A school, supported by charitable bequests or voluntary contributions, for the free or cheap education of children of the poor. Also attrib.
1682. March (title), Erecting a Charity School; a Charity Sermon.
1710. Smalridge (title), An account of Charity Schools erected in Great Britain and Ireland, with the Benefactions thereto.
1715. R. Nelson, Addr. Pers. Qual., 163.
1720. De Foe, Capt. Singleton, xix. (1840), 319. I was a kind of a charity-school boy.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 422. In the township of Turton … there is a charity school in which ten or twelve boys are boarded and educated.
