A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



brethern and other benefactors of the same, of auncyent tyme, to fynde a preste, to be namyd the 

 Guylde preste, to say masse dayly at the 6th houre of the clocke in the mornyng, and to be resident 

 at Mattens, Masse, and Evensonge, and to kepe a Free Gramer Scoole and A Songe Scoole for all 

 the children of the towne ; and to kepe one Obitt yerely for all the Founders and benefactors of the 

 said Guylde, by Reporte.' The net value was 4. Os. 1 zd., which was given towards the mainten- 

 ance of Peter Coward, priest, incumbent of the guild. 



For some reason or other this chantry was not returned as a school to the later Chantry Com- 

 missioners of Edward VI. in 1548, and so no provision was made for its continuance, and it seems 

 to have completely disappeared. An augmentation granted during the Commonwealth would, 

 however, appear to show that some sort of a school was kept in Barnard Castle. An abstract of the 

 settlement of ministers made by the Commissioners for Propagating the Gospel in the years 16513 

 shows i for [blank] Rose, master of Barnard Castle School, a grant of 19 IDS. out of the reserved 

 rent of the rectory of Aycliffe ; and by an order of 25 June, i657, 2 '* was directed that the said sum 

 should be transferred and charged upon the tithes of Cold Hesledon and Castle Eden as from 

 8 January, 1656-7, and paid to Mr. Thomas Hutton, schoolmaster of Barnard Castle aforesaid. 

 It may be, however, that this school was a new creation of the Parliamentary Commissioners, as they 

 did set up many new schools, both grammar and elementary. 



The present Grammar School, called the North-Eastern Counties School, was founded only 

 in the year 1877 by the appropriation to education, by a scheme made under the Endowed Schools 

 Acts, of the endowments of the very ancient St. John's Hospital, said to have been founded in 

 1229 by John Balliol, whose wife founded Balliol College, Oxford. Already in 1535* this hospital 

 had sunk into a mere sinecure for a clerical master, worth 5 1 5*. a year, out of which 3 poor 

 almswomen received 6s. ifd. a year. It continued on this basis, the sinecure master receiving the 

 net rental, for three centuries. 



At length a scheme made by the Court of Chancery, II May, 1864, when the income from 

 the endowment was 250 a year, provided that after payment of jiOO a year to the then Gustos, 

 the Rev. George Dugard, for life, and pensions to 3 almswomen, the residue should be accumulated 

 for a grammar school, provisions for the conduct of which were contained in the scheme. These 

 provisions and a later scheme of 17 May, 1877, were superseded before anything was done under 

 them by a scheme under the Endowed Schools Act, approved by Queen Victoria in Council, 3 May, 



1882. This scheme consolidated the St. John's Hospital endowment with ^30,000 given by will 

 of Benjamin Flounders of Yarm in the North Riding for the ' more general promotion, encourage- 

 ment, and extension of education within the British dominions amongst classes of every religious 

 denomination (Roman Catholics excepted) either by the promotion or in aid of schools already 

 established or hereafter to be established,' and made the united fund applicable to a North-Eastern 

 Counties School at Barnard Castle. A governing body of 24 was constituted of representatives of the 

 3 counties of Durham, Northumberland, and the North Riding of Yorkshire, viz. the lord lieu- 

 tenants, the chairmen of Boards of Guardians, a representative of each Quarter Sessions, 2 represen- 

 tatives of the Senate of Durham University, i of the Council of the Science College at Newcastle, 

 and 3 of the Urban District Council of Barnard Castle, and 9 co-optative governors. By an 

 amending scheme of 13 May, 1896, representatives of the 3 County Councils were added. 



The school was opened temporarily at Middleton St. George, near Darlington, on 1 1 September, 



1883, with 30 boys, under the Rev. Francis Lloyd Brereton, B.A., of Cavendish College, Cam- 

 bridge. In 1886 it was removed to its present fine site of now 23 acres, half a mile from the town 

 of Barnard Castle and adjoining the grounds of the famous Bowes Museum. In 1887 Mr. Brereton 

 left for the headmastership of the Norfolk County School. He was succeeded by Mr. E. H. 

 Prest, M.A., a Durham Cathedral Grammar School boy, scholar of Jesus College, Cambridge, 1876, 

 who was in the Cambridge Eight and president of the Boat Club, and obtained a 2nd class in the 

 Classical Tripos in 1880. 



The main object of the school was to be a cheap boarding school for farmers' sons and others 

 of like social status in the 3 counties. The fees were fixed at 3 1 a year, inclusive of tuition, and 

 by the financial ability and admirable management of the bursar, Mr. Edwin Wells, this sum has 

 sufficed to provide for all expenses on a scale of comfort and care for health which the boys of the 

 so-called public schools, paying fees of 100 a year and upwards, might well envy. Mr. Prest died 

 young. In November, 1893, Mr. Brereton, who after leaving the Norfolk County School had 

 been curate of Great Massingham, Norfolk, became headmaster for the second time. The school 

 has now been reorganized on a technical and scientific basis, as what was recently known under the 

 regulations of the Science and Art Department as a ' School of Science,' in which the subjects of 

 instruction are mainly mathematics and science, tempered with a minimum of Latin (4^ hours 

 a week) and French (4 hours), with agricultural and engineering departments. 



1 Lambeth MSS. Aug. of Livings, 1006, p. 425^ 5 Ibid. 993, p. 252. 



* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v. 210. 



398 



