SCHOOLS 



In 1 8 1 8, when he was head master, Carlisle 8 speaks in high terms of the school : 



This institution has, for some years past, been a Classical School of very great Eminence, annually 

 sending Students to the Universities, and ranking among its Pupils, besides many independent 

 Members, several lately admitted upon the Foundation of the most respectable Colleges in each. 



At that time, ' the School-House, originally the Residence of the Founder, having been much 

 improved and enlarged by several successive Masters, has lately been augmented by a considerable 

 addition to the premises.' Dr. Bayly had two assistant masters, both graduates, and he had 60 

 boarders in his house, who paid 50 guineas. The report of Lord Brougham's Commission of Inquiry 

 on the Education of the Poor in 1 8 1 9 9 shows that the school was entirely the creation of the masters, 

 the endowment being only 32 a year, out of which 20 was the master's salary, while Dr. Bayly 

 alone had spent 2,000 upon the buildings and paid an annuity of 4.0 a year to the widow of a 

 former master. There were 6 boys on the foundation ; whereas there had been 1 2 ; but they had 

 disappeared partly through the competition of a cheaper private ' grammar ' school kept by a former 

 assistant master, partly through a new national school. It is pleasing to note that the foundation 

 boys were not, as in some other schools at this date, treated as an inferior class and kept apart, but on 

 the same footing as the boarders and paying day-boys, of whom there were several. One of the free 

 boys was in the highest class. 



Among Dr. Bayly's pupils was Field-Marshal Sir Frederick Haines, G.C.B. When he was at 

 school in 1828 10 ' the School consisted of one immense room,' which was built in 1821." It was 

 not partitioned off as it is now into three separate apartments. 



The elder Dr. Bailey was nearing the end of his reign then. He was a little man, but a very strong 

 one and his effective rule had given the School its high standing. The young men of the senior class 

 generally qualified for a University career direct from the School. They were also his first aids in 

 disciplinary matters, the Winchester Prefect system. 



The younger Dr. Bailey was taller in figure and an equally good classic, but not nearly so good 

 as a disciplinarian. The gradual reduction of the age of the head pupils was one of the main causes 

 of the School's decline, for these younger boys never had the influence and control of their older pre- 

 decessors. Thus in the time of the younger Dr. Bailey the School fell on evil days, and a report, 

 probably calumnious, states that the numbers dwindled to one boy, who ran away. . . . 



A feature of the curriculum that would not appeal to the present age was the prominence given 

 to Latin and Greek and the almost total neglect of everything else. . . . The School walls in those 

 days were absolutely bare and there was no such thing as a blackboard on the premises. Each pupil 

 had one or two desks called 'Xobs' and pronounced ' Scobs ' " a and when the lids of these were erected 

 the owner thereof was nicely entrenched in his own castle. . . . The lavatory was a pump in the 

 open air. 



The last two items proclaim the Wykehamist head master, the desks copied from the ' Scobs ' 

 in ' School,' and the pump out of doors like ' Conduit ' in ' Chamber Court ' at Winchester. The 

 younger Dr. Bayly had become a scholar at Winchester in 1818 12 and New College in 1822. 



The decline of the school continued. The Schools Inquiry Commissioner 13 who visited in 

 1866 reported that it had been in abeyance for eight years. The master's house had then gone 

 completely to decay. In February, 1860, the trustees resolved to take steps for restoring the school 

 and the Charity Commissioners prepared a scheme, but it was not carried into execution in con- 

 sequence of the opposition raised by Lord Egmont, the principal trustee. The school remained in 

 abeyance until a scheme, made under the Endowed Schools Acts, constituted a governing body of 

 eleven persons, consisting of the queen's bailiff of Midhurst, and the vicar ex qfficio, with four 

 representatives of the vestry (now the parish council), and five co-optatives, headed by the seventh 

 Earl of Egmont, and directed it to be carried on as a second-grade grammar school at fees of 4 to 

 8 a year. 



The school was reopened in 1882 under Mr. Horace Byatt, M.A., of London University. 

 The numbers were fairly steady under him at between 40 and 50, about 12 being boarders. In 

 1888 the income from endowment was only 41 a year, charged with the replacement of 1,200 

 spent in buildings. To this 80 a year was added out of the income of George Ognell's charity, 

 founded in 1596 for the poor and 'other good and charitable uses,' by a scheme made under the 

 Charitable Trusts Acts, 20 February, 1880. 



The present head master is Mr. Thomas Hay. He was educated at Newcastle Grammar School 

 and was an exhibitioner at St. John's College, Cambridge, and a senior optime in 1895, and B.Sc. of 



8 Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, 607. * Char. Com. Rep. i, 175. 



10 Midhurst School Mag. No. 4, Dec. 1904, p. 10. " Sch. Inj. Rep. xi, 255. 



" a This word is still in use at Winchester. It has been shown to be a corruption of scabellum, a stool or 

 form, the name being transferred from the form to the chest which rested on it. 



" Kirby, Winchester Scholars, 302. " Sch. Inj. Rep. xi, 255. 



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