SCHOOLS 



Parliament by the borough to convert it into an ordinary school. The 

 preamble of the Act states that ' few of the inhabitants were inclined or 

 consenting to have their children instructed in mathematics and naviga- 

 tion only,' and if they were, the parents were not able to place them as 

 apprentices on board East India ships, or if they were, ' the captains or 

 masters thereof refused to take such apprentices,' besides which the 

 revenues were insufficient for the purposes intended. The Act then 

 extended the benefits of the college to any boys of Petersfield to be 

 instructed in the three R's, 'and such of them as the trustees should think 

 fit in that part of mathematics relating to navigation.' The trustees were 

 empowered to apprentice them to any trade, and to pay 40 for appren- 

 tice fees if to a ship, 30 to other trades, with 3 for clothes. The 

 school was thus reduced to an ordinary blue coat school with elementary 

 instruction. From 1784 to 1797 the master was a clergyman instead of 

 a layman. From 1770 till 1802 the school was practically in the hands 

 of the Jolliffe family, of whom William Jolliffe was acting trustee. His 

 loose and autocratic method of management produced in 1806 an infor- 

 mation by the Attorney-General and the transfer of the school funds into 

 Chancery. There they remained for twenty years, while the school was 

 conducted apparently as a kind of higher elementary school, with about 

 i oo boys, of whom half were boarders, the proper objects of the charity 

 being, it was alleged, neglected. In November, 1822, the cause was 

 heard and a decree made on 5 February, 1823, from which the trustees 

 appealed. At last on 11 February, 1835, a new scheme was made 

 by the Court limiting the boarders to fourteen, leaving out all reference 

 to navigation in the curriculum, and raising the master's salary to 

 >ioo a year. Practically the school went on as before. The income 

 of the trust then amounted to about 600 a year entirely in the 

 funds. By I864 1 the income had increased to 84.8 a year. Yet 

 there were in the school only thirty boys, five paying boarders at 

 fees of 20 to 27 a year, and eleven day boys, of whom six were 

 under ten years old. The education was rather below than above 

 that of the elementary school of those days, though some pretence was 

 made to teach Euclid. The only arrangement for washing was ' a small 

 shed 4! feet wide and 9 long, which contains a pump and is approached 

 from the schoolroom by a passage open to the air on the side of the 

 playground.' ' No trust,' said the Assistant Commissioner who reported 

 on it in 1867, ' could have more completely failed to carry out the plain 

 and simple intention of the founder.' Yet it took the Endowed Schools 

 and Charity Commissioners, set in motion chiefly by Mr. John Bonham- 

 Carter, then M.P. for Petersfield and Chairman of Committees in the 

 House of Commons, to carry the existing scheme under the Endowed 

 Schools Acts of 28 November, 1876. Under this scheme the school 

 is flourishing. 



Taunton's School at Southampton, founded about a generation after 



1 S.I.R. xi. 342. 

 n 393 50 



