2-888-533 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

School Fete at Codrington College, Barbadoes, 1850. Caribbean schoolchildren at '...the oldest of our Colonial Colleges...particularly interesting from its position amongst a large Negro population, and the opportunity it enjoys of proving the capacity of the African race for educational improvement. The estates on which it stands were bequeathed...in 1710, to the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, by Colonel Christopher Codrington, a native of the island and Fellow of All Souls, Oxford...Upwards of 700 children, attending the day-schools connected with the College and the adjacent chapels of St. Mark and St. Catherine, were assembled on the College lawn; their neat dresses and gay banners making the scene a very picturesque one...Boys' races on stilts and in sacks, and a race of girls balancing bottles on their heads, were amongst the most amusing of the performances'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.