SCHOOLS 



have the same allowance so long as he paid to the common table some 

 weekly sum to be fixed by the dean and chapter. With the example 

 before them of the canons (who like the canons of the cathedrals of 

 the old foundation lived in their separate houses and did not share a 

 common table) the acceptance of the money allowance by the masters 

 (who being laymen might be married even under Henry VIII) and by 

 the minor canons (who became married men in and after the reign of 

 Edward VI) became almost a matter of course. 



It is evident from the lists of free scholars given in the ' Booke of 

 the Erection' that the word 'poor' in the statutes meant no more than 

 relatively poor, and by no means, as has been sometimes asserted, 'poor' 

 in the sense of the 'pauper.' In later times efforts seem to have been 

 made to insist on the test of poverty. In 1559 at Queen Elizabeth's 

 visitation of the cathedral two of the injunctions of her commissioners to 

 the chapter were : ' You shall elect such to be scholars in your Grammar 

 School as be most apt and "towardes" in learning and poorest of birth, 

 without bearing any respect unto kinship or friendship ; and especially 

 such as are like hereafter to be ministers in the church, and by that 

 vocation to serve God and the commonwealth. Item : You shall not 

 take any bribes or rewards for the preferring any child into the Grammar 

 School, but shall receive such as be poor and towardes without any respect 

 of meed.' 



The room first recorded to have been used as a schoolhouse of the 

 new school is said to have been the chancel of the chapel of St. Thomas 

 of Canterbury, begun by Abbot William de Waterville (deposed 1175), 

 finished by Abbot Benedict (1177-93), who ' had acquired also many 

 reliques of Thomas Becket.' ^ It was ' at the gate of the Monastery ; and 

 is now as I conceive the School-house.' 



The nave of this chapel is said to have been given by an abbot for 

 the building of Peterborough parish church when it was moved from 

 St. John's Close to its present position. 



The chapel of St. Nicholas over the gateway, built also by Abbot 

 Benedict, was sometimes used for an extra schoolroom. 



Of the first master, Mr. Robert Ratcliffe, nothing seems to be known. 

 The name of the usher, John Chayne, raises the question whether he is 

 to be identified with John Cheyne, the fifth among the first prebendaries 

 named in the foundation deed, who under the name of John Cheyne alias 

 Walpole, his monastic name taken from the place whence he came, was 

 included among the list of the monks pensioned on surrender. 



The next head master known is Thomas Hare, in 1548, mentioned 

 at a bishop's visitation in that year. Under him Archdeacon Johnson was 

 educated, who died in 1625 at the age of eighty-five, having founded or 

 rather refounded the hospitals and grammar schools at Oakham and 



' Dean Patrick, 1679-89, in A Supplement to Clinton's Histoiy of the Church of Peterborough, quoting 

 Abbot John's History, Ad An. mclxxv : ' Solomon Prior Eliensis factus est Abbas Thorneyensis et 

 Benedlctus Prior Cantuariensis factus est Abbas Burgi. Qui fecit construerc totam navem ecclesiae 

 Burgi ex lapide atque ligno a turri usque ad frontem ; ct capcUam in houorein Sancti Thomas Martyris 

 ad port.im inonasterii.' 



7 07 



