SCHOOLS 



1640, followed in 1655. He was probably dis- 

 placed at the Restoration, as an order is subscribed 

 by the mayor, i May 1661, to the chamberlain, 

 'to pay unto Mr. Edward Lads, of the Free 

 Grammar School, Newark, the sum of 46*. 8<^., 

 being money disbursed by him towards the pay- 

 ment of the usher, over and above his salary, 

 and ordered by agreement to be repaid him.' 

 Lads, more properly Leeds, is described as ' late 

 high master of the Free School of Newark,' 

 when on 30 September 1663 he was elected 

 high master of Bury St. Edmund's School, 67 

 where he had a large school of some 1 50 boys, 

 and has left many memorials behind him. An 

 entry in the Gonville and Caius Register shows 

 that one of his pupils of Newark followed him to 

 Bury St. Edmunds.' 71 



Walter Peare or Paire, his successor at 

 Newark, sent a boy to St. John's in 1665. 



Benjamin Willey of Magdalene College, 

 Cambridge, B.A. 1668, M.A. 1672, became 

 head master in 1670, and sent up William 

 Shrimesheire of Holme to St. John's in the fol- 

 lowing year. Described as ' sometime master of 

 the Free School of Newark ' he appears as the 

 author in 1688 of 'verses on the last Dutch 

 War ' in some ' Poetical Recreations,' published 

 in that year by Mrs. Jane Barker. 



His place at Newark was taken about 1672 

 by a Mr. White, who sent his brother to Gonville 

 and Caius in June of that year. s7b He was suc- 

 ceeded in the mastership in 1674 by John 

 Twells, a Nottingham boy, who had matricu- 

 lated at Brasenose College, Oxford, 19 May 

 1670. He held the record for by far the great- 

 est length of tenure amongst Newark masters, 

 until the igth century, having remained in office 

 for forty years. As, at his death, he was only sixty- 

 one years of age, he commenced his scholastic 

 career at an unusually early age, even for those 

 times, being barely twenty-one. Though his 

 connexion was, no doubt, mainly with Oxford, 

 he sent several boys of good family to St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, the register of which twice 

 conceals his name under the variant of Twelves. 



In 1683 he published a reformed grammar, 

 ' Grammatica Reformata, a general examination of 

 the art of grammar, designed for initiating the 

 lower forms in the Free School at Newark-upon- 

 Trent.' Among the pupils of Twells' later days 

 who profited by this work was William Warbur- 

 ton, the theologian and critic, and friend of Pope, 

 who became Bishop of Gloucester. He was a 

 son of the town clerk of Newark, and born 

 there in 1698. He was at first at Newark 

 School, then sent to Oakham Grammar School, 

 and after Twells' death in January 1713-14, 

 when William Warburton, his cousin, who had 



a r.C.H. Suff. ii, 3*1. 



"' ]. Venn, Biog. Hist.o/G. anJC. Coll. \, 425. The 

 head master's name is incorrectly given as Masterson. 

 "" Ibid, i, 446. 



taken his M.A. degree in 1711 from St. 

 John's College, Cambridge, became head master 

 of Newark, returned to that school. Under 

 Warburton the school maintained its reputation, 

 and in his last few years generally contributed a 

 scion to St. John's College. In 1729 came 

 David Hartley, of Jesus College, Cambridge, 

 B.A. 1725, M.A. 1729, who combined his 

 teaching of grammar with practice in physic ; 

 a combination common enough in Elizabethan 

 or Jacobean days. Apparently the result was 

 not very satisfactory in this case, as he .held the 

 office for a very short time. His fame as a 

 philosopher and as the writer of ' Observations on 

 Man,' which made the first Coleridge call his 

 son Hartley, arose long after he left Newark. 



The Rev. Gustavus Broughton, a Leicester- 

 shire man, of St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 where he matriculated in 1731 and took his 

 B.A. degree in 1734 and his M.A. degree ten 

 years later, who had held the vicarage of St. 

 Martin's, Leicester, from 1740 to 1753, then 

 became ' curate ' '' 8 of Newark, and combined 

 with his cure the office of schoolmaster, ' two 

 offices which the traditions of the last gene- 

 ration induce us to believe,' says Dickinson, 

 ' he filled with reputation to himself and ad- 

 vantage to the publick.' He died 17 November 

 I"j6o, i9 at the age of forty-seven, and an in- 

 scription on his monument in Newark Church 

 credits him with all the virtues usual in that 

 epoch of turgid epitaphs. The ambiguous re- 

 mark that at St. John's ' he acquired as much 

 learning as was required for either a divine or a 

 gentleman,' and that ' had his charities been as 

 large as the benevolence of his heart few would 

 have left greater monuments of true generosity 

 than he,' are probably not due to a sarcastic in- 

 tention of the writer so much as to an un- 

 fortunate infelicity of expression. The Rev. 

 Davies Pennell, of Christ's College, Cambridge, 

 B.A. 1745, formerly head master of Southwell 

 School, combined the offices of vicar and head 

 master from 1778 to 1814, having previously 

 held the latter office only. The usual result 

 ensued. In 1818 Carlisle was informed that 

 ' no names of eminent men are recollected, as 

 so many years have elapsed since the school 

 was in high repute.' 



The school was fortunate in its next master,, 

 the Rev. John Burdett Wittenoom, of Brasenose 

 College, Oxford, matriculated 16 March 1807,. 

 M.A. 1813. He revived the school and en- 

 larged it. He ruined, indeed, the picturesque- 

 ness of the old school by building at his own ex- 

 pense, at a cost of 2,500, the existing school- 

 house in front of it, throwing the old building 



** Brown, Hist, of Newark, ii, 195. 



" Brown, op. cit. ii, 195, seems to be in error in 

 speaking of ' a later Gustavus Broughton, who died in 

 1760, as a different man.' 



* End. Gr. Scb. ii, 271. 



211 



