A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



Ages, almost a branch of the clerical profession, and at least one famous head 

 master of Winchester, Christopher Johnson, was afterwards president of the 

 College of Physicians, and we have noted in Essex and Suffolk actual 

 combinations of teaching school and practising medicine in the same 

 individuals. 



Thomas Wastell, appointed master in 1580, had taken his B.A. degree 

 at Queen's College, 5 April, 1566. He held office for eight years. 



Elias Wrench, who came in 1588, held office for ten years, vacating it 

 to become canon of the cathedral and rector of Lassington and Rudford, and 

 was buried in the cathedral in 1633. He has not been traced at Oxford 

 himself, but four of his sons were there, with one of whom a scholar and 

 fellow of Corpus Christi College, entered in 1621, who bore the same name 

 as himself he has been confused. 1 



His successor, William Loe, was a Merton man, B.A. of St. Alban's 

 Hall, Oxford 1597, M.A. 1600, and B.D. from Merton 8 June, D.D. 

 8 July, 1618. He also became a canon, sub-dean in 1605, and chaplain to 

 James I. 



The next head master, 1605, Thomas Potter, a scholar from Westmor- 

 land at Queen's College, where he matriculated 2 July, 1592, seems to have 

 combined the mastership with the rectories of Hatherop and Sudeley. The 

 name of his usher, Thomas Wood, is famous in that he was the father of the 

 great Oxford antiquarian, Anthony Wood. He himself matriculated at 

 Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, 20 June, 1600, and became B.A. at 

 Corpus Christi College 15 March, 16034. Like most of the ushers, and 

 indeed most of the head masters till the eighteenth century, he was quite a 

 young man, only twenty-three, when he came to teach school. He only 

 stayed at Gloucester for two years. John Clarke, a native of the county, 

 the next head master, also matriculated at Broadgates Hall. 



On 25 January, 1616-17 ^e first extant Chapter Act Book begins with 

 a characteristic entry signed by William Laud, who inaugurated his new 

 dignity as dean by a ' papistical ' innovation, directing the removal of the 

 communion table from the body of the choir to be placed altar-wise at the 

 east end. On 9 March, 161718 a solemn entry in Latin records the 

 admission of John Langley, B.A., to the place of 



headmaster of the free school in the college 01 cathedral church of Gloucester, the three 

 articles required in that behalf being first signed by him, and an oath being made by him to 

 observe the statutes and ordinances of the said church, and the oath of allegiance to King 

 James first being taken by him as is provided. 



This long entry and its special signature by Laud probably points to the 

 forcible expulsion of his predecessor and the interest which Laud took in 

 the school. 



Laud's influence can be traced also in the appointment of Daniel 

 Williams as usher on 14 October, 1618, he being a Warwick boy, of Laud's 

 College of St. John's, where he matriculated 30 June, 1615, and had not yet 

 taken his B.A. degree (which he did 19 October, 1619) when he became 

 usher. He shortly returned to Oxford, being succeeded 8 October, 1621, 

 by another boy from St. John's College, Thomas Daniel, who had taken his 



1 Rev. T. D. Fosbrooke, New Hist. ofGlouc. (1819), 116 ; see Wood's Atb. Oxf. i, n. 



3 2 4 



