SCHOOLS 



But the Schools Inquiry Commissioners found that colleges instead of 

 being nursing mothers to the schools under their charge were hard step- 

 mothers. Portsmouth is a signal instance of this. Dr. William Smith, 

 M.D., by his will dated 1732 and proved in 1733, gave lands in the 

 parish of Arreton in the Isle of Wight to Christ Church, Oxford, for a 

 grammar school at Portsmouth. The master was to have 50 a year and 

 the usher 30. The dean and chapter, that is the college, were ' to 

 order and direct the management of the School.' The school house in 

 Penny Street does not seem to have been built till 1750. After about 

 half a century of unprosperous existence the school became the subject 

 of a suit in Chancery which lasted from 181 1 to 1821. The Rev. J. G. 

 Russell and the Rev. Dr. Forester and the Rev. R. H. Cumyns had a 

 day school of about sixty to eighty boys paying fees. The decree of 

 Chancery in 1821 ordered the introduction of fifty free boys. This 

 seems to have effectually deprived the school of what little utility it 

 possessed, for though by custom the number was reduced to twenty, the 

 free boys kept away others. 



In 1867 Mr. Stanton for the Schools Inquiry Commission found 

 sixteen free boys and ten others paying four to six guineas a year. Christ 

 Church had shown their care for the school by having no visitation or 

 examination between 1835, when Dr. Pusey had examined it in classics, 

 and 1867, the year of Mr. Stanton's visit; which provoked him to remark 

 that ' out of sight out of mind ' had been the guiding principle of its 

 management. Since a scheme under the Endowed Schools Acts in 1875 

 it has flourished abundantly, and now numbers 230 boys. 



Of the other early grammar schools of Hampshire there seems little 

 to relate. They were local in their character and never attained to any 

 great number or note ; though that of Alresford under Richard Steele, 

 from 1796 to 1818, was a place of considerable resort for the sons of 

 ' persons of quality.' 



The school of Newport, the chief town in 'the island,' as the inhabi- 

 tants of the Isle of Wight fondly call it, was, like Southampton, fostered 

 from Winchester College. The origin of the school, so far as is now 

 known to history, was the gift of a site by Sir Thomas Fleming on 

 i October, 1614. A subscription was set on foot, and the principal 

 islanders, Richard Worsley, John Serle and others, contributed lands 

 and money, the lands being conveyed by deed in 1623 for a free 

 grammar school. Matters however moved slowly, for it appears by 

 an Inquisition of Charitable Uses 1 dated 4 September, 1634, that 

 Robert Newland of Newport, merchant, had been entrusted with 

 the subscriptions amounting to 4.07 2J. 6d. in money, seventy tons 

 of oak timber given by Sir Thomas Fleming, and ten tons more by 

 Sir William Lisle, thirty tons of stone, and a quantity of squared 

 freestone, but refused to account for his receipts when called on by Sir 

 Robert Tillington, bart., until a commission of inquiry was sued out 



1 P.R.O. Chan. Petty Bag, Charities, Belle. 15, No. J. 

 391 



