A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



of the school and rebuilding of the master's house 

 were not actually begun until 1759. The work 

 was finished in 1762 at a cost of some 1,100. 



On 19 April, 1763, William Irving, fellow 

 of Trinity College, who had been usher since 

 23 January, 1755, succeeding the Rev. John 

 Barker, was admonished for (i) his inability or 

 inaccuracy in teaching, and not teaching in a 

 proper method after having been informed or 

 advised otherwise by the head master, 1 (2) for 

 neglect of duty in not taking the boys to church, 

 and (3) ' for too severely correcting the boys under 

 his care.' He thereupon resigned 24 September, 

 1763. John Franklin Squire the first master 

 with two Christian names of Caius College, 

 Cambridge, was appointed usher, but only held 

 for 3 years. On his resignation, for the first 

 time a ' signis ' or advertisement for a new 

 man was ordered to be put into the Ipswich 

 newspapers. Thomas Smith was chosen. On 

 30 July, 1767, both master and usher resigned. 

 Garnham was given a piece of plate ' for his 

 great services.' He had produced at least two 

 bishops : Thomas Thurlow, bishop of Durham, 

 who left Bury School for Queen's College, 

 Oxford, in 1754; and George Pretyman Tom- 

 line, a native of Bury, an exhibitioner from the 

 school to Pembroke, Cambridge, tutor of William 

 Pitt, and bishop of Lincoln and Winchester. 



The Rev. Laurence Wright was elected 

 13 October, 1767, and in August, 1768, the Rev. 

 G. W. Lemon, the usher, appealed to the governors 

 against Wright's ill-usage. No proof being pro- 

 duced, the governors recommended them to be 

 reconciled and both to do their duty. But next 

 year an advertisement was issued for a new 

 usher. He was Richard Wightwick of St. John's 

 College, who was in turn admonished 3 April, 

 1771, for breach of statutes and neglect of duty 

 and ordered to demean himself better for the 

 future ; so he resigned. But his successor, Thomas 

 Archer, of Trinity, Cambridge, received his second 

 admonition to return to duty on 10 Septem- 

 ber, 1772, and resigned on the 1 5th. On 10 

 January, 1776, Wright retired. His reign was 

 signalised by Prince, Kedington, Pretyman, and 

 Brundish being successively in 1773-6 fourth, 

 second, and the last two senior, wranglers. 



Philip Laurents of Trinity, Cambridge, 1776- 

 1788, had for second master R. Valpy, afterwards 

 head master of Reading, of Greek delectus fame, 

 and then Mr. Priest, a senior wrangler. He 

 is said to have been a plagosus magister. But the 

 drama flourished under him. The ' young gen- 

 tlemen of the grammar school' performed tragedies 

 and comedies at the Assembly House and dis- 

 tributed the profits of the performance, amount- 

 ing in 1784 to 'upwards of 40,' in charity to 

 the poor. An interesting painting by Mr. Randall, 

 of which many prints are preserved, in March, 

 1785, records their dresses for posterity. 



1 This is the first use of that term. 



From 1788 to 1809 Dr. P. Becher, fellow of 

 King's and assistant master at Harrow, was 

 master. He died in office and was buried in 

 St. James's Church. One of his pupils was 

 Charles James Blomfield, a Bury boy, who 

 became a bishop of London, dying in 1857, we " 

 known for his courtly manners and learned epi- 

 grams. He was at Bury from 1795 to 1801. 



Two others were Edward Hall Alderson, who 

 became the well-known judge, Baron Alderson, 

 and Robert Monsey Rolfe, who became Lord 

 Chancellor as Lord Cranworth. But neither of 

 these can be really claimed as Bury products 

 since they used it only as a preparatory school, 

 the first going on to Charterhouse and the second 

 to Winchester, and being numbered among 

 the celebrated Carthusians and Wykehamists 

 respectively. 



In 1809, in the interregnum on Becher's 

 departure, new statutes were made under which 

 the head master's salary was fixed at 60, and 

 the usher's at 30 a year. The townspeople's 

 children, who it seems were now termed ' royalists,' 

 as if they were the sole objects of the supposed 

 royal bounty, though no special mention even 

 was made of them in the charter, were to be 

 taught gratis, i.e. free from yearly tuition fees. 

 But admission fees of 2 2s. might be charged, 

 divided between the head master and usher, while 

 on Maundy Thursday a guinea was to be paid by 

 royalists learning Latin and 2 guineas by those 

 learning Greek as well. Besides the Catechism 

 and English grammar, by a repetition of the 

 statute of 1665, 'nothing should be taught in 

 the school but the best Greek and Latin classics, 

 except that the head master might teach those 

 who should desire it, the rudiments of Hebrew.' 



The next head master was again a Trinity 

 Cambridge man, Benjamin Heath Malkin. A 

 striking sketch of him by James Spedding, the 

 biographer and editor of Bacon, was printed as 

 an appendix to Dr. Donaldson's Retrospective 

 Address in 1850 : 



The Homeric Zeus has in my imagination many 

 of the features and all the voice of Dr. Malkin ... his 

 sympathy declared itself as his authority maintained 

 itself by his own nature. . . . When his portly figure 

 and handsome rosy face appeared at the window of his 

 library that overlooked the school we knew that he 

 came there not to see who was working and who was 

 idle, but to enjoy the sight of boys enjoying themselves. 



Like Goddard and Arnold 'he trusted to the natural 

 sense of honour and justice which formed the 

 public opinion of the school trusted it largely and 

 frankly.' He had his defects. 



Dr. Malkin had a way of setting lessons and exercises 

 according to some predetermined inflexible rule ; for 

 instance, that each lesson should consist of a single 

 section in a variorum edition. This in 9 sections out 

 of 10 was light work enough ; but in the loth 

 occurred some unhappy word upon which the commen- 

 tators had exhausted all their learning. On such 



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