys and 1,324 girls on the register paid one old penny (1/2p) a week to attend and be taught reading and writing.

Those whose good conduct recommended them were taught book- keeping and accounts on Saturday evenings.

Comprehensive rules devised in 1796 by John Whitaker governed every aspect of the working of the school. Rules for the scholars included:

  • The scholars must all come clean washed, and combed.
  • Not a word must be spoken in school hours, to anybody but the teacher.
  • If a scholar be convicted of cursing, or swearing or quarrelling, or wilful lying, or calling nicknames, or using indecent language; he shall be admonished for the first offence, punished for the second, and excluded for the third.
  • Those who have attended school for five Sundays, and have not been either late or absent during that time, shall be entitled to the card called Honour; and when they have obtained three such cards, the visitor shall write their name on a certificate.