“IT WAS the bell of the great Ghetto school, summoning its pupils from the reeking courts and alleys, from the garrets and the cellars, calling them to come and be Anglicised.” This evocation of the Jews’ Free School comes from the writer Israel Zangwill, one of its 19th-century graduates, who described his alma mater in his novel Children of the Ghetto (1892).

The Jews’ Free School — now known as JFS — is the oldest Jewish school in the world. It grew from the Talmud Torah (religious school) of the 17th-century Great Synagogue, admitting 21 orphan German Jewish boys in 1732, and since then it has educated more than 75,000 pupils. On Monday an exhibition describing its history was opened by David Miliband MP, Minister for School Standards, at the Jewish Museum in Camden.

Also present were Lord Levy and Jo Wagerman, a former headmistress of JFS who is now president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. “It’s always about 20 years ahead of its time,” she said. “Gladstone quotes JFS in the 1850s to demonstrate how much philanthropy has helped its children. It’s now one of the first private finance initiatives.”

This is one of the reasons why Sarah Jillings, one of the exhibition’s curators, feels that the story of JFS is a much wider one. “It tells of the importance of education in the Jewish tradition and shows how much state education in Britain has changed,” she says. The education of children is a biblical commandment for Jews and mentioned in their daily prayer, the Shema Yisrael.

Faith in Education gathers material from teachers and students, including work from 100 years ago, school magazines and descriptions of the pupils’ extra-curricular activities, which included Morris dancing, boxing and first aid. It took four months to restore some 250 documents, which were among the material discovered when the school moved from Camden Road to Kenton last year.

The institution became a “free school” in Spitalfields in 1817 for 102 boys, soon taking on girls and helping the working-class East End Jewish community. In 1842 Moses Angel was appointed headmaster; he served for the next 56 years and his most lasting legacy was training many Jewish teachers, who worked in Britain and abroad in Jewish and non-Jewish schools. His portrait, which struck fear into his pupils long after he left, now surveys the main room of the exhibition.

In the 19th century the school helped to turn immigrants into English citizens — to “iron out the ghetto bend”. By 1900 the Jews’ Free School had more than 4,000 pupils and according to newspapers at the time was the largest school in Europe. In 1898 one magazine described the annual enrolment day at which “the assistance of police is invoked to keep the crowd in order”.

But with the East End Jewish community moving out, the school roll began to decline. The Second World War then saw hundreds of children evacuated to Cambridgeshire — where they were, in the words of the headteacher, “exiles in a strange land” — and an air raid in 1941 which destroyed much of the school. The section on the effects of the war are a key part of the exhibition.

In 1958 the school re-opened in Camden Town as a co-educational secondary modern. In tribute to some of its most generous supporters — who have also included Cecil Rhodes and Tsar Nicholas I — its uniform took on the Rothschild blue and gold. When the displays move on from nostalgic black and white, they show that the school remains proud of these colours.

Faith in Education: The Story of the Jews’ Free School at the Jewish Museum, Albert Street, Camden, London NW1 until February 29. Opening hours: Sunday 10am-5pm, Monday-Thursday 10am-4pm. Admission £3.50; senior citiziens £2.50; children, students and disabled £1.50. Tel 020-7284 1997. www.jewishmuseum.org.uk