SCHOOLS 



In order to provide the accommodation required by H.M. Inspector for 

 the evening classes, and to provide a home for the school of art, buildings 

 have been erected adjoining the grammar school. To enable a loan to be 

 raised for this purpose, the County Council grant has been increased to 

 2,200 yearly, by agreement between the County Council, the Town 

 Council, and the governors of the grammar school. 



These laboratories and art rooms are available at separate times for the 

 use of the pupils of the two schools of the foundation. 



The new scheme of the Board of Education, 5 December, 1905, 

 definitely provides for the girls' school upon Pate's foundation. 



The governing body is increased by two additional representatives of 

 the County Council, who must be women. The school is now administered 

 by 1 9 governors : The mayor, ex officio, 7 representatives appointed by the 

 County Council, 5 by the Town Council, 4 by Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 

 and 2 by the parents of the day scholars attending the schools of the 

 foundation. 



CHELTENHAM COLLEGE 



Cheltenham was the first of the many public schools founded in the 

 reign of Queen Victoria, and claims to be the first ' great public school ' 

 founded since Charterhouse School in 1620. In 1840 some parents of boys 

 who were at private schools in Cheltenham and dissatisfied with them decided 

 to start a public school under their own direction. 1 Among these founders 

 were Mr. G. S. Harcourt, Capt. J. S. Iredell, whose name is kept alive by 

 a school prize, and the Rev. Francis Close, afterwards dean of Carlisle, then in- 

 cumbent of Cheltenham. It is probably owing to his influence that the school 

 governors, masters, and boys were absolutely required to be members of the 

 Church of England. Houses were bought for the school in the centre of the 

 town. The Rev. Alfred Phillips, from King William's College, Isle of Man, 

 was appointed the first Principal. Success was immediate, and at the end of 

 a year, more space being wanted, the present site then outside the town was 

 bought. The college buildings began with a large schoolroom, since known 

 as the ' big classical.' One of the first boys was the present Lord James of 

 Hereford, who after a brilliant career at the bar became Attorney-General in 

 Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1880, but seceded on the question of 

 Home Rule in 1885, and was made a peer in 1895. The boys used to go 

 to churches in the town till 1858, when a chapel was built, for which in 

 1896 the present one, in commemoration of the school's jubilee, was sub- 

 stituted. 



From the first the school was divided into classical and modern sides, 

 and usually the modern side has been the larger. It used to be called the 

 military and civil department. It has been largely a preparatory school for 

 a military career, and probably the number of Cheltonians in the army 

 exceeds that from any other school. The Rev. W. Dobson became Principal 

 in 1845. He was of Charterhouse School and a Fellow of Trinity, Cam- 

 bridge, and came to Cheltenham from a Nottinghamshire rectory. Mr. John 

 Morley, Mr. Lecky, the historian of Ireland and of Rationalism, and 



1 Great PubRc Schools, article on Cheltenham College by E. Scot Skirving, M.A., from which most of 

 this information is taken. 



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