A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



master was to receive ;riO ; £i being paid to tlie poor of the parish, except when there was a 

 conveyance on the appointment of new trustees, when it was to go in paying the costs. 



Presumably the school was started at once, but the Chapter Act Books at Durham are missing 

 at this time, and the first recorded appointment is on 20 July, 1626, ' Graunted to Mr. John 

 Corneford the free schoole of Heighington according to Mr. Thomas Jenison's presentation, which 

 wee doe admitt.' Mr. Jenison was no doubt a son of the foundress. This was repealed 

 10 August, 1627 when the entry occurs, 'John Corneford, a confirmation of Heighington scholle, 

 by vertue of a graunt from Mr. Jenison.' Cornford or Cornforth is an ancient Durham name. 

 On 17 May, 1643 the dean and chapter sealed 'a graunt of the scholemastership of Heighington 

 to John Appleby.' He was no doubt of the family of John Appleby, of Clove Lodge, Rich- 

 mond, Yorkshire, admitted from Sedbergh to St. John's College in 1567,1 and Ambrose Appleby, 

 Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, 2 November, 1642.2 



This school also was augmented during the Protectorate by the Parliamentary Commission for 

 the Propagation of the Gospel in the north. On 29 March, 1653^ John Hodgson was appointed 

 to be schoolmaster at Heighington, and £iO a. year augmentation was granted him, ' parcell of the 

 tithes of Heighington and Redworth.' On 25 December, 1655 Captain William Harrison, 

 the receiver, as ^^20 was equal to one-fifth of the Heighington tithe, was ordered to pay a fifth, 

 whatever it was, to John Hodson, schoolmaster of Heighington. This was certified to the 

 new commission, 19 July, 1656.* 



On 10 April, 1697, Meeking Hill was conveyed to the then trustees of the school, out of 

 which £2 95. was for the benefit of the poor and the rest for the school. On 3 October, 1724 

 the school-house itself and three fields were leased by the bishop of Durham to the trustees, 

 reserving to the bishop the right of approving the schoolmaster. 



The dean and chapter, however, on 20 July, 1770, appointed Robert Machlin master of the 

 Grammar School. Thirty-eight years afterwards the bishop, on complaint that Machlin neglected 

 the school, by a sentence of 26 October, 1808, duly read in church, deprived Machlin. He, 

 however, paid no attention to the sentence. He had, indeed, in 18 lO, to give up the leasehold 

 land held under the bishop, as the lives for which it was granted had fallen in, while Robert 

 Surtecs, the antiquary, who then owned the lands out of which Mrs. Jenison's original endowment 

 issued, withheld payment of the rent charge of ;^ii a year; but when the Commissioners' of 

 Inquiry visited about 1827 they found that Machlin still remained in possession of the freehold 

 land given in 1697, but as a result of their recommendations on 24 January, 1827, he agreed in 

 consideration of receiving ;^ioo for arrears of the rent charge and a pension of ^^20 a year to give 

 ■up these. 



The school had meanwhile been rebuilt by subscription, and a new master, Thomas Dicken- 

 son, appointed. But he was incompetent to teach Greek or Latin, and so the school became, in 

 total defiance of the trusts, elementary. 



The commissioners recommended the restoration of grammar teaching at the next vacancy. 

 This, however, would have affected the pockets of the landowners and farmers of the parish, who 

 would have liad to find an endowment for an elementary school. The school therefore remained 

 elL-mentary ; and the breach of trust was finally legalised by a scheme of the Durham County 

 Court made under the Charitable Trusts Acts, 21 September, 1859. 



NORTON SCHOOL 



At Norton there was an interesting example of that for which the Endowed Schools Com- 

 missioners were at one time much abused — the appropriation of eiulowments which had ceased to 

 serve any useful purpose in their original application to the advancement of education. 



Norton was one of those large parishes, the living of which, when the country filled up, 

 became too rich for a single parish priest, and was therefore collegiated and divided into seven pre- 

 bends. To the commissioners on the dissolution of colleges and chantries in 1548 this endowment 

 was thus returned : — " 



' The parishe church of Norton, having of housclinge^ people, 700. 



'The porcion of tythe within the sayd parishe. Incumbents having the sayd tythes porcioncd 

 cmongc tiicm to stu<lye at the Universitie : Jcrom Barnarde, John Tonst^ill, Nycholas Thoiiihill, 

 Nycholas Lentliall, Z. Phillips, Rowland Swyncburnc, Anthony Salvin, and Lancelotte Thwayte. 



> SeSergh School Reg. p. 59, B. Wilson, 1895. « Reg. of St. John's College, Cnmb. i. 66. 



' L.imbeth MSS. Aug. of Livings, 972, p. 387. * Ibid. 1006, p. 428. 



' C.C.R. xxi. 90. • £itg. Schools at the Reformation, 320, from Clian. Cert. 17, No. 19. 



7 i.e. communicants. 



400 



