Sir John Kirk (1847-1922) was born in the village of Kegworth, a village of a thousand or more inhabitants, seventeen miles from Leicester. [1]
Early years
editUntil he was ten he attended the village national school, but when strong enough to face the trudge, three miles and back to Castle Donington, he studied at a small academy held in the Baptist School of that town. Of its master, Mr. Stenson, Mr. Kirk speaks in terms of high respect. The curriculum would not bear comparison with that of a twentieth century grammar school, but it included the rudiments of Latin. Mr. Stenson was a master of that art of graceful copper-plate handwriting so much in vogue in the early Victorian period, and its influence may be traced in the firm, rapid, and stylish penmanship whih characterizes Mr. Kirk’s very ample correspondence.
In 1863, he worked under Mr John Morgan an agent for the “Church of England Book-hawking Society,” in Paternoster Row. Its functions were subsequently transferred to Messrs. Rivington, publishers. He gained some experience of the publishing trade, and masterered the simple art of neatly covering books in brown paper. When asked to give a specimen of his handwriting by Mr. Morgan, he traced the words: “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
His first lodgings in London were in Whitechapel, where lived some former Kegworth neighbours. Thus he saw day by day the East End poverty.
Further experience of books came in his next appointment in the office of the Pure Literature Society, an organisation founded by 'Rob Roy' Macgregor and others in the year 1844 for the purpose of disseminating healthy reading. Within a few months of its formation, Mr. Richard Turner was appointed secretary, an office he has now filled for more than half a century. On the ground floor of a roomy house in Buckingham Street, Adelphi, one of the quiet little thoroughfares between the busy Strand and the Thames
Ragged school Union work
editMr. Kirk was still a young man of twenty, in the office of the Pure Literature Society, when the call came to what has practically proved his life-work. As has been mentioned, he was already associated with Ragged School work, and in that connection had come into touch with Mr. J. G. Gent, then and for many subsequent years secretary of the Ragged School Union. The Society’s offices were two rooms in Exeter Hall, the Exeter Hall of olden days, recognized throughout the English-speaking world as the centre of Christian philanthropic agencies
1907: John Kirk Receives His Knighthood
editOn Thursday May 23rd, 1907 he received a knighthood from King Edward VII to commemorate his 40 years of service to the underprivileged classes.