SCHOOLS 



in St. John's Church, Gloucester, of which he was rector, as having c first 

 suggested the institution of Sunday Schools, and in conjunction with 

 Mr. Raikes established and supported the four original Sunday Schools 

 in this parish and St. Catherine's in 1780.' Stock had for second master 

 Thomas Evans, who retired in 1784 to the living of Chipping Norton. 

 Stock retired 15 April, 1788. He survived until 1803 and was buried in 

 St. Aldate's Church, the monument in St. John's being a cenotaph. 



Arthur Benoni Evans, a Welsh parson's son from Monmouthshire, of 

 Merton College, became second master i November, 1784, before he had 

 taken his degree. Some four years afterwards, 15 April, 1788, he was 

 admitted head master, David Carter Lewis, a compatriot, being at the same 

 time admitted as second master. 



In a History of Gloucester in 1829 by G. W. Arundel it is said 'The 

 present very learned master, the Reverend A. B. Evans, is justly esteemed for 

 the extent of his classical attainments as well as for his intimate acquaintance 

 with most of the modern languages.' Dr. Phillpotts, famous in his day as 

 Henry of Exeter, of which see he was made bishop in 1840, was a pupil of 

 Evans, admitted in October 1783. Mr. Ellis Viner, 1 vicar of Badgeworth, 

 whose father was there circa 1791, records how Evans drummed Greek 

 repetition into the boys' heads ; his father could repeat a page of Homer on 

 end without a mistake. Canon Hawkins of LlandafF, born in 1800, says 

 that he went in 1807 as a day boy under 'the second master, and in 1810 

 became a boarder in Evans' house and under him in school. . . The system 

 he adopted was an easier and sterner one than would meet with approval 

 now,' but he gives no details. There were 30 boarders in the old house, 

 which was entered from the small cloisters and was ' very small and confined.' 

 There were fives courts against the then cathedral library, the old and present 

 chapter-house. The schoolroom, the old and present cathedral library, was 

 up some thirty or forty steps, so that Evans, lame from rheumatism 

 or gout, in his later years took his class in his house. In 1810 the 

 choristers, who have since come to be regarded, quite wrongly, as 

 the real objects of the school, were again a trouble, the head master 

 being paid 5 a year and the usher 15 a year for extra instruction 

 to them. On 23 June, 1826, Thomas Evans, the son of the former 

 usher, became usher, and on 30 November, 1827, was allowed i extra 

 for every chorister learning to write ; an entry which shows how unsuit- 

 able choristers were for admission to the grammar school, grammar schools 

 having far back in the Middle Ages never admitted boys who could not 

 read or write first. Thomas Evans, who had been a Bible clerk at Oriel 

 College, where he graduated in 1825, became also a minor canon in 1832, 

 and was celebrated for his tenor voice and clear intoning ; in 18348 he was 

 vicar also of Brookthorpe, in 1838 of St. Mary de Lode, chaplain of the 

 county asylum, and precentor. 



The return of ecclesiastical revenues in 1835 by the Ecclesiastical Com- 

 missioners shows a curious conception on the part of the dean and chapter of 

 their obligation to the school. While the dean cleared over 900 a year and 

 each canon 630, besides holding two or three livings apiece, they still only 



1 Frederic Hannam Clark, Memoriei of the College School, Gkuctittr (1890), 19. 



333 



