A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



of Chancery, when Sir W. Meux and the other commissioners ordered 

 him to pay the costs. Apparently the school was only then just 

 built, and the first headmaster was Robert Soper, scholar of Win- 

 chester in 1619 and fellow of New College until his appointment 

 in 1632. The school, a fine room for the age, fifty feet long, became 

 the scene of an important interview between Charles I. and the Parlia- 

 mentary Commissioners in October, 1648. The school apparently pur- 

 sued the even tenor of its way through the war, and received another 

 Winchester scholar, Thomas Thackham, as its master under the Protec- 

 torate in 1656. It seems to have been up to the present century what 

 would now be called the public school of the island, attended by the 

 sons of the gentry, who shared the government of the school and the 

 appointment of the headmaster with the corporation. In 1 8 1 8 l there 

 were fifteen free boys, appointed by the mayor, and fifty others under 

 the Rev. George Richards of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, whose 

 terms for boarders, including tuition fees, were 28 a year. But ' the 

 pupils that receive a classical education are generally removed to Eton or 

 Winchester about 10 or 11 years of age.' Fifty years later, under the 

 Rev. A. Wallace, the school had sadly shrunk, being deserted by the 

 gentry and better class of tradesmen. In 1867 it had only twenty free 

 scholars and six others. 2 No scheme has yet been made for it under 

 the Endowed Schools Acts. 



Churcher's College at Petersfield is a remarkable instance of the want 

 of adaptation of means to ends exhibited by school founders, and the 

 signal ill success of specialized schools, at least in places where there is 

 not sufficient population to produce a specialized class large enough to fill 

 it. Churcher's College owed its foundation to the great outburst of 

 interest in the navy, caused by the Dutch wars of Charles II., of which 

 the naval school at Christ's Hospital (1673-4) and the mathematical 

 school at Rochester (1708) were probably the models which suggested 

 the foundation of this college. Richard Churcher had made a fortune 

 as an East Indian merchant, and by his will dated 16 January, 1722, 

 gave 500 to build and 3,000 bank stock to endow ' Churcher's College 

 in Petersfield to consist of a Master and ten or twelve healthful boys to 

 be taken out of and belonging to the borough of Petersfield of any age 

 from 9 to 14,' whose parents were to oblige them ' as much as in them 

 lay ' to become apprentices to masters of ships ' making their voyages to 

 the East Indies.' They were to be boarded and clothed and taught free 

 ' in the arts of writing, arithmetic and the mathematics, chiefly such 

 part as relates to navigation.' The master was expressly directed to be 

 a layman, with an annual income of 40, 10 a head for each boy's 

 board and 40.1. for their clothing : viz. a blue gown with the badge of 

 the East India Company and a blue cap. For about twelve years, from 

 1732 to 1744, endeavours were made to carry on Churcher's College 

 according to the founder's intention. In 1744 a bill was promoted in 



1 Carlisle's Grammar Schoolt, ii. 445. a S.l.R. xi. 337. 



392 



