A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



he 'shall be a common drunkard or ... remiss or 

 negligent in teaching the scholars or have or use 

 any evil or notable crime, offence or condition ' 

 after 3 monitions at 15 days' interval. The 

 schoolhouse was to be appointed by the corpora- 

 tion ' which house shall have in the east end 

 thereof two chambers which . . . the schoolmaster 

 . . . shall have and occupy for his lodging and his 

 books, and one other chamber in the west end ' 

 for the usher. And there being an orchard and 

 garden to the schoolhouse, two-thirds of the 

 profits were to go to the master and one-third to 

 the usher. But within a year the bailiffs and 

 burgesses were to provide ' two sufficient and 

 honest mansions and houses, that is to say, for 

 either of them one, for them to inhabit and 

 dwell in without any rent paying.' Laymen 

 being eligible as schoolmasters, and priests being 

 now allowed to be married, the single or double 

 chambers of the old celibate chantry priests were 

 no longer sufficient, and we may credit this in- 

 terpolation, which really conflicts with the pro- 

 vision as to the chambers for lodgings, to the 

 archbishop himself, who had specially granted in 

 his three schools that the masters might be lay- 

 men, and appointed his own father-in-law to the 

 school he founded at Malton. 



When the Crown endowment of ^15 a year 

 had been received and supplemented by another 

 20 a year from the town, the stipend of the 

 master was to be fixed at jio, and that of the 

 usher at 5 a year, with an express provision that 

 ' as it shall happen the lands to be increased by 

 virtue of the said licence (i.e. that granted by 

 the letters patent of 9 December 1551) and 

 by diligence of the bailiffs and burgesses, so the 

 wages and salary of the schoolmaster and usher 

 to be increased as shall be seen convenient from 

 time to time.' 



The statutes conclude with the oath to be taken 

 by the master, ' elected and named as master or 

 instructor of the King's Majesty's Free Grammar 

 School of East Retford.' The bailiffs and bur- 

 gesses were to put the master in possession by 

 delivering the hesp (hasp) of the door in his 

 hands and addressing him with a formula modelled 

 on, though departing from, that of Colet's at 

 St. Paul's, and giving, like Magnus' at Newark, 

 a freehold for life in the office, subject to 

 satisfactory service : 



Sir, ye are chosen to be schoolmaster (or usher) of 

 this school to teach scholars thither resorting not only 

 grammar and other virtuous doctrine but also good 

 manners, according to the intent of the most excellent 

 and virtuous prince King Edward the Sixth, founder 

 of the same. Whereupon we assure this to you a 

 room of perpetual continuance upon your good be- 

 haviour and duty to be done within this Grammar 

 School. 



An augmentation to the endowment was 

 given by Sir John Hercie, kt.,on 2 October 1553, 

 consisting of two tofts and two burgages in 



Chapelgate; and another on 6 April 1562 by 

 William Resell and James Homes, consisting of 

 a messuage in Bridgegate and some fields in 

 Gringley. 



Little is known about the school after the re- 

 foundation. Carlisle 6 knew nothing of it until 

 his own time (1818). The local history by 

 Mr. J. S. Piercy tells us nothing till 1 764, ex- 

 cept that the corporation misappropriated the 

 estates. 



This we learn in detail from the proceedings 7 

 on Commissions of Charitable Uses issued out 

 of Chancery under Elizabeth's Statute of Charit- 

 able Uses, 43 Eliz. cap. 12. 



The first great misappropriation took place in 

 1656, when the corporation coolly sold all the 

 school lands at Kirton for 300 to rebuild the 

 church spire which had fallen down. 



On 10 May 1699 an inquisition was held at 

 Retford before William Simpson, William Samp- 

 son, and others as commissioners, John Byron 

 being the foreman of the jury, which found that 

 the property of the school was worth 145 5*. 8d. 

 a year, but that the bailiffs and burgesses had 

 detained the whole from the school for twenty- 

 nine years last past, except 29 a year, which 

 they had paid to the master and undermaster. 

 Accordingly, by a decree dated 17 June 1699 

 the commissioners ordered and adjudged the 

 bailiffs and burgesses within a month to pay to 

 Mr. Henry Boawre, now schoolmaster, the full 

 and just sum of ^3,372 41. 4^. for the upholding 

 and maintenance of the said school and of the 

 master and undermaster, according to the letters 

 patent of Edward VI, and 60 for costs. They 

 were also ordered to pay over all the rents and 

 profits to the school for the future, and not to 

 take fines for renewal of leases, but to make them 

 at rack rent ; and to render accounts yearly 

 before a person nominated by the Archbishop of 

 York or the dean and chapter sede vacante. 



The bailiffs and burgesses took exception to 

 the decree, and witnesses on either side were 

 examined on a new commission to take evidence 

 on 3 October 1700. The line of defence taken 

 by the corporation was that the schedule of pro- 

 perty produced to the commissioners on which 

 they made their decree included corporation as 

 well as school property, and that the items were 

 indistinguishable ; that the 30 salary paid was 

 enough ; and that large sums had been spent on 

 repairing the church. From the evidence we learn 

 that Henry Boawre, an odd spelling which prob- 

 ably represents Bower, according to the St. John's 

 College Register, had been master for twenty- 

 nine years, taking him back to 1669. On his 

 coming the salary of the master was raised to 

 ,20, besides an orchard and three little cottage 

 houses worth 2 a year, while lands at Ordsall 



' End. Gram. Sc6. \i, 280. 



7 Chan. Petty Bag Inq. n Will. Ill, 45, no. 26 ; 

 46, no. 28, and Dep. 1 6, no. 2. 



242 



