Coopers Free School at Ratcliffe

Lady Alice (Avice) Knyvett in 1552 transferred her estate in Stepney to the Coopers Company to endow the Free School at Ratcliff for sixty poor men's children, a schoolmaster and an usher, and almshouses for fourteen poor aged persons, each to receive 6 shillings and fourpence quarterly. Her former husband, Nicholas Gibson, was a grocer and one of the sheriffs of London.

Nicholas Gibson had left a free school in trust with the Coopers Company and in 1570 Thomas Poyntill, whose son was attending the school, complained about the schoolmaster who was often 'merry with drink'.