A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



Holy Ghost, the said schoole, by the benevolence of good benefactors, 

 Sir James Deane and others, with consent of the Fraternity of the said 

 Guilde, is erected a Free School, A.D. 1609.' We have seen that the 

 earlier accounts contained entries of payments by the scholars and of 

 contributions by the inhabitants. These were applied to make up deficien- 

 cies in the endowment and for repairs to the school-house and so forth. 

 The formal adoption of the term ' free school ' shows that these charges 

 now ceased, and that no payments were thenceforth required of the 

 scholars or their parents. 



The benefactors in question were chiefly Sir James Deane and his 

 cousin, Sir James Lancaster. Probably Sir James was an old grammar 

 school boy. In his will, 19 August, 1607, he says that finding ' the town 

 of Basingstoke had been and then was destitute of a good and godly 

 preacher ' (the vicar was too often a non-resident pluralist) he gave an 

 annuity of 20 a year issuing from his manor of Ashe, of which 10 

 was to be paid to a preacher ' to teach and instruct the people in the 

 principles of religion,' and other 10 to ' some good and learned man, 

 being a good scholar and a learned grammarian, to teach and instruct the 

 children and folks of the town in their grammar rules and other good 

 learning.' Both of these objects were assisted by Sir James Lancaster, 

 one of the great Elizabethan merchant seamen, whose adventures are 

 recorded in Hakluyt and who has left his name in Lancaster Sound. 



By his will, dated 18 April, I6I8, 1 Sir James Deane gave permanent 

 endowments both to the Basingstoke lecturer and the school. The will 

 recites certain indentures of 2 April, 1615, made between himself and 

 Sir William Cockaine, knight, Richard Wych, skynner, and Robert 

 Butman, skynner, whereby fines had been levied of the manors of Maiden- 

 well and Fareford in Lincolnshire, 9 acres of land in Claythorne, 1 5 acres 

 in Somercote, a farm at Abie and a wood of 24 acres in Hawnby, for- 

 merly part of Hawnby monastery, and three messuages in Pember, Hants. 

 It mentions also an indenture enrolled in Chancery, granting an annuity 

 of 100 marks out of lands ' which are or were the Lord Wotton's.' The 

 income of these lands and the annuity were to be paid to the ' Master, 

 Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Skinners, London,' to this 

 intent, that they shall pay out of the same ' Imprimis, unto the Church- 

 warden, the Lecturer and the Bailiffs of the town and parish of Basingstoke 

 in the county of Southampton, where I was born, and to their successors, 

 one yearly payment or sum of IO 3 6j. 8</.' Out of this they were to 

 distribute 30 among the poor of Basingstoke, 'and also one yearly pay- 

 ment of 20 towards the maintenance of the free school in Basingtoke 

 aforesaid for ever, so long as the Schoolmaster and Usher be there from 

 time to time chosen and allowed by the said Bailiffs and Burgesses.' And 

 ' out of the said sum of 20 there shall be yearly paid unto the Usher of 

 the said School for the time being the sum of 16 of lawful money of 

 England, and the other 4 thereof shall be yearly paid either to the 



1 From copy at the Skinners' Hall, Dowgate, London, for access to which and to other documents 

 I am indebted to the clerk to the company, Mr. W. H. Draper, barrister-at-law. 



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