SCHOOLS 



as a grammar school, and was open to boys of the parish admitted by an 

 order from the acting feoffee. 



In 1825 Lord Brougham's Commission found in the school 22 boys, 

 all free boys, 21 from Towcester and i from Green's Norton, who re- 

 ceived elementary education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and in 

 Latin ' if they wished for it,' which they practically did not. Other- 

 wise it was a grammar school, and was ' conducted in a manner satis- 

 factory to the inhabitants.' The name of the master is not given. 



Very different was the report of a generation later of Mr. T. H. Green, 

 of Balliol College, Oxford, who visited as an assistant commissioner for 

 the Endowed Schools Inquiry Commission in 1866.' 'The Grammar 

 School at Towcester,' he wrote, ' is, to speak plainly, in an utterly bad 

 and valueless state.' On the death in 1866 of the Rev. James White 

 Willett the school was closed. It remained closed for twenty-one years. 



At length, with a subsidy of ^(^50 a year from the Tabard Charity, 

 a new scheme under the Endowed Schools Acts was approved by Queen 

 Victoria on 13 May, 1887, constituting a governing body of eleven — two 

 representatives of the county justices ; two of the vestry, now the 

 parish council of Towcester ; three feoffees of Sponne's Charity (who 

 are a self-elective body), and four co-optatives. The chantry house has 

 been sold, and with the exception of a wall and doorway completely 

 demolished, the stones having been used in a new building adjoining. 

 New buildings on a new site acquired by exchange were erected in 1890 

 at a cost of about ^^1,050. The endowment is now about £120 a year. 

 The tuition fees are £^ a year. Under Mr. John Wetherell the school is 

 doing a useful work, and considering the scanty population of the place, 

 now well below 1,000, is as full as can be expected with 33 boys. 



BLISWORTH GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



Blisworth School, called ' Roger Wake's Chauntre and Free Scole,' ' 

 was founded by Roger Wake, ' esquyre,' who died in 1503, and Lady 

 Elizabeth his wife,^ to maintain a priest, ' being a graduate of Oxforth,' 

 ' as well to pray for the souls of the most noble King Henry VII and 

 the founders of the same as also to keep a free grammar school for all 

 that shall repair thither.' The chantry-priest-schoolmaster received the 

 whole rental of the lands, ' as well in Northamptonshere as Bukkingham- 

 shere,' worth ;^I2 4J., which, the king's tenths deducted, left a net 

 income of £11. John Curtes, 42 years old, 'well lernyd,' was the 

 schoolmaster, and ' hathe at this present 30 schollers.' The lands were 

 confiscated by the crown, the school was continued by the warrant of 

 the Chantry Commissioners under John Curtes with the fixed stipend, 

 charged on the revenues of the crown in Northamptonshire, of X^ii. 



' ' Schools Inquiry Commission Report,' 1868, xii, 371. 



' English Schools at the Refirmation, pp. 147, 15 1-2, from Chantry Certificates 36, No. 16 ; 35, 

 Ho. 31. 



' Their fine brass is in Blisworth church. 



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