A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



into the master's house, which on the basis of 

 the straitened accommodation then thought 

 good enough for the unhappy boarder, was esti- 

 mated to provide for 60 boarders. Carlisle re- 

 ports the school in 1818 as ' rapidly advancing in 

 celebrity.' In 1820 Wittenoom received the 

 compliment of being asked by the corporation to 

 preach the funeral sermon on George III. Lord 

 Brougham's Commission of Inquiry concerning 

 charities said that there had been as many as 104 

 boys in the school. The usher, then Mr. Boor, 

 received a salary of ^90 a year. The Madras 

 or Lancaster system was introduced, which 

 depended largely on making the older boys, acting 

 as pupil teachers, teach the younger scholars in 

 large classes. It had been adopted in some 

 other public schools, notably Charterhouse, at 

 about the same time. Though regarded as a 

 novelty it was in fact a curious reversion to 

 the Middle Ages, during which it was exten- 

 sively cultivated. It was no doubt a cheap way 

 of increasing the teaching staff and, in modera- 

 tion, is an effective way of teaching the pupil 

 teacher, if not the pupils. It has now been 

 discarded except in elementary schools, and is 

 condemned theoretically even for them. 



Apparently the system was not long attractive 

 at Newark, as in 1828 the Commission of Inquiry 

 found only 38 day boys and 7 boarders. The 

 school was still a free school, no tuition fees being 

 charged for classics to day boys. For other sub- 

 jects five guineas a year inclusive of books was 

 charged ; and the few who did not take any- 

 thing but classics ' were accustomed to give a 

 voluntary gratuity ' of half a guinea half-yearly. 

 As the whole endowment produced at this time 

 over ^2,300 a year, and the master only received 

 220 a year instead of ^550 a year as he ought 

 to have received if the pay was proportionate to 

 that given by Magnus, it was obvious that some 

 payment was needed from the free scholars. The 

 boarding charge was 34 to ^40 a year. The 

 song schoolmaster was much better paid in pro- 

 portion with ^105 a year. A National School 

 had been built and was maintained out of the 

 endowment with ^150 a year. 



This at least, though strictly excluded by 

 Magnus' deed, was at all events an educational 

 payment. But he would have surely opened his 

 eyes in astonishment at finding that while the 

 grammar schoolmaster was paid 220 a year, 

 ^290 a year went in paving and lighting the 

 town, and ^150 a year in maintaining a dis- 

 pensary ; the rest of the income being consumed 

 in lavish estate expenses. 



Wittenoom left Newark in 1829 for Western 

 Australia, and in the cathedral at Perth is a 

 large tablet to his memory. His grandson was 

 Minister of Education in the colony, and as the 

 Hon. Sir E. H. Wittenoom, K.C.M.G., took 

 part in the Old Boys' dinner in 



" Brown, op. cit. ii, 203. 



Joseph Cooke of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 

 matriculated 27 May 1814, M.A. 1822, and 

 afterwards, in 1836, D.D., became head master 

 in i828, 63 and held office for twenty-six years. 

 He had a distinguished pupil in his nephew, the 

 late Dean of Rochester, Samuel Reynolds Hole, 

 better known as the author of A Book on Roses 

 and many jests, and for forty-three years vicar 

 of Caunton. One of his chief memories of the 

 school was when W. E. Gladstone was elected 

 M.P. for Newark as a Tory, through the in- 

 fluence of the Duke of Newcastle, against Serjeant 

 Wilde, afterwards Lord Truro, 12 December 

 1832, and the boys threw open their windows 

 at night to shout ' Red for ever,' and were met 

 by a volley of stones from the ' blues.' Another 

 was Mr. W. Newzam Nicholson, who was one of 

 the last M.P.'s for the borough, the representation 

 being divided at the election of 1880 between 

 Mr. Thomas Earp, now chairman of the 

 governors, a Liberal, and Mr. Nicholson, a 

 Conservative, who had been mayor in 1851. 



A new scheme was made by the Court of 

 Chancery in 1834, but it was not in the interests 

 of the school. It left the master with his wretched 

 stipend of 220 a year, providing that 'the 

 free scholars who were taught the classics should 

 also be taught English grammar, writing, and 

 arithmetic without charge,' while an English 

 school was started in a new room added to the 

 grammar school with an usher at the miserable 

 pay of j6o a year. Meanwhile large additional 

 payments were directed for the church ; and the 

 parish clerk, sexton, and five vergers were also 

 planted on this educational endowment. In fact, 

 the church, which according to Magnus' founda- 

 tion was given a contingent and conditional share 

 in the problematical surplus, now, through the 

 conversion of the song schoolmaster into a mere 

 organist, the increase of the number of choris- 

 ters by the addition of six ' low boys ' or under 

 choristers, and the augmentation of their salaries, 

 received over ^500 a year, while the first and 

 main object, the grammar school, was given only 

 340 a year. 



Under Herbert Plater, who was appointed 

 i June, and entered on the duties of office as head 

 master I August 1854 the summer holidays 

 were then in June and July the school was 

 again more fortunate than could have been ex- 

 pected after such misapplication of its endow- 

 ments. Belonging to a family of Polish extrac- 

 tion, one of whose members, Emilia Plater, was 

 conspicuous in a revolution in 1830, he was 

 educated at King's College School, London, 

 whence he obtained a post mastership at Merton 

 College, Oxford, and took a second class in 

 Greats in 1849. He was one of the earliest 

 ' fellows,' i.e. masters, of the new high church 

 foundation of Radley College in 1851, and an 



61 Not 1838 as given by an unfortunate misprint in 

 Brown, Hist. Newark, ii, 195. 



212 



