A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



that the number of boys in the Latin school 

 should be increased from 15 to 20, and in the 

 lower school reduced to 100 ; and on I April 

 1826 that the boys in the upper school should 

 be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic as 

 well as Latin. Ashfield resigned in 1830 and 

 was succeeded by the Rev. Benjamin Robert 

 Perkins, of Lincoln College, Oxford. He took 

 his B.A. degree in 1824, when he was appointed 

 chaplain at Christ Church, which office he held 

 till his appointment at Aylesbury. He did not 

 live in the head master's house, as it was not 

 large enough to admit private pupils, but ob- 

 tained permission of the trustees to have an 

 under master, who should live in the head 

 master's house and be paid by Mr. Perkins him- 

 self, while he lived at Cublington, of which he 

 was curate, seven miles away, and afterwards at 

 Wotton under Edge, Gloucestershire, of which 

 place he had been vicar from 1829. This 

 vicarious arrangement worked so far, that the 

 school was full in 1833. The Latin and English 

 schools were then separate. Education at the 

 English school gave no title to admission to the 

 Latin school, but the applicants, of whom there 

 were 50, were chosen with reference to parent- 

 age, capacity, progress in Latin, and their future 

 destination. Mr. Perkins resigned in 1837, on 

 his appointment to the mastership of the school 

 at Wotton under Edge. His successor was 

 John Grant Lawford, M.A., of Wadham Col- 

 lege, Oxford, who only stayed three years, the 

 Rev. Frederick Cox, M.A., of Lincoln College, 

 Oxford, being appointed in 1840. He was 

 perpetual curate of Upper Winchendon, Bucking- 

 hamshire, from 1821 till his death in 1879. 



In 1862 a scheme of the Charity Commis- 

 sioners under the Charitable Trusts Acts divided 

 the school into Upper and Lower schools. In 

 the Lower school only elementary instruction 

 was given, and no fee was paid. In the Upper 

 Latin and Greek were taught, and the boys paid 

 6 6s. a year, unless they had procured exhibi- 

 tions from the Lower school by examination, 

 when they were exempt from fees. There were 

 28 boys in 1867, of whom nine were exhibi- 

 tioners. They were all young, the highest boys 

 being only 14. The head master was the Rev. 

 Alfred William Howell, M.A., of Worcester 

 College, Oxford, appointed in 1864. 



By a scheme of the Board of Education, made 

 under the Charitable Trusts Acts, 2 July 1903, 

 the Rev. Christopher Ridley, the head master, 

 and Walter Cranley, the writing-master, were 

 pensioned off with 4.0 and 25 a year respec- 

 tively, and the Lower school was abolished. The 

 single school was declared to be a Public Secon- 

 dary School (a term which includes every school 

 above the elementary school and below a univer- 

 sity college) for boys and girls, at tuition fees of 

 from 6 to 10 a year. Greek is only to be 

 taught to those whose parents ask for it in 



writing. Ten to twenty foundation scholarships 

 were established, consisting in exemption from 

 tuition fees, to be awarded by competition equally 

 among boys and girls from public elementary 

 schools in Aylesbury and Walton, or, failing 

 them, in certain neighbouring parishes. A re- 

 presentative governing body was constituted, 

 four members to be appointed by the Bucks 

 County Council, four by Aylesbury Town 

 Council, and one by the Hebdomadal (or weekly) 

 Council of Oxford University, with eight co-op- 

 tatives, of whom, to look after the interests of 

 the girls, as the school is to be a mixed school, 

 two must be women. New buildings have been 

 erected, to the cost of which the County Council 

 contributed ,1,750, on condition of having the 

 use of them for evening classes and the like out 

 of school hours. Mr. Thomas Osborne, M.A., 

 of Marcon's Hall, Oxford, formerly an assistant 

 master in the school, is head master, with two 

 assistant masters. In 1907 there were 70 boys. 



WYCOMBE ABBEY SCHOOL 



Though not perhaps strictly an endowed 

 school, yet as practically a public school for 

 girls, Wycombe Abbey School cannot be passed 

 over without notice, dubbed as it is by its friends 

 and admirers the Eton of girls' schools. Like 

 Eton, it has resorted to Winchester for the first 

 chairman of its governing body in the person of 

 Dr. H. M. Burge, head master of Winchester 

 College. It is the second public school for girls 

 in the British Isles, using that term in the limited 

 sense it has now acquired of a large school wholly 

 or chiefly for boarders of the richer classes, 

 St. Leonard's School at St. Andrews being the 

 first. It is in fact the creation of enterprise, 

 being the property and product of the Girls' 

 Education Company, Limited, formed 25 Feb- 

 ruary 1896, with a nominal capital of 30,000, 

 divided into 3,000 shares of 10 each. Among 

 the first subscribers were Dr. Butler, master of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, and his wife, cele- 

 brated when Miss Ramsay as beating the senior 

 classic at Cambridge in the Tripos, and the 

 Countess of Airlie. The company pitched the 

 tents of its first and only school in Wycombe 

 Abbey at the end of July 1896. 



Wycombe Abbey was formerly the manor 

 house of Loakes Manor. It was entirely rebuilt 

 about 1790 by Robert, first Baron Carrington. 

 It is a large and handsome mansion of brick, 

 faced with stone, built in a late Gothic style, 

 according to designs by James Wyatt. In 1891 

 a large hall adjoining it was built by the present 

 Earl Carrington. It is a fine room 120 ft. in 

 length, and the old oak Shelburne family pew, 

 which was turned out of the parish church about 

 1866, was built into the end wall, and forms a 

 very striking feature of the room. This hall is 



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