A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



The Song School was, unlike other Song Schools, which were abolished, preserved in virtue 

 of its close connection with the Grammar School, to which no doubt, like other Song Schools, it 

 had acted, and now more than ever acted, as a Preparatory School, the payment being treated as a 

 single one to two masters. 



Unfortunately there is no other minister's account of the Durham payments preserved until the 

 year 1574-5, when John Clifton, then Receiver-General, made the payment of 16 13*. 4^. to 

 Robert Cooke, who, as will be seen, was the headmaster of the Cathedral School, and to Thomas 

 Harryson, who, as we learn from the episcopal records, received the annuity of 2 charged on the 

 episcopal revenues as the master of the school of singing boys, and was also paid as a lay singer in 

 the cathedral. We may here dispose of the fortunes of the Song School. The appointment of John 

 Rangell, 27 September, 1582,! shows that it was then a preparatory and elementary school : 'Whereas 

 Thomas Harrison, singing man, by the appointment of Antony Row, Esq., late Her Majesty's 

 Auditor in the North parts, and John Clifton, Her Majesty's Receiver, did exercise the room and 

 place of keeping school for bringing up of young children to be instructed in the catechism and 

 further made fit to go to the Grammar School : and likewise to be taught their plain song and to 

 be entered in their prick song,' they appointed John Rangell 'to occupy and have the same 

 school with the annual stipend thereto belonging in as ample manner and form as the afore- 

 said Thomas Harrison enjoyed them.' Rangell held for no less than forty years, dying on 

 8 January, 1622. After a short tenure by Robert Maland, 1622-7, '* was ^e\d ty Mark 

 Leonards, a minor canon and vicar of Monks' Hasleden, < under whom officiated in the school afore- 

 said, John Pattison, who was one of the aldermen and mayor of the city of Durham, 1608, and 

 afterwards in his old age, having become poor, became teacher about 1630, and taught the school, 

 viz., to read and write, and was called master of the petties school of the city (schola puerilis civitatis 

 Dunelmie).' He was succeeded by Thomas Wanlesse or Wandlyss, son of Edward Wandlesse, 

 alderman of Durham, also a minor canon, who was carried off and imprisoned at Hull. ' Under 

 him,' from 1639, 'Samuel Martin, lay clerk, was master of the school (parvae, i.e. le petit school),' 

 and was the first schoolmaster of John Mickleton, the Registrar, who tells the story, before he went 

 to the Grammar School, Martin ' was not a singer nor in any way skilled in the art of music.' 

 He continued throughout the Civil War and till Cosin's attempted revolution, to be hereafter noticed. 



There is no evidence forthcoming as to the Grammar School and its masters from 1548 to about 

 1560, the Chapter Act books and the Treasurer's books and all other documents of the time 

 having disappeared. Of the earliest extant Treasurer's book the date can only be guessed, as the first 

 leaves are gone ; but it is probably of the year 1561, as Adam Holyday appears as a canon, and he 

 only became one in December, 1560. The master was Thomas Reve, probably the man of that 

 name who took his B.A. degree at Oxford 4 February, I54I, 2 and the under-master Thomas 

 Iveson, while John Brimley was still master of the choristers. The names of the choristers and 

 Queen's scholars are given, and they show that the preference of choristers for admission to the 

 Grammar School was not a mere form. For two names of scholars are crossed out and other names 

 written over, and one of the new names is that of Robert Massam, which is crossed out in the list of 

 choristers. He was afterwards for many years a lay singer (cantator laicus), and another, Robert 

 Massam, probably a son, headed the list of choristers in 1599. The other new scholar in this book 

 was Christopher Grene, who in the Treasurer's book some 16 years later appears as second master. 

 The name of William Holyday among the scholars suggests that the canons put in their relations, 

 Adam Holyday being then the prebendary of the twelfth stall. Christopher Watson and Anthony 

 Dobson among the scholars suggest relationship with Robert Watson and George Dobson among 

 the choristers. The next book, that of 1580, enables us to see that the promotion of choristers to be 

 scholars was the regular thing. Often choristers in 1577 four were still choristers in 1580, one is 

 unaccounted for, but five, that is half the whole number, had already become scholars. One of 

 them, John Tunstall, headed the list of scholars ten years later, as William Tunstall, probably a 

 brother, did in 1577. Both were no doubt sons or nephews of Ralph Tunstall, a canon, 

 and of the family of the bishop. A Toby Tunstall was a King's scholar in 1609. The promotion 

 of choristers to King's scholars seems to have been a regular practice down to the Civil War, when 

 choristers ceased, but does not appear to have been resumed after the Restoration. A curious entry 

 in the 1577 account is found 'to the queresters to bye ther paper, iis. vid.' 



Robert Cooke succeeded to the Headmastership in 1568 and held office for eleven years, and 

 was buried in the cathedral 20 November, 1579. How he managed it is hard to see, for he was 

 'libelled,' 8 before the archdeacon, apparently for having married his deceased wife's sister, Margery 

 Proctor, alias Linge, at Mamble Church, Herefordshire, on 25 April, 1568, four months after his 

 first wife's death, and fled to Durham for secrecy, where he lived in the North Bailey. The 

 evidence adduced is apparently irrefutable, but must be taken to have been refuted. In the 

 Treasurer's book for 1577-8, Christopher Grene appears as usher. He was also in 1578 incum- 



1 Hunter's MS. 13 f. 56. Reg. Oxon. 198. * Hunter's MS. 13, f. 60. 



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