SCHOOLS 



very low ebb in point of numbers and educa- 

 tion. The Commission of Inquiry of 1822 

 found 18 or 20 free scholars receiving elementary 

 education and Latin ' when desired.' ' 



The school was then held in a large room in 

 the Guildhall, the master living in other rooms 

 in the same building up to 1827. The Com- 

 missioners advised the consolidation of the usher's 

 endowments with those of the mastership and the 

 continuance of the existing educational system. 



When under the Municipal Reform Act the 

 management of the grammar school, like that of 

 other charities, was taken out of the hands of 

 the corporation and vested in Municipal Charity 

 Trustees, the corporation refused to pay any 

 stipend at all. The school was therefore reduced 

 to the endowment given by Francis Kent for 

 the usher, then producing about ^37 a year. 

 The Schools Inquiry Commission in 1866 found 

 the Rev. Charles Notley, B.D., had been master 

 for 20 years. The old Guildhall was then 

 used for the school and master's house, in which 

 Mr. Notley had at one time 14 or 15 boarders. 

 But in 1866 the school consisted only of 30 boys 

 in all, 23 free boys and 7 paying 15;. a quarter 

 crowded in a room 'with a low ceiling and 

 insufficient means of ventilation, which they 

 quite filled.' Practically no Latin was learnt, 

 and even the reading 'would have been but fairly 

 good in a village school.' 



The school was restored to its grammar 

 school status by a scheme under the Endowed 

 Schools Acts of 12 August, 1876. 



The present head master, Mr. William George 

 Watkins, was appointed in 1895. He now has 

 70 boys, of whom 40 are boarders in two houses, 

 and 3 assistant masters. 



STOKE BY CLARE SCHOOL 



Under licence in mortmain of 16 October, 

 141 4, Edmund, earl of March and Ulster, lord 

 of Wigmore and of Clare, founded, on 19 May, 

 1 41 9, the College of St. John in Stoke by 

 Clare ; a bull of Pope John XXIII sanctioning 

 the transference of the property from the alien 

 Benedictine priory then in possession of the site. 2 

 The foundation consisted of a dean, 6 canons, 

 8 vicars (choral), 2 chief clerks, 2 meaner clerks, 

 a verger, a porter, and 5 choristers. 



In the statutes of the college it was ordered 

 that 



there shall be also 5 choristers or well-bred (honesti) 

 boys to sing and minister in the choir to such a 

 number as the provision made for their maintenance 

 will allow, and each of them shall have 5 marks a 

 year, or at least sufficient food and clothing with other 

 necessaries. 



1 Char. Com, Rep. xxii, 140. 



' Chant. Cert. 4;, No. 47 ; Dugdale, Mon. vi, 

 141 7 ; Papal Bull 16 Kal. Feb. 5 John XXIII. 



There was also to be a master assigned by the 

 dean and chapter to teach the boys of the said 

 college ' reading and other good and well bred 

 manners, and the said master shall have for his 

 trouble 401. a year.' 



There is here no question of grammar teach- 

 ing. This college, unlike those of ancient 

 foundation, was no body of missionary priests 

 or learned clerks, but only a large chantry to 

 pray the souls of the founders out of purgatory. 

 The choristers had to receive some education, 

 but a song and reading school — a not unusual 

 combination — was thought enough for these 

 5 ' well-bred boys.' 



The college did not attempt a general educa- 

 tion for the place. Whether this was because 

 there was no population to provide for, or 

 whether the provision had been made already 

 before the college was founded, there is nothing 

 to show. But presumably the latter was the 

 case, since, at the dissolution of the college in 

 1548, 3 when Matthew Parker, the afterwards 

 celebrated manuscript-collecting archbishop of 

 Canterbury, was dean, while we find ' Thomas 

 Wilson, clerke, Scolemaster in the colledge,' i.e. 

 the song school master, receiving the statutory 

 stipend of 40J., we also find ' John Crosier, 

 clerke, Scolemaister of the free scoole,' receiving 

 the very ample salary for a grammar school master 

 of£io. 4 



It may be that this grammar school is a later 

 foundation than the college, as we are told in 

 the chantry certificate that ' syns the firste 

 foundacion dyvers other benefactors hath both 

 encreased the nombre and lyving.' If so, it is 

 perhaps an example how universal was the con- 

 nexion in thought between a college or collegiate 

 church and a grammar school, that though this 

 college was founded without one, some subse- 

 quent benefactor to or legislator in the college 

 thought it necessary to add one. 



The college itself, though dissolved, continued 

 to support learning, by being granted to Sir John 

 Cheke, who, though he was not the first to 

 teach Cambridge Greek, as Milton says, was at 

 all events the first ex-Regius Professor of Greek 

 at Cambridge and classical tutor to King 

 Edward VI. Matthew Parker, too, continued 

 to draw a pension of some £50 from it to add 

 to his other ecclesiastical promotions and his 

 headship of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 

 In the absence of any Receiver-General's 

 accounts for Suffolk we do not know exactly 

 what happened. But there appears to be no 

 doubt that the school was continued by the 

 warrants of Sir Walter Mildmay and Robert 

 Kelway like other grammar schools, though the 

 endowments of the college were confiscated to 

 the crown, and the master paid at the fixed rate 

 of ,£10 a year, as before ; for at the re-settlement 



3 Leach, Engl. Sch. at the Reformation, 217. 



4 Chant. Cert. 45, No. 47. 



339 



