A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



CUCKFIELD GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



In his will 1 II July, 1521, Edmund Flower, 'citizein and marchaunt tailor,' of London, says, 

 I for certeine years past at my costs and charge have caused a free Cramer Scole to be mainteined 

 and kepte at Cukfelde for the erudicion and lernyng of pore scolers thedur resortyng to the honour 

 of God in that behalf.' 



How long he had maintained the school Flower does not tell us, but he was warden of the 

 Merchant Taylors Company 1 in 1498-9, and was the first master under their new charter in 

 I 53-4>* an d ** suc ' 1 m consideration of the new charter, made an elaborate agreement, 3 Decem- 

 ber, 1503, with Henry VII for the company to celebrate an obit for him in St. Martin's Outwich. 

 In an inventory of the company's plate in 1512* appeared among 'Standing coppes ' 'Of the gift 

 of Maister Flower I gilt cup with a cover, with a columbyne, weiyng 28 oz.' Flower, therefore, 

 had made his fortune by 1504, and probably began the school not long after that date. For it was 

 in 1 502 that Sir John Percyvale, a member of his company, had founded Macclesfield Grammar 

 School, 5 and in 1 508 that Sir Stephyn Jenyns endowed Wolverhampton Grammar School. 



At whatever date he started the school, Flower determined to endow it at his death : 



For a perpetuall contynuaunce whereof and that a graduate beyng a secular prest and sufficient man to 

 teche Gramer maye be alway resident there to teche gramer and for the yerely mayntenance and 

 sustentacion of the same maister and his successors beyng Scole maister there for ever, and to 

 thintent that I may be reputed and named the first founder of the same, and that I and my wifis may 

 be perpetually prayed fore there : I woll that the maister and wardeins of oure blessid Ladye nowe 

 holden and kepte in the parishe churche of Cuckfeld aforesaid for the tyme beyng and theire suc- 

 cessoures shall yerely 



apply the income of his lands in Westerham, Kent, which he directed his feoffees to convey to 

 nominees of the fraternity ; and also of other lands worth 5 a year for the purchase of which he 

 had given them jiOO to 'the contynuall and perpetuall mayntenaunce of the said Gramer Scole.' 



When the ' rome of the said Scolemaister ' was void, the master and wardens of the fraternity 

 were to choose 'a new able Scolemaister ... by the advice of the Vicar there and by suche 3 or 

 4 honest men of the said parishe ... as the Master and Wardeins shalle calle unto them." If they 

 ' necgligently doo suffre the said scole to be unkept by the space of one yere,' and do not provide for 

 its maintenance within half a year ' after monycion or warnyng ' by the mystery or craft of Merchant 

 Taylors then the endowment was to be sold and the proceeds applied by the Merchant Taylors Com- 

 pany in farthing bread to the prisoners in various city prisons. 



The will was proved 13 August, 1521. It was very promptly carried out by the purchase for 

 66 1 3*. \d. of 1 12 acres of land in Laughton, East Hoathly, and Chiddingly, conveyed by Emelyn 

 Watreman by deed of 20 November, 1521. 



By a 'tripartite Indenture' of I October, 1528, made between Mr. William Spicer, parson of 

 Balcombe, the master and fellows of ' the Colledge of St. Catherin called St. Catherin's Hall ' in 

 Cambridge, and the vicar Ninian Burrell, and twelve parishioners of Cuckfield, the endowment 

 was considerably increased. 



William Spicer may perhaps be the Spicer who entered at Cambridge as a ' questionist ' 7 in 

 1485-6, and was granted in 1494 his doctorate in canon law. 8 He was no doubt a member of 

 St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, in favour of which in certain events there was a gift out of his 

 endowment. That he might be 'named, taken and reputed the second founder of the said Grammar 

 School,' Spicer added to Flower's endowment, worth ^6 ioj. a year, the manor and lands of Red- 

 stone in Reigate, worth 5 a year clear, which he had bought of Thomas Mitchell ' for the continuance 

 of the said Free Grammar School and for the establishment and making of good rules and ordinances 

 to be had, taught, used and kept in the said school for ever.' 



It shows how already coming events were casting their shadows before them, that he directed 

 in case the fraternity should be dissolved the master should be nominated by the rectors of 



1 P.C.C. 8 Maynwaryng. 



' Charles M. Clode, Early Hist, of the Merchant Tayhrs Company, ii, 41, 42. 



1 Ibid, i, 347. < Ibid, i, 96. 



'Not as stated in Clode, op. cit. ii, 17, the 291)1 earliest school in England, as it is more like the 290* ; 

 but still, a fairly early specimen of a foundation by a city merchant. 



' A copy of this indenture made in or about 1626 by the then vicar of Cuckfield, Thomas Vickers, who 

 was also a non-residentiary canon of Chichester, and died in 1638, is preserved in a small quarto paper book, 

 the bulk of which was apparently written by him, in a parchment binding, in the possession of the vicars of 

 Cuckfield for the time being, called the Vicar's Book, p. 22. The spelling is not of the original date, but of 

 that of the copy, and is therefore not worth reproducing. For the loan of the Vicar's Book the writer is 

 indebted to Canon Cooper. 



' Camb. Grace Book A. 200. 8 Ibid. B. 71. 



416 



