A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



elected 29 July 1723. He was in 1735 also 

 vicar of Padbury. He held office for no less 

 than forty-one years. The only information 

 about the school derivable from the present 

 municipal records is furnished by the Borough 

 Minute Book 14 about the next two masters, 

 though it shows that the appointment was en- 

 tirely in the hands of the local authority. 



1764, 4 George III. Borough and parish of 

 Buckingham. The Rev. James Eyre, M.A., by and with 

 the assent and consent of the worshipful William 

 Butcher, esquire, Bailiff of the borough and parish 

 and the major part of the burgesses of the said 

 borough and parish whose names are hereunto sub- 

 scribed was elected and chosen a Schoolmaster of the 

 Free School in Buckingham aforesaid in the place 

 and stead of the Rev. Mr. William Halsted deceased. 



James Eyre had matriculated at Met ton College 

 in 1753, took his B.A. degree in 1757 and his 

 M.A. in 1759. He held office for twenty-one 

 years. The following master, William Eyre, 

 was his brother, both being sons of 'Thomas 

 of Helmsdon, Northants ' ; who, in 1753 de- 

 scribed in the University Register as ' plebeian,' 

 in 1770 had risen to the description of 'gent.' 

 Eyre matriculated at Lincoln College 30 March 

 1770, took his B.A. degree in 1773 and his 

 M.A. in 1776. By this time the freedom of 

 the school had become restricted to 6 boys. 

 William Eyre's appointment, 17 August 1785, 

 was expressed to be as 



schoolmaster of the Free School in the room of his 

 brother the Reverend James Eyre deceased . . . for 

 teaching and instructing 6 boys, natives of the said 

 parish, in Latin, writing and arithmetic gratis, as the 

 Bailiff and Burgesses, or any two or more of them 

 for the time being, shall for that purpose nominate 

 and appoint. 



In the same year he became vicar of Padbury and 

 of Hillesden in 1816, both of which benefices he 

 held till his death in 1830, when his son 

 succeeded him in them and held till his death in 

 1868. It was apparently this conversion 'of the 

 school into a hereditary possession,' as an ap- 

 pendix to plurality in livings, which brought it 

 down. The endowment, fair enough in the 

 reign of Edward VI, had fallen to a negligible 

 quantity then, and it was only by holding it with 

 clerical preferment that an educated man could 

 be obtained. In i8i8, 16 under William Eyre, 

 there were only six boys in the school, nominated 

 by the bailiff and burgesses, who were the 

 trustees, and they were taught English, writing, 

 and arithmetic. The master had a good house, 

 which was rebuilt after a fire in 1696 by 

 Alexander Denton. 



On the appointment of Edward Brittin in 

 August 1830" an agreement was made between 

 him and the Corporation by which, in return for 



14 Boro. Minute Bk. fol. i6ob. 



15 Carlisle, End. Gram. Scb. i, 47. 



16 Char. Com. Kef. xxviii, 59. 



the annual stipend of jio 8s. o\d. paid by the 

 Exchequer, and for the free use of the house and 

 school, he agreed to keep the premises in repair 

 and to teach six boys between the ages of eight 

 and fourteen Latin, English, reading, writing, 

 and arithmetic, without any remuneration what- 

 ever. He was allowed to take as many more 

 pupils as he liked up to 94. In 1833 he had 

 30 boys besides the 6 foundationers. In 1867," 

 when the master was J. Owain Jones, no longer 

 a university man but a certificated teacher, there 

 were 28 boys in all, of whom two were boarders. 

 The non-foundationers paid ^4 41. a year, and 

 were all professedly learning Latin, but in fact 

 only received the necessary English education. 

 The average age of the highest boys was only 

 I2|. In 1871 Jones was succeeded by Thomas 

 Cockram, who spent 600 of his own money in 

 new buildings, and had to pay more than the 

 whole endowments, jio a year, ' for the re- 

 moval of a nuisance close to the school.' By the 

 following year he had raised the number of boys 

 from 27 to 65, of whom 25 were boarders. 

 Appeal was made to the Endowed School Com- 

 missioners, but in the absence of local support 

 nothing could be done to help the school, which 

 languished on. A scheme of the Charity Com- 

 missioners of 14 January 1896 placed it with 

 other municipal charities under a representative 

 governing body. In that year Mr. Walter 

 Matthew Cox, educated at St. John's College, 

 Hurstpierpoint, and a B.A. of Trinity College, 

 Dublin, who had had experience of teach- 

 ing in Switzerland and Scotland, was appointed 

 master. At length, after the Education Act of 

 1902, the Buckinghamshire County Council 

 took the matter up, and agreed to supply the 

 school with a new site and buildings. A scheme 

 was made by the Board of Education 4 July 

 1904, annexing to it three small charities for 

 elementary education of about ^50 a year in all, 

 placing it under a new governing body, and 

 making it a mixed school for boys and girls. 



The new building, of red brick in late Jacobean 

 style, stands on an imposing eminence above the 

 road leading from the railway station to the 

 town. It comprises excellent laboratories as 

 well as class-rooms. 



The school has now seven masters and 65 boys, 

 of whom 35 are boarders, the boarding fees being 

 40 guineas a year, the tuition fee 6 to 10 a 

 year. There are six entrance scholarships. The 

 school is a centre for the Oxford University 

 Local Examinations. 



ROYAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL, 

 HIGH WYCOMBE 



This school seems to have been created in 

 155 ou t of the endowment of the Hospital of 

 St. John the Baptist. The hospital was founded 



" Set. Inf. Rep. xii, 1 86. 



210 



