2-621-639 - The London Archives (City of London)/Heritage Images

Boys strapping on phylacteries, Jews' Free School, Stepney, London, 1908. A class of boys wearing caps sit at their desks with phylacteries (a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, which are worn by observant Jews during weekday morning prayers). The Jews' Free School opened as a Talmud Torah at the Great Synagogue in 1732. Originally a charity school for fifteen poor orphan boys it grew to become the largest Jewish School in Britain. Between 1880 and 1890 one third of all Anglo-Jewish children were educated there. The school is now called the JFS Comprehensive.