Caroline Alice Elgar and he died when Alice was aged only 12. She was from a distinguished family: on her mother's side her grandfather was the Rev. Robert Napier Raikes, her great-grandfather Robert Raikes (1736–1811) was the founder of the Sunday school movement, and her uncle was British Indian Army General Robert Napier Raikes (1813–1909). As a girl she studied with the amateur geologist Rev W. S. Symonds and they and a group of her friends went fossil-hunting on the banks of the river Severn. She wrote the index to a book by him. She studied the piano with Ferdinand Kufferath in Brussels
Robert Raikes business into Robert Raikes' House in 1758. The movement started with a school for boys in the slums. Raikes had been involved with those incarcerated at the county Poor Law (part of the jail at that time) and saw that vice would be better prevented than cured. He saw schooling as the best intervention. The best available time was Sunday as the boys were often working in the factories the other six days. The best available teachers were lay people. The textbook was the Bible, and the originally intended curriculum started with learning to read and then progressed to the