A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



were to be 3 to 6 a year. Mr. Brown stayed two years, during which 

 the number in the school rose to 103. The Rev. J. R. Major followed for 

 four years. The Schools Inquiry Commission l reported in rather unfavour- 

 able terms of the school, and mentioned that in the last two years sixteen 

 boys had left after only a year's stay in the school. The trustees expressed 

 themselves dissatisfied with the result of the scheme : ' It has neither brought 

 people to the town to reside, nor afforded a good and cheap education to the 

 people of the town.' The numbers fell, and the master did not get on with 

 the trustees and resigned. On 15 July, 1867, the Rev. Christopher Naylor 

 of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was appointed head master, and on 

 14 October, the Rev. John Cuming of the same college was appointed 

 second master. The new masters were allowed to take boarders, so that the 

 school became even more than before a mere reduplication and rival of the 

 College School. On the other hand the fees were reduced to 4 a year. 

 They found only 46 boys in the school. By 1870 the number had risen to 

 136. In this year the trustees concurred with the dean and chapter and the 

 town council in the abortive proposals for amalgamation with the College 

 School already related. The numbers continued to rise till they reached 156, 

 and remained about 150 till the end of 1875. The Townsend Scholarship 

 at Pembroke College, Cambridge, which had not been filled since 1853, was 

 twice gained. The boarders did not form a very serious item in the school, 

 the head master having only nine, and the second master one, the boarding 

 fees being 30 or l 2 a y ear - The school did what was then rare in 

 schools of this kind, sent its boys in for the examinations and obtained the 

 grants of the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, but only to 

 the extent of about thirty boys out of the whole school. In 1877 the 

 trustees of the school again formulated proposals for a scheme, this time in 

 concert with the trustees of the Blue Coat School, Sir Thomas Rich's 

 Hospital. 



SIR THOMAS RICH'S HOSPITAL, GLOUCESTER 



This Almshouse Elementary school was founded by Sir Thomas Rich of 

 Sonning, Berkshire, a native of Gloucester, and son of a Gloucester alderman, 

 who had made a fortune in the Turkey trade. He gave by will made in 

 i666 a his house in Eastgate Street 'to be an Hospital for ever for the 

 entertaining and harbouring of 20 poor boys and their maintenance, with 

 diet, lodging, washing, clothing, and other necessaries in blue coats and caps 

 according to the laudable usage of Christ's Hospital in London. An honest, 

 able schoolmaster ' was to live in the house ' to teach the said poor boys to 

 write and read,' who were to be not under ten and none to continue beyond 

 sixteen years of age. Six of the boys were to be apprenticed yearly, ' wherein 

 his desire was ' ' that 3 or 4 of them should be apprenticed in London to- 

 some honest handicraft trades there and with honest masters, not adhering in 

 their opinions to the novelties of the times.' There were other provisions 

 for doles of money and clothing to the poor, loans to young tradesmen, 

 marriage portions for poor maidservants and the like. For endowment the 

 very large sum of 6,000 was left to the mayor and burgesses of Gloucester^ 



1 Sch. Inf. Rep. xv, 72. * Char. Com. Rep. xiv, 21. 



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