SCHOOLS 



RESEARCH into the history of 

 Surrey Schools is greatly hampered 

 by the absence of any Chantry 

 Certificates,' properly so-called. In 

 default of these we have no precise 

 information as to how many and what schools 

 there were at the crucial epoch of 1548, when 

 their endowments were confiscated to Edward 

 VI., some to perish altogether, some to be 

 revived under the name of the king for whose 

 benefit they were plundered, or of his succes- 

 sors who, in their turn, enjoyed the plunder. 

 The Surrey Schools of real antiquity, of 

 which a pre- Reformation origin can be proved, 

 or with certainty inferred, are but three : 

 Kingston, Guildford and Croydon. There 

 is little doubt that schools existed also at 

 Southwark and Farnham, whose dates can be 

 traced back to within fifteen years of the dis- 

 solution of the chantries ; for in both of 

 these the Bishops of Winchester, one of whose 

 duties it was to see to the efficiency of schools, 

 were more or less continuously resident. Of 

 the other Grammar Schools of the county, 

 Dulwich, Camberwell, Battersea, Charter- 

 house, the origins are well defined. The 

 development of the places in which they are, 

 as well as of the schools themselves, is too late 

 to give any claim to greater antiquity than 

 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to 

 which they belong. 



KINGSTON-ON-THAMES 



Of all the ancient schools of the county, 

 that now called Queen Elizabeth's Grammar 

 School, at Kingston-on-Thames (which was 

 the place of coronation of many early English 

 kings), appropriately claims precedence. 



' At the Record Office there are two so-called 

 Chantry Certificates for Surrey, Nos. 47 and 48. 

 The first, taken under the Act of 37 Hen. VIII. 

 1546, is only a certificate of how many chantties in 

 Surrey and Sussex had been dissolved without 

 licence from the Crown since 4 February 1536, and 

 comprises only one chantry in Surrey. The other 

 is undated, but is late in the reign of Edward VI. 

 and gives only the names of fifteen chantry priests 

 who were in receipt of pensions out of the then 

 dissolved chantries. 



It has one unique title to fame in being the 

 earliest, so far as is yet known, of English 

 schools to be called in set terms a Public 

 School. So it was called in an official docu- 

 ment, at a date which brings it back to the 

 middle of the fourteenth century. The 

 document of title is a letter written by William 

 of Edington, as Bishop of Winchester, who 

 in that capacity was Ordinary of Kingston, 

 and thereby charged with the superintend- 

 ence of schools and education there. It is 

 addressed to the prior of the cathedral mon- 

 astery of Canterbury, asking him to return 

 the belongings of the headmaster of Kingston 

 Grammar School, which had been detained 

 in the Almonry of the monastery, then oc- 

 cupying the site on which the present 

 Grammar School of Canterbury, the King's 

 School, now stands. The letter is preserved 

 in a copy entered in the Priors' Register 

 at Canterbury ^ A translation of it runs as 

 follows : — 



My lord and dearest friend in Christ. The 

 law of friendship teaches that hurtful wounds 

 should be revealed most carefully to him who 

 gives help or healing, and at a crisis seeks the 

 help (suffragia) of friends. We heard some 

 time ago on the report of our beloved sons and 

 parishioners of the town of Kingston, that 

 they to their grief being without a teacher 

 or master ^ of their boys and others coming to 

 the said town, where a school has been accus- 

 tomed to be kept, made an agreement and 

 entered into a contract, confirmed by sure- 

 ties, with one Hugh of Kingston, clerk, born 

 in the said town, lately the worthy peda- 

 gogue,* as it is said, of the scholars in the 



' Canterbury Cath. Library. Reg. L. f. 59b. 

 Per episcopum Wintoniensem pro uno petagogo 

 scolas exercendo. It is printed in the late Dr. 

 Sheppard's Literte Cantuarienses, Rolls Series, II, 

 464. Owing to its not being indexed this docu- 

 ment had escaped attention until the writer found 

 it in 1896 in the original Register while searching 

 for information about Canterbury School. 



' Informatore seu magistro puerorum enrundera 

 et aliorum in dicta villa, ubi consueverunt scole 

 exerceri, confiuencium, tediose carentes. 



* Nuper scolarium in domo elemosinarie vestre 

 digno, sicut dicitur, pedagogo. ^ 



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