SCHOOLS 



interest to (Ji 14;. 8</., is still p:iiii to the dcaii and chapter and by them to the headmaster ; wlio 

 can therefore claim a direct pedigree from 14 14 at least. 



As for Langley's Song School it was in 1690 granted by Eishop Lord Crewe to the organist 

 and choirmaster William Gregg, who as William Griggs had on i December 1686 leave of absence 

 for three months ' to go to London to improve liimself in the skill of musique.' Under later bishops 

 it became a mere sinecure granted as a sort of pension to their ex-domestic servants. The last holder 

 had just died in 1829, and the Connnissioners of 1830 obtained a promise from the then bishop to 

 make an appointment 'more consistent with the views of the founder.' In 1868 the salary was paid 

 to the Professor of Music at the Training College for Elementary Schoolmasters. In 1883^ 

 the payment was not recognised by tiic Treasury as due from them, and may now be regarded 

 as having ceased ; 'and so ends an old song.' 



To return to the Grammar School. The ushers under Mr. Rudd were John Parkin, George 

 J.ackson, admitted 8 July 1693, and in 1696 Mr. Thomas Clement, a demy of Magdalen College, 

 Oxford. On his 'complaint of Mr. Thompson's boy,' the boy was on 29 April 1699 'suspended 

 from his place of a king's scholar until further order.' On 4 September I 700, Clement was made a 

 minor canon. On 8 November 1699 Mr. Nicholas Burton was 'sworne H-ead Master of the 

 Grammar Schoole,' the first time that title is used in the Chapter Act Books. He was a 

 Westminster scholar and student of Christ Church, Oxford. His second master was William 

 Randolph, who stayed for twenty-six years. Burton was also vicar of St. Nicholas, and rector 

 of St. Mary-le-bow, in which church he was buried in 17 13. He retired from the headmastersiiip 

 at Christmas 1709, when Thomas Rudd returned from the headmastersiiip of Newcastle Grammar 

 School to fill the gap for a couple of years and see his son heading the list of king's scholars. 



John Rymer became headmaster at Michaelmas 171 1. The eighteenth century was 

 everywhere pre-eminently the age of long scholastic reigns. Rymer reigned at Durham 

 twenty-one years, dying even then only forty-nine years of age 13 February 1732,*^ 

 so that he became headmaster at the age of twenty-eight. Robert Symon succeeded 

 Randolph as usher in 1727, and only went out when Rymer died. Ricliard Dongworth 

 ruled nearly thirty years, from Christmas 1732 till his death 23 February 1761, aged fifty-eight. 

 At his accession the headmaster's stipend was raised to ;^45, the choristers' master meanwhile 

 having gone up from ^^82 105. in 1734, to {j)0, and in 1750 to /^loo. Dongworth was raised in 

 1752 to fJiO a year, but then he had been usher for twenty-eight years before, from Michaelmas, 

 1733. Thomas Randall, the next headmaster, held for only seven years. He had been at Eton and 

 Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was a historian and antiquarian, and collected the materials 

 with which Hutchinson's Hiitory of Durham was founded, which he had given, 28 August 1 774, to Mr. 

 George Allan. Randall and his successor, Jonathan Branfort, also an Etonian and fellow of King's 

 College, Cambridge, and vicar of St. Mary-the-Less, 1768-82, served without an undermaster. 

 So also at first did James Briton or Britton, 1782, which looks as if, as at other cathedral schools at 

 this time,' the school was in low water, probably from lack of proper pay to the masters, who had 

 to eke out by clerical pluralities what had then become miserable stipends. In 1786, however, 

 William Baverstock was appointed second master, at the magnificent salary of ;^20, but that 

 was double what his last predecessor received forty-five years before. He was succeeded in January 

 1789 by James Mannisty, who saw out the century. James Carr, a fellow of Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, became headmaster in 1812. The refusal of all information about the school to Carlisle 

 in 1816'' looks as if the school was not in a very flourishing condition. 



The second master was, however, a very distinguished person, whose name will always 

 be remembered with gratitude by all interested in history and antiquities, particularly in 

 the city and county of Durham. This was James Raine, the founder and first secretary 

 of the Surtees Society, which was the first in point both of time and merit of all the local 

 record publication societies which have done so much for our knowledge of the past history 

 of our country. Raine was himself educated first at the little Grammar School at Kirby 

 Ravcnsworth or Kirby Hill, near Richmond in Yorkshire, where the governors are still elected 

 by the queer device of writing the names of parishioners on balls of wax, which are put into 

 a bowl of water, and whosever name is first drawn out by the vicar becomes governor. Thence he 

 went to Richmond Grammar School, then the Winchester or Eton of the North. He became 

 second master at Durham in 1812 ; and there made the acquaintance of Robert Surtees of 

 Mainforth. In 181 6 he became librarian to the dean and chapter, and used his opportunities to 

 ransack the records as they had never been ransacked before, and gave immense help to Surtees in his 

 Hiitory of Durham, the last parts of which as his executor he edited. After retiring from the second 

 mastership in 1827 with the living of St. Mary in the South Bailey, he devoted himself almost 

 wholly to research. In 1830 he published his History of North Durham. In 1834 he founded the 



1 Rep. on Dur. Char. p. 31. ' Hutchinson, ii. 275. 



^ y. C. H. Nortkanii, ii. Scliools. * Endoived Grammar Schools, i. 402. 



383 



