A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Lord Langdale, Master of the Rolls, gave judgement on i8 January, 1845, 

 in favour of the company, holding that the beneficial interest had been 

 given to them subject only to the fixed charges in favour of the 

 charitable objects. Fortunately the company has acted in a far more 

 liberal spirit than that which dictated Lord Langdale's decision. In 

 1 841 the Laxton property produced ^(^1,561 a year. When, on 15 De- 

 cember, 1863, Mr. Thomas Hare, Inspector of Charities, reported on 

 the City Companies' Charities ' to the Charity Commission, he showed 

 that between 1852 and 1861 the company had rebuilt the school and 

 almshouse at a cost of ^(^4, 500, and in 186 1—2 paid an income of ^(^874 

 for the school and £2yS ijs. a year to the almspeople. 



At this time the head master was almost for the first time an Oxford 

 man, the Rev. J. F. Stansbury, D.D., of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. He 

 was elected on 7 June, 1848, and found 22 boarders and 4 day- 

 boys on his arrival. He entered only two boys in the register, both of 

 them day boys, and the old register then ends. It is to be hoped that 

 the new register begun by him will be preserved with the same care as 

 the old one. 



In 1863 " there were 132 boys in the school with six masters. £1 

 a year was charged for entrance fee. The only tuition fee was ^2 a year 

 which was charged for French ' to prevent injury to the National and 

 British schools in Oundle.' Mr. T. H. Greene, who visited the school 

 for the Endowed Schools Commission in 1866, almost verged on 

 enthusiasm in his account* of it. He found 120 boys, of whom 

 40 were day boys and 80 boarders. Of these 30 were in the head 

 master's house, the rest being divided between the house of his son, the 

 Rev. J. A. Stansbury, and some ' Dames' houses ' in the town. The charges 

 were forty guineas a year in the head master's house, thirty guineas in his 

 son's, and twenty-five guineas in a ' dependence ' of that house. The 

 strength of the school lay in its mathematics, two boys having recently 

 obtained first-classes in the Mathematical School at Oxford. But only 

 fifteen boys in the school were over sixteen, and the great majority did 

 not go to the university. The assistant-commissioner spoke very favour- 

 ably of their attainments in classics, English, and French, though he 

 found the arithmetic disappointing. 



But change is necessary to life, especially in the headmastership of 

 schools. When Dr. Stansbury retired in 1876 the school had sunk to 

 seventy-eight. 



In September, 1876, the Grocers' Company, largely under the in- 

 fluence of Sir Joseph Warner, a member of the company, a Balliol 

 scholar who had taken first-class honours both in classics and mathe- 

 matics, made a new scheme for themselves. They converted the 

 original grammar school, which they now called ' Sir William Laxton's 

 Grammar School,' into a second-grade 'modern' school for farmers 

 and tradesmen at a tuition fee of two guineas for Oundle boys, and four 



' Ciiy ofLondm Livery Companies Commission, 1884, iv. ' Ibid, iv, 99. 



' S.I.R. xii, 356. 



260 



