TC-WCB, 6 April. Addr: 65-Cheapside / City. MS: EUL. Pbd: Shepherd, Carlyle 2:135. William Cox Bennett (1820–95; ODNB), misc. writer, who sent TC a copy of his poetry in 1847; see TC to WCB, 14 July 1847.

1. Endowed Parish Schools and High Church Vicars. Roan's School, Past, Present, and Future. Three Letters to the Parishioners of Greenwich (Greenwich, 1853). Roan's Charity School had been founded in the 17th cent. for local education with funds provided by John Roan. The Athenaeum, 25 June, noted the school's “inefficiency” and its being “converted to purposes quite foreign to those of the donor. The ignorance of the children after leaving the school, if the replies to a great number of questions put by Mr. Bennett may be taken as a fair sample of their scholastic attainments, approaches the verge of the incredible. The funds appear to be abused, … the trustees rendering no public account. … What is worst of all, Roan's bounty is prostituted to sectarian purposes. The founder of the school kept himself clear of religious differences.” Nothing in law made “Church baptism a condition of admittance,” so why was it required by the trustees.