SCHOOLS 



The most important results of the case were that for the first time a 

 body of trustees was appointed to manage the property, to consist of the 

 mayor, the minister (i.e. the vicar) ex officio, and five others, who were to 

 invest any superfluous rents in land, while the school was ordered to be 

 rebuilt. The Smith family, in spite of the opposition of Lord Berkeley and 

 the inhabitants, were left in possession of the power of appointing the master, 

 and were given alternately with the trustees the nomination of the poor 

 scholars. 



The school was accordingly rebuilt, the cost of doing so allowed by the 

 master in Chancery, 27 May, 1726, being 450, and, wonderful to relate, it 

 only exceeded that sum by izs. ^d. The large building thus erected is that 

 still used for the school. It is of the grey stone of the district, with a grey 

 tiled roof in two stories, and was said in 1801 to be sufficient not only for the 

 day scholars but for ' the lodging and accommodation of a large number of 

 boarders,' and was used for a dozen boarders until 1893. 



On I August, 1726, Samuel Craddock Bennett, son of the master, and 

 Benjamin son of Richard Pearse, apparently the former master, were admitted 

 on the foundation, both of whom in 1732 were given exhibitions of 5 a 

 year to Oxford. In 1727 we find : 'gave the boys that answered well at the 

 examination 6s.,' which they no doubt preferred to prizes of books. In 

 that year the first exhibition was given : * paid Robert Bennett's son's allowance 

 at Oxon for year 5.' On 10 June, 1728, it was agreed that a gallery should 

 be built in the church for the boys. 



Bennett held office till Lady Day, 1743, when he died, and Samuel 

 Craddock Bennett, the ex-scholar, served the office for half a year till a new 

 master was appointed. This was the Rev. Samuel Hayward, a Gloucester- 

 shire boy, of Exeter College, where he matriculated 15 March, 1723, and 

 became M.A. in 1730. 



Mr. Hayward was not a success. At a meeting of trustees on 26 

 November, 1746, it was agreed to petition the bishop to 'inquire into the 

 conduct of the master because of the great detriment to the school as well 

 through incapacity as by reason of a state of lunacy.' The bishop recom- 

 mended paying Hayward 20 a year to go, but this he declined. On 30 

 June, 1747, the trustees resolved to pay Hayward no more. They paid 

 Richard Smith, one of their University exhibitioners, who received 10 for 

 his exhibition, 'for teaching the boys from Michaelmas to St. Thomas 

 j ioj.' From Midsummer, 1748, the Rev. Thomas Clissold he afterwards 

 appears as Clisson who matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, February, 

 1735-6, took his B.A. degree 1739 and M.A. 1744, was paid as master, to 

 hold during the life of Mr. Hayward, who was thenceforward paid an annuity 

 of 20. Clissold had for a pupil in his early days Edward Jenner, the 

 inventor of vaccination. If Lady Berkeley's foundation had done nothing more 

 than educate this one boy, supposing that his school education had any share 

 in the result, it would have amply justified her name being esteemed among the 

 benefactors of the world. It is fair to say that he finished his education at 

 Cirencester school. The incubus of Mr. Hayward's annuity burdened the 

 school finances until his death in 1780. One result seems to have been the 

 suspension for a long time of any University exhibitions. But in 1767 ' Mr. 

 John Cooper for the better support of his nephew, James Cooper, at the 



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