SCHOOLS 



made between William Tindall and Robert Butler, merchants of Bristol 

 4 and burgesses of the Parliament of the same citie ' and Nicholas Thorne ' the 

 sonne.' By this Nicholas * condiscended and agreed ' that 'a sufficient assur- 

 ance should be made by auctorite of Parliament ' to the corporation * of the 

 Bartilmewes ' and its lands ' to the use and maintenaunce of a free schole 

 perpetually to be kept in the said howsc.' The two M.P.'s on behalf of the 

 corporation agreed that, within a year after Nicholas, then apparently a minor, 

 came of age, they would grant him an estate for life or for 2 1 years in the 

 property ' reserving the old accustomed rents,' while the corporation were to 

 be bound to perform Nicholas the elder's will * concerning the establishment 

 and ereccion of the said schole.' 



When Nicholas Thorne the younger had come of age he, by a deed of 

 I July, 1561, ' for the accomplyshment as well of the good purpose and will of 

 the said Robert my unkle and the said Nicholas my father ' granted the 

 Hospital and lands to the 



Mayor burgisses and cominaltie . . and to their successors for ever to the uses and 

 intents of the fynding of a Free Gramer Schole within the said howse called the Bartilmewes 

 for ever, and to fynde one sufficient and able person being sufficiently lerned and virtuouse to 

 be Schole master their, and one or two other sufficient person or persons being also sufficient- 

 lie lerned and virtuous to be usher or ushers, and they the said master and usher or ushers 

 and their successors contynuallie to teache grammer within the said schole to all childreneand 

 others that will repayre to the said schole for lerning and knowledge of the laten tonge and 

 other good lerning, for the better educacion and bringing uppe of youthe in lerning and virtue, 

 and that frelie without any thing to be taken other than fower pence onlie for the first 

 admission of every scholer into the same schole. 



So at last after more than forty years the title to the Bartholomews found 

 rest in the persons originally intended by Robert Thorne the first and the second. 

 But the fatal agreement with Nicholas Thorne II by which this conveyance 

 was obtained had yet to be carried out. It was carried out by a deed of 

 20 September 1561, which in 1839 was among the corporation records, by 

 which the corporation instead of giving Nicholas Thorne an estate in the 

 property only for life or for twenty-one years, as stipulated, conveyed the 

 whole of the Bartholomew estates to him and his heirs in fee-farm, i.e. on a 

 perpetual lease at a rent of 30 a year. 



The capital house of St. Bartholomew and the school house and all other houses and 

 edifices within the utter gate of the said capital house as they were or should be diuided by 

 a main wall from the chapel or church of the said late hospital and the two aisles and small 

 chapels within the said church 



were excepted and reserved to the mayor and commonalty ' for the use and 

 benefit of the said free school established and erected within the said capital 

 house and to the master and usher of the same for the time being,' and Thorne 

 undertook to keep these as well as the other premises in repair. But the 

 whole of the endowment other than the school site and buildings were parted 

 with out-and-out. What influence produced this astounding breach of trust 

 on the part of the corporation, of which Mr. Nicholas Thorne himself was 

 afterwards chamberlain, that is, treasurer or financial officer, does not appear. 

 The Audit Book of 1563 shows payment of 100 by Thorne to the corpora- 

 tion in discharge of a bond by him, and as this was about two years' purchase 

 of the endowment it would seem that this very moderate fine, which went not 



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