SCHOOLS 



schollers, of learning, reading of books, and talking of such matters as shall be to both their 

 increasinge of knowledge, understanding of writers by commentaries, and poets' fables, hard places, 

 examining of grammar rules,' while he is to be ready to help the ' meaner schollers, teaching them on 

 playing days, and after supper the space of an hour to write cypher, and understand their figures.' 

 For the boys ' there shall be but one play day in a weeke, either Tuesday or Thursday, save 

 onely certain days in the spring, and some time of recreation, when the maister shall think it 

 meet for the schollers to exercise their bowes, in matching either with themselves or with strangers 

 in the ox pasture or in Houghton More.' 



For holidays, ' they shall not break up school at Christmas, but 7 or 8 days before Christmas 

 Even, and at Easter on Palm Sunday, even soe likewise at Whitsuntide, the Saturday before Holy 

 Thursday ; at which time they must pay to their maister every one a penny for Feratutoe silver,! and 

 none shall be supposed to give more but upon their owne good wills.' As we saw at Durham, even 

 holidays were to be spoilt if possible. Those who stayed in Houghton were to be ' charged and willed 

 to repayre to schoole, that they may be instructed as time requires.' 



Though the school was a free grammar school, and no tuition fees were therefore payable, 

 substantial entrance fees were taken. ' It shall be lawful for the maister to take of every gentleman's 

 sonne at his entrance, or of any other that is placed and lodged within the schoole chambers, y. \d. t 

 and at the year's end y. ^d. more, and after that to be free so long as they shall continue. 

 There were to be five poore schollers and three poore men or women, with an allowance of 

 jd. a week,' a penny a week less than William of Wykeham allowed for his scholars in 1400, 

 1 and js. over, which may be divided among them.' 



There is no evidence whether after Gilpin's death the provision for poor scholars was carried 

 out. Lord Hardwicke in 1751* made the curious remark on it, that 'things and times have been 

 altered since that ; for though at the Reformation greater invitations were made to bring the 

 poor to schools, that is not so proper now, for at present the poor had better be trained up to 

 agriculture,' a curious view of trusts for a Lord Chancellor. His next remark, ' it would be to no 

 purpose to desire the governors to pay this trifle of yd. per week . . for it would not be sufficient for 

 them,' was more to the purpose. 



Nor does it appear how far the other statutes were carried out. Anthony Aray who, about 

 to be admitted as master, subscribed and assented to the statutes, 12 November, 1607, was a 

 Queen's College man. But the rest of the masters Ralph Howden, 24 September, 1631; John 

 Page, 8 December, 1632 ; George Caunt, 26 April, 1639 ; Paul Lever, 1682 ; William Stobart, 

 1686 cannot be traced as being either of Queen's College or of Oxford. In Caunt's time, which 

 continued throughout the Civil War, from 1652 onwards and up to 1666, a considerable contingent 

 of boys went from Houghton to St. John's, Cambridge, some of whom had come on from Durham 

 School itself; which testifies to the height of its repute. Gilbert Nelson, master from 16981722, 

 was a Sedbergh scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, which was a northern college 

 even more than Queen's College, Oxford, and far larger and richer. Under him was the antiquary 

 Christopher Hunter, who in 1724 placed an inscription on the door of the school recording its foun- 

 dation. Thomas Griffith, master in 1738, is said by Surtees to have been 'a sound thoroughbred 

 scholar, who restored the school from a low ebb, and left his books to his successors.' He was 

 apparently the master at the time of the chancery suit already mentioned, reported as 'Attorney-General 

 v. Middleton.'* One of the grounds of complaint was that he was not duly qualified according to the 

 statutes. But as Lord Hardwicke assumed either that the statutes were never made, or must be 

 presumed to be repealed, this was no objection. The case seems, however, to have drawn 

 attention to the power of appointment by the provost of Queen's, since for the next century all the 

 headmasters were Queen's College men. 



Of William Fleming, 1 780 1 800, Surtees records that to his 'memory the author owes a grateful 

 tribute of respect.' The school was mainly a boarding school, and a good many county families 

 resorted to it. 



Carlisle' in 1816 found 30 boarders paying 50 guineas a year, a high fee for those days, under 

 the Rev. William Rowes. 



In 1827* the school was still in a flourishing condition, there being 60 paying scholars, of 

 whom 17 boarded in the house of the headmaster, the Rev. Henry Brown, and the rest in other 

 houses in the town. There were 6 boys on the foundation who were taught elementary subjects free. 



In 1842 the school received the only accretion to its endowments since the foundation, in the 

 shape of a sum of 500 raised by subscription for exhibitions to the universities by Dr. John, then 

 headmaster. His successor, the Rev. T. Leycester Balfour, died after only two years' reign, 1852-4. 

 The Rev. George Moulton, who followed, was not of Queen's but of Exeter College, Oxford. 



1 This is apparently someone's corrupt reading for Ferula silver, equivalent to rod money. 



* fetey't Sfn., Reports Chancery, 330. * Surtees, i. 160. * Pfiey'i Sen., Reports Chancery, 349. 



8 Endowed Grammar Schools, i. 405. * Char. Com. Rep. 



395 



