SCHOOLS 



the reign of George 11., eked out by boarders' 

 fees. But in 1 800, during the mastership of 

 the Rev. Thos. Wilson, which began 19 May 

 1797, they obtained the sanction of the 

 Bishop of Winchester to new statutes, 

 which restricted admission to the school to 

 the sons of Freemen. The result is seen in the 

 account given of the school in 181 8.* 



The present master is the Rev. Thos. 

 Wilson, whose salary is ^£30 per annum with a 

 pretty good house and garden. He is bound 

 by the will of the founder to teach the classics 

 only, but it is said that he engaged on his 

 appointment to teach reading and writing 

 also. But very few persons send their sons, 

 and at present it is stated that not more than 

 4 or 5 boys attend, so that the school is con- 

 sidered as of very little use to the town. None 

 but the sons of Freemen are admissible. 



In the account given by the Commissioners 

 of Inquiry concerning Charities^ in 1826, they 

 say that the whole of the income of the pro- 

 perty comprised in the patents was applied 

 for the school ' as far back as can be traced.' 

 This is a mistake, as, for instance, the first 

 item of the George Inn was already in the 

 town accounts of the sixteenth century 

 treated as Corporation property. Besides, 

 the eighty acres of land in Surbiton, com- 

 prised in the grant of 1564, which would 

 then be of considerable and now of enormous 

 value, nowhere appear in the rental given 

 by the Commissioners. In 1826 the total 

 income of the school was £g'i ip. \d., of 

 which ;f20 I3J'. gd. was derived from property 

 sold on ' fee farm,' or fixed rents 200 years 

 before. The master received only C'^o. 

 There was no usher. There were no boarders. 

 The school consisted only of fourteen scholars 

 on the foundation, appointed by the gover- 

 nors, from among Freemen's children, for 

 each of whom £1 a year was paid.^ 



Under the Municipal Corporations Act, 

 1835, the governorship of the school was trans- 

 ferred to Municipal Charity Trustees ap- 

 pointed by the Court of Chancery. In 1841 

 these trustees made statutes which fixed the 

 age of superannuation at fifteen. The result 

 of this degradation of the school may be seen 

 in the very unfavourable report of Mr. D. R. 

 Fearon, on his visit to the school in 1865, for 



* Carlisle's Endowed Grammar Schools, ii. 577. 



2 C.C.R. xiv. 6 and 7. 



3 Oddly enough, in spite of the explicit state- 

 ment to this effect in the report of 1826, Mr D. R. 

 Fearon, reporting to the Schools Inquiry Com- 

 mission in 1867 (S.I.R. xi. 183) says that in 1826 

 the boys were taught ' free of charge.' 



the Endowed Schools Inquiry Commission,* 

 when of 52 boys none could do a very ele- 

 mentary piece of Latin prose, or translate a 

 passage of Emile Souvestre which they were 

 reading ; while Euclid was ' very bad.' 



The master was nevertheless a Cambridge 

 graduate, the Rev. William Rigg, who, how- 

 ever, to make a living, combined with the 

 school the chaplaincy of the House of Correc- 

 tion and other clerical duty ' a few miles dis- 

 tant.' The second master, who received 

 £80 a year and board, was also a Cambridge 

 graduate. 



In spite, however, of mismanagement, so 

 great was the demand for some secondary 

 education in Kingston, that the numbers had 

 risen in 1 867 to seventy. On 20 October 1 874, 

 Queen Victoria in Council gave the royal 

 assent to a scheme made by the Endowed 

 Schools Commissioners, the negotiations for 

 which had been begun three and a half years 

 before. This scheme created a Governing 

 Body, consisting of the High Steward of 

 Kingston (now the Earl of Rosebery), two 

 representatives of the Town Council, two of 

 the Surbiton Improvement Commissioners, 

 two of the New Maiden Local Board, with 

 four Municipal Charity Trustees and two 

 co-optatives. Under its management were 

 placed the Grammar School, with some small 

 local charities appropriated to education 

 under a previous scheme, and Thomas Tiffin's 

 Foundation. This was an Elementary School 

 founded under the wills of two brothers, 

 Thomas and John TiflSn, of 15 November 

 1638, and 17 November 1639. It was originally 

 for four boys to be taught ' to write and cast ac- 

 counts ' and apprenticing them. The Corpora- 

 tion fortunately invested the money in seven- 

 teen acres of land in the West Field of Kingston, 

 then an open field. In 1828, this land, with an 

 addition made under an Inclosure Act, brought 

 in only &^<) a year ; and twenty-two boys were 

 taught at an expense of ;£i4 a year, thirteen 

 of whom were also clothed as blue coat boys at 

 an expense of &21 los. 



The Endowed Schools Commissioners split 

 the funds between the Grammar School and a 

 lower school for boys and girls called Tiffin's 

 Schools, and gave the bulk of the endow- 

 ment for the latter, run at abnormally low 

 fees. 



The Grammar School under the scheme 

 met, however, with considerable success. New 

 class rooms and a new headmaster's house, 

 with accommodation for twelve boarders were 

 erected in 1877 on the opposite side of the 

 road to the old chapel, which was itself restored 



« S.I.R. xi. 183. 



163 



