Memorial to John Whitaker he opened a free Sunday School in Pickford Street, which accommodated about 40 children. In doing this he was inspired by Robert Raikes who had initiated the Sunday School movement, and by David Simpson, a local Anglican priest who had earlier provided schools for poor children in the town. Unlike most Sunday Schools, Whitaker's school was non-denominational. In 1814 he followed this by opening a much larger purpose-built Sunday School in Roe Street. The school was financed by public subscription and by the children paying a small weekly fee. Whitaker died in 1820, but the school continued to flourish, and
Robert Raikes the Elder Robert Raikes the Elder Robert Raikes the Elder (baptised 22 April 1690 – 7 September 1757) was a British printer and newspaper proprietor. He is noted as a pioneer of the press who was instrumental in bringing printing out of London and to the provinces. Raikes was the son of Timothy Raikes, vicar of Hessle, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and his wife Sarah. On 1 October 1705, at the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to the London printer John Barber. He was made a freeman of the Stationers' Company on 1 December 1712. In 1718 he was