A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



this chantry is not stated to have been a grammar school by foundation, 

 and teaching was perhaps only the voluntary occupation of the chantry 

 priest. This school was apparently continued by the Chantry Commis- 

 sioners, though its lands disappeared. It was partially re-endowed by 

 Lady Ann Worsley with 20 marks a year, at a date unknown, recited in 

 a deed of 20 March, 1615,' by which her great grandson, Sir Richard 

 Worsley, granted to the * Free Grammar School ' the old Chantry House 

 in which it was still carried on. Other small endowments were given ; 

 in February, 1595, a rent charge of 5 was granted, while separate 

 endowments were given for the usher in 1617 and 1622. It remained 

 a real grammar school until 1813, when one of the Worsleys was 

 appointed master, and proceeded to execute his duties by deputy, the 

 deputy being an elementary schoolmaster. Since then the whole endow- 

 ment and school have been appropriated to elementary education. 



SOUTHAMPTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



At Southampton, attached to the church of St. Mary, which is 

 sometimes called a collegiate church, and had a considerable staff of 

 priests under a rector, commonly called the precentor, which was 

 also the title of the head of the collegiate church of Crediton, we 

 should surely have found a grammar school from early times. But 

 unfortunately our good neighbours the French were continually burning 

 and pillaging Southampton, and it is supposed that in one of their raids 

 the muniments of the church were destroyed. At all events they have 

 disappeared. The town records, also very scanty, display no evidence 

 of the school. The foundation of the existing grammar school dates 

 from 1554, when Robert Knaplock, who had been a scholar of Winchester, 

 fellow of New College, and second master at Winchester from 1551, 

 became its first headmaster. This cannot establish its claim for special 

 attention here as an ' ancient ' school within our definition, as existing 

 before the Reformation, that is before the dissolution of colleges and 

 chantries by the Chantries Act of Edward VI. 



BASINGSTOKE GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



Few travellers on the London and South- Western Railway can have 

 failed to notice at Basingstoke station a picturesque ivy-clad ruin standing 

 on a hill immediately north of it, in the grounds of the town cemetery. 

 This ruin is all that now remains of the ancient Basingstoke Grammar 

 School, otherwise the Holy Ghost School, and of the Chapel of the Holy 

 Ghost, maintained by the Gild or Brotherhood of the Holy Ghost, of 

 Basingstoke. 



' The historic name of the Holy Ghost School, a name venerable 

 by the traditions of three centuries, was under a scheme made by the 

 Court of Chancery on 1 1 June, 1852, changed 2 by some prudish modern 



1 Char. Com. Rep. TV. 476. 



* Scfoob Inquiry Com. Rep. (1867), ii. 315. Report of Mr. C. H. Stanton, Assistant Com- 

 missioner. 



368 



