SCHOOLS 



BRISTOL COLLEGE OR CATHEDRAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



After the dissolution by surrender of St. Augustine's Abbey in 1538, 

 Henry VIII by letters patent, 4 June, 1542, established in it the cathedral 

 church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, with a bishop, dean, and chapter 

 of 6 canons prebendaries, 6 minor canons, a schoolmaster, and usher : with 

 other minor ministers and officers. As the establishment and the statutes 

 were in identical terms with those of Gloucester, the pay of the master and 

 usher being the same, 20 and 10, and there being here also no foundation 

 scholars, it is unnecessary to repeat the provisions made with regard to the 

 school at Bristol. And it is not a little discreditable to the deans and chapters 

 of these two western sees that they alone of the chapters of the cathedrals of 

 the new foundation, merely to save their own pockets, allowed their grammar 

 schools to be degraded to the position of mere chorister schools and elemen- 

 tary schools. At Bristol, however, as will be seen, the modern chapter did 

 at length, too late indeed to retrieve the situation wholly, endeavour to restore 

 the school to some useful work, and if not to its ancient and intended status, 

 at least to some position as a secondary school. 



In spite of these express directions for the maintenance of a grammar 

 school, it has been stated in an official report that no cathedral grammar 

 school was ever established. ' I learn,' said Mr. A. H. Stanton in his report 

 to the Schools Inquiry Commission in 1866, 



that there is no trace of any such school having in feet been brought into existence in 

 Bristol. Two grammar schools were founded in the city at about the same period when 

 the statutes were granted to the cathedral, and one of them is situated close by. It is 

 perhaps to be presumed therefore that their presence was one of the deterrent causes why 

 the statutes were not acted upon. 



At this time the dean and chapter were so oblivious of their statutory duty 

 that they had actually appointed a certificated elementary schoolmaster to 

 teach the school. Mr. Stanton adds : 



I find that some school has long existed in connexion with the cathedral, and in a 

 history of Bristol in 1809 is spoken of as 'the Cathedral Grammar School.' It would seem 

 therefore that we must accept the present school as the imperfect development of the higher 

 type contemplated by Henry VIII. 



But this is all guesswork, and though, through the destruction of docu- 

 ments which is thought to have taken place at the Reform Bill riots in 1835, 

 it is impossible to demonstrate the actual existence of the Cathedral Grammar 

 School in the sixteenth century ; yet there can be no reasonable doubt of the 

 fact that one was established. In the first place Henry VIII was not the kind 

 of person to brook the dereliction of duty which would have been implied 

 by a failure to establish the school for which part of the endowment was 

 expressly assigned. Two commissions were appointed, one under Henry VIII, 

 one under Edward VI, to see that the deans and chapters duly carried out the 

 charitable objects, of repair of bridges and roads and relief of the poor, 

 provided in their statutes. It is impossible to suppose that neglect to 

 maintain the school can have been, as it is supposed to be, one of the reasons 

 for the establishment of the new cathedrals, since then an important object in 

 the statutes for them would have been overlooked. If Henry had not 

 intended Bristol Cathedral to maintain a grammar school he would have 



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