St Mary’s Rotherhithe Free School was founded in 1613 and was expanded
in 1939. The original school lay next
to the church. It then moved across
the road in 1797 to a three storey, three bay house (built c 1700). The
building (pictured) has two statues of schoolchildren wearing uniform from the
18th century on first-floor consoles.
The school was founded in the 1600s by Peter Hills and Robert Bell, two Elizabethan seafarers, to teach the sons of local seafarers. (In the church there is a brass plate commemorating 'Peter Hills, Mariner, one of the Elder Brothers of the Company of the Trinity' and Master of Trinity House in 1593.) They funded the school with the sum of £3 per annum.
The school still exists and can be found to the west on Salter Road.
