A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



during his natural! life if so long time hee shall remaine Schoolemaster.' Peregrine Pieram was also 

 minister of Midhurst, and as such was to receive 205. a year for preaching a sermon on the anni- 

 versary of Hannam's death. On the death of Mr. Pieram or on his refusal or neglect to teach the 

 school Hannam ordered his trustees to choose a new schoolmaster. 



The rent-charge of 20 on his real and personal estate was confirmed by Hannam in another 

 deed dated 3 August, 1674. On 12 January, 1677, he made statutes for the governance of the 

 school : 



Imprimis whereas the No. of my free schollars is 1 2 I doe ordaine that the Schoolemaster doth 

 in a booke bought for that purpose att the cost of my trustees register the names of all such as bee 

 successively admitted under him. Which booke shall bee kept by the Schoolemasters successively. 



I doe ordaine that noe ladd bee chosen into my free schoole on my foundation but such who 

 have been inhabitants of Midhurst or the liberty of St. Johns 7 yrs. before, because my charity was 

 intended chiefly for this place. 



That noe ladd shall bee of my foundation but such whose parents or guardians are content they 

 shall bee brought upp in the protestant religion. 



That such children whose parents declare that theire desire and designe is to continue them soe 

 longe at schoole till they understand the Latine and Greeke tongue and bee fitt for the university bee 

 first chosen and in choice preferred before others. 



No trustee or schoolmaster was to be 



a professed Papist, or popishly enclined or a dissenter from the protestant faith as itt is professed and 

 by lawe established. 



The Schoolemaster shall instruct my scholars in the protestant religion duely and faithfully and 

 take care for their sober and civill conversation and that prayers bee used once a day at least in the 

 Schoole. Because I think youth very unfitt to teach youth, I ordaine that noe man shall bee capable 

 of teaching my schoole who is under the age of 23 unlesse he hath taken some degree in one of the 

 universities. If hereafter any who have been formerly scholars in my schoole shall become capable 

 of teachinge my schoole that such bee chosen Schoolemaster before others. 



That noe man be chosen to bee Schoolemaster but hee bee knowne to bee of a sober conversa- 

 tion or if hee bee a stranger that hee bring a certificate from the place he last lived in, or the college 

 of which hee was, or teach my Schoole 6 moneths as a probationer. 



Gilbert Hannam died two months later, 17 March, 1677, and his will was proved 10 June, 

 1678. Shortly afterwards a commission of charitable uses was obtained and the inquisition quoted 

 held ; and a decree was made 17 January, 1679, ordering the 20 a year to be paid to the school- 

 master so long as he continued to teach, and if he ' at any tyme or tymes hereafter shall mislike or 

 refuse to teach the said boyes in the Town house, that then the said Schoolemaster soe mislikeing or 

 refuseing shall at his owne proper coste and charges finde and procure a convenient house or roome 

 in Midhurst aforesaid ' ; and it was also ordered that all the orders and statutes ' mentioned and sett 

 forth in the said inquisition ' should be observed and kept by the trustees as well as by the school- 

 master and scholars. 



Peregrine Pieram was succeeded by Richard Oliver, who had been at Merchant Taylors School 

 and St. John's College Oxford, 2 from which he had taken his B.A. degree 1673, M.A. 1677. 

 He became canon of Wells, 1684, rector of Chilbolton, Hampshire, 1685, and archdeacon of Win- 

 chester, 1686, so that he could not have remained long at Midhurst. 



Henry Levitt became schoolmaster in 1710. He was a chorister 3 at Winchester College 

 from 1696 to 1700, when he became a scholar at the age of eleven 4 and went on to New College 

 in 1706. He kept his fellowship there till 1722, when he became vicar of Hornchurch. Whether 

 he gave up the mastership then is riot clear, but he may have held it while putting in his younger 

 brother to do the work, the next master known 6 being Everard Levitt, with no date. There was 

 a Levitt junior, Henry Levitt being Levitt senior, among the choristers at Winchester College from 

 1699 to 1704. Carlisle gives Serenus Barratt as the next master in 1735, and if the date is correct 

 he must have been the son of Serenus Barret, 6 who was a curate of Midhurst, having been at Lincoln 

 College, Oxford, and taken his B.A. in 1697, and became rector of New Fishbourne, Sussex, 1713. 

 After him came three masters who have not been traced. 



From 1799 there was a succession of Wykehamist head masters, under whom the school stood 

 high as one of the principal schools of West Sussex. John Wooll 7 entered college at Winchester 

 in 1779 and New College in 1785. He took his B.A. degree 1790, M.A. 1794, and B.D. and 

 D.D. 1807, in which year he left Midhurst to become head master of Rugby School. He was 

 succeeded by William Bayly, scholar of Winchester 1792 and of New College 1796, who had been 

 vicar of Hartpury, Gloucestershire, since 1803. 



' Foster > Jbmni. C. W. Holgate, Winch. Long Rolls, 1653-1721. 



Kirby, much. Scholars, 217. Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, ii, 607. 



' Ft r, Alumni. ' Kirby, Winchester Scholars, 272. 



428 



