DUKE or YORK'S SCHOOL is the popular designation for the Royal Military Asylum at Chelsea. In the French army, there have long been enfans de troupe borne on the hooks of each company or battalion of soldiers; that is, children of deceased soldiers. unprovided with other homes. In England, no such system prevails. The late duke of York, in the year 1801, used his influence to obtain the formation of a soldiers' orphan asylum. Accommodation was obtained at Chelsea; and in 1803, schools were opened for 700 boys and 300 girls, children of deceased soldiers. The institution has been kept up ever since for the boys, of whom 500 are now maintained, but was a failure as to the girls. The boys are wholly supported as well as educated. They are not bound to serve the state after they leave the asylum; but most of them nevertheless enter the army. A soldier's son has not a right of admission; a selection is made according as may occur. When the boys leave the school, those who do not enter the army are apprenticed to trades. The asylum is under a board of commissioners, who make the necessary rules and regulations. The chief officers are the commandant,
secretary, quartermaster, head-master, chaplain, surgeon, and dispenser.
The expenses are defrayed by an annual parliamentary grant, included in the army estimates.
No provision is now made by the state for the daughters of deceased soldiers. The girls admitted into the asylum in the early years of its history, brought discredit to it by their after-life; and this part of the system was abandoned. There is only a royal patriotic fund asylum on Wandsworth Common, unaided by the state, for soldiers' orphan daughters; it originated during the Crimean war.
DU'KINietALD, a township in the n.e. of Cheshire, 42 m. from Chester, and separated from Ashton-under-Line in Lancashire by the Tame. It has large cotton-factories, iron-foundries, fire-brick and tile-works, and collieries. Astley's new pit in this township, 690 yards in depth, is one of the deepest coal-mines in the world. Pop. '71, 14,085.