(External (Srototh of <Iurborne 



A Paper read before the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian 

 Field Club, August 28th, 1890. 



By the Rev. Canon B. M. YOUNG, Head-Master 

 of Sherborne School. 



HERBORNE School, as the Free Grammar School 

 of King Edward Vlth is styled in the earliest 

 documents we possess the "King's School" being 

 an appellation of comparatively recent times 

 was the first-born child of that goodly family 

 of Grammar Schools, which sprang out of the 

 religious convulsion of the 16th century, commonly known as the 

 Reformation. Hence it may fairly claim to have been the earliest 

 Protestant School established in the Kingdom. Whether the 

 initiation of the great educational movement which has shed lustre 

 upon the reign of the sixth Edward can be attributed in any 

 degree to the prescience of the boy-king himself may fairly be 

 questioned. In the case of Sherborne School it is more than 

 probable that the Protector Somerset, who in 1550 was actually in 

 possession of Sherborne Castle, furthered the petition of the 

 inhabitants of the town and of the country round to the Crown, for 

 the grant of the disused Chantries, from which its endowments are 



