A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



and secondary- — that is, the founders prescribed reading, writing, and 

 arithmetic, as well as grammar, i.e. Latin and Greek, and in some cases 

 Hebrew. Quite exceptional was the endowment of the Rev. Nicholas 

 Latham, who founded in 1604 a hospital, the almshouse and school 

 at Barnwell, and in 16 19 and 1620 made the warden a trustee for 

 schools for reading only at Barnwell, Brigstock, Hemington, Oundle, 

 and Weekley. 



Most of the small grammar schools were fairly efficient, and were 

 frequented by the sons of the smaller local gentry, the parsons, the 

 farmers, and the well-to-do tradesmen until the latter half of the eighteenth 

 century, when as locomotion became easier a few of the larger schools 

 began to monopolize the upper classes. The smaller grammar schools 

 then became merely elementary, and, as the reports of the Schools Inquiry 

 Commission, 1864-7, show, bad at that ; because the master who took 

 the endowment was generally a parson or curate, who paid an inefficient 

 substitute to do the teaching. Some of them have now been revived 

 by the action of the Endowed Schools and Charity Commissioners ; 

 others converted into exhibition funds ; but the majority have, with or 

 without (often without) legal authority, been converted into purely 

 elementary schools. 



THE KING'S SCHOOL, PETERBOROUGH' 



As the school of the ecclesiastical capital, precedence is here given 

 to the history of the grammar school of the cathedral church, otherwise 

 the King's School, Peterborough. 



The Pre-Reformation School 



There have been great destructions among the records of the abbey 

 of Peterborough. Among the few that remain are three rolls of the office 

 of' synglyshote,' or Singleholt, in the seventh, ninth, and fifteenth years of 

 Henry VIII. They show that there was in the monastery the usual 

 monastic school in the cloister for the novices, a payment being made to 

 the master of the novices for their breakfasts. The novices being school- 

 boys were, like the boys of Winchester College, allowed breakfast, while 

 the monks at Peterborough and the fellows at Winchester were not. In 

 I 5 I 5 the payment is entered as nil, meaning probably that there were no 

 novices; but in i 517 4J-. was paid, though for how many breakfasting and 

 for how many breakfasts we are left in the dark. The novices also, like 

 other persons in school, had an entertainment at Christmas, for 2J. was 

 paid in 151 5 and 1523 for the keeper of the O O's for the amusement of 

 the novices at Christmas {custodi le O O pro recreandis mviciis ad Festum 

 Natalis Domini), while in i 5 17 double that amount was paid. The O O's 

 of the officer himself cost i 3J-. 4^. These O's were the feasts held at 

 Christmas by the various officers of the monastery, and were so called 



' I am indebted to the exertions of the late head master, Rev. E. J. Bidwell, for much help in 

 this account of the school. 



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