Mountmellick School. Exercise book, circa 1791 | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Title: Mountmellick School. Exercise book, circa 1791

ID: 01/02/02/POST-1650 MS 0039

Extent: 1.0 Volume

Date Acquired: 11/27/1967

Subjects: English poetry - 18th century

Languages: English

Mountmellick School was a provincial secondary school operated by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Mountmellick, Ireland, from 1786-1920. This exercise book (114 pages), used to instruct the school's students, contains English poetry on topics such as friendship, marriage, and religion. Notable poems include "The Hermit of Warkworth: A Northumberland Ballad" by Thomas Percy (with explanatory information and footnotes) and "An Elegy on the Death of William Penn." The final poem is an acrostic that spells "Mountmelick School."

The owner of this exercise book is unknown. Although John Brown wrote his name in the back of the volume, his hand differs from the bulk of the text.

See Administrative/Biographical History for more information.

At a Quarterly Meeting of Friends held at Edenderry, Ireland, on 25 September 1784, a committee appointed to "deliberate on the most suitable means of supplying the deficiency which appears in some places with respect to the education of Friends in low circumstances" agreed to establish and maintain a provincial secondary school for 20 boys and 20 girls.

Mountmellick School occupied the house of George Shannon for the yearly price of £50, and began instruction for girls (January) and boys (May) in 1786. The school, with curricula differing by gender, operated as a co-educational institution until August 1855, when boy students were transferred to a school earlier established at Newton, Waterford (1798). Mountmellick School operated as a school for girls until its closure in 1920.

Source

Quane, Michael. “The Friends’ Provincial School, Mountmellick.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 89, no. 1 (1959): 59–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25509344.

English poetry - 18th century

Repository: Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Access Restrictions: The collection is open for research.

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Acquisition Source: Hill

Finding Aid Revision History: Revised by Dana Miller (December 2023).

Other Note: Former shelfmark: 821.008 C7371

URL: https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/17ks9l7/alma99175625612205899