SCHOOLS 



know if Basingstoke and Kingsclere would consent to a decree in 

 Chancery, transferring the trust to them, and, ' if not, a Bill to be 

 exhibited.' On 1 6 February, Basingstoke offered to accept the trust, but 

 without abatement of the payment. The case went into Chancery, and 

 by a decree of 26 June, 1685, it was held that the gifts to Basingstoke 

 took priority of the rest, but they only were to abate in proportion to 

 the abatement of the rental. The matter then slept awhile. In Queen 

 Anne's reign the Attorney-General, at the relation of the Basingstoke 

 Corporation, filed a Bill in Chancery. On the Skinners' insisting that 

 the rents would not meet the charges, Lord Chancellor Cowper ordered, 

 5 October, 1710, that the charges should abate proportionately. The 

 corporation asked for a rehearing, and offered, if the estates were trans- 

 ferred to them, to pay all charities in full. By decree of 18 July, 1713, 

 Lord Chancellor Harcourt ordered this to be done, disallowing however 

 the sum of 35 a year to the Skinners' Company given them by Lan- 

 caster for their trouble in managing the trust, as they were now relieved 

 of the trouble, and allowing the corporation to take to themselves any 

 profit there might be, after meeting the charitable charges. The estates 

 were transferred accordingly and remained in the hands of the Corporation 

 of Basingstoke until the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835. They must 

 have made a very considerable profit on the transaction when in later 

 years rents began to rise by leaps and bounds. It was not an advantageous 

 one to the school, which lost all chance of participation in any increase, 

 while it did not even gain in the certainty of its income, as the Corpora- 

 tion developed an unpleasant habit of making agreements with incoming 

 ushers to abate something from the full payments. 



The headmaster of this period, John James, was one of the violent 

 kind who spared not the rod. He seems at last to have been indicted 1 

 for it, as an affidavit is preserved by the mother of one of the boys named 

 Alexander Kew, who died from the effects. She alleged that a relation 

 named Robert Kew had run away as far as Salisbury in consequence of 

 his ' unreasonable correcting and whipping of them,' and died of con- 

 sumption from the hardships he experienced. Alexander Kew received 

 a bruise on the liver which killed him, ' by Mr. James causing two or 

 three boys to draw him up the end of the table to be whipped.' ' Four 

 or five ' boys had fallen into a consumption and died, and divers others 

 were taken away and sent to school to others ' to be educated in grammar 

 learning.' 



For the next few years the history of the school was one of constant 

 struggle for existence under men who combined the inconsistent profes- 

 sions of parish priest and schoolmaster. The first of these was Alexander 

 Lytton, an M.D. who is said to have practised physic. 3 In 1724 he 

 obtained the rectory of Eastrop, which is practically a part of Basing- 

 stoke, in addition to his other professions of schoolmaster and physician. 

 In 1732 he became vicar of the neighbouring church of Sherborne St. 



1 Skinners' Court Minute Book, p. 678. 



2 Ibid. p. 151. The dates are very much mixed. 



381 



