A HISTORY OF SURREY 



the amounts found happen in fact to be on 

 the whole larger during Davies' time than 

 afterwards. It is absurd to suppose that the 

 brethren would have been quiescent for four 

 years if informed that for three quarters run- 

 ning there was no money in the box, which was 

 in fact opened before the assembled brethren. 

 The item of the amount found in the box is 

 always specified in a separate entry at the end 

 of the accounts and all that happened was, 

 that in the quarters in question, the entry of 

 the amount was carelessly omitted. As a poor 

 brother was expelled at the same time with 

 the master it is most likely that the oflFence 

 for which they were expelled was some matter 

 of religion or internal dissension. 



William Nicholson was a person of some 

 note in his day. Beginning life, as a good 

 many distinguished scions of Oxford colleges 

 did, especially those of New College and 

 Magdalen, as a chorister, he took his B.A. 

 degree at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 

 i6u,> and became master at Croydon, no 

 doubt very soon after taking his M.A. He 

 resigned the school, 2 February 1629-30, for 

 preferment in Wales, the rectory of Llandilo- 

 fawr, which was followed by the archdeaconry 

 of Brecknock in 1644. Dispossessed during 

 the Commonwealth, he was given a Canonry of 

 St. David's in 1660, which he continued to 

 hold with divers sinecure rectories along with 

 the bishopric of Gloucester, to which he was 

 appointed in 1661, till his death ten years 

 later. 



Of John Webb, his successor, little is known. 

 Said to be of Magdalen, he seems to have taken 

 his M.A. degree at Magdalen Hall, 25 June 

 1628." Though appointed master by Arch- 

 bishop Laud, he was discreet enough to retain 

 his place and carry on the school quietly 

 throughout the Civil War, Croydon being in 

 the hands of Parliament, and only vacated 

 office by reason of death, on 16 April 1648. 

 Henry Tubbe or Tubbs, the benefactor men- 

 tioned below was under Webb for seven years 

 before admission to St. John's College, Cam- 

 bridge, in 1635.^ 



Noris Wood, of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 aged 30, succeeded, being appointed ' under 

 the hands and seals of E. Corbett, minister of 

 Croydon, and John Rawlinson, rector and 

 parson of Lambeth.' 



On 21 March 1651, Thomas Day, of Christ's 

 College, Cambridge, was on the resigna- 

 tion of Wood, appointed by ' the Rt. Hon. 

 Sir William Brereton, Knight and Baronett,' 



' Bloxam's Register of Magdalen College, i. 29. 



2 Foster's Alumni Oxonienses. 



3 Admissions, etc. (ed. J. B. Mayer, 1893), I. i. 26. 



he having had the grant of the manor of 

 Croydon and the archbishop's powers there. 

 That the hospital went on just as usual 

 may appear from the admission as a poor 

 sister of the hospital in 1658 of NIrs. 

 Clarke, ' kinswoman of the Founder.' The 

 school, too, kept on the even tenor of 

 its way. In a fly-leaf of the Register * it is 

 recorded how ' Mr. Henry Tubbs, Master of 

 Arts, sometime schollar in this school, gave 

 40/., which was paid by Dr. Samuell Bernard * 

 for the buying of books for the use of the 

 school about the year 1655, and with that 

 moneys was bought Brodeus upon the Greek 

 Anthologies, Ruderus upon Martiall, and 

 a PoeticaU Dictionarie ; which are still 

 in the school, 1658.' We find John, son 

 of George Price, Esquire, of Esher, who had 

 been four years under Mr. Day, admitted ' a 

 fellow-commoner of St. John's, Cambridge, 

 in 1657. Tubb and Price, to say nothing 

 of the high academic qualifications of 

 the masters, sufficiently demonstrate the 

 falsity of the notion that the old school was 

 no good. Day's end is not recorded, but 

 he was probably turned out on the Restora- 

 tion. 



On 29 September 1662, John Philips, 

 * sometime of New CoUedge in Oxon,' was 

 nominated by Archbishop Juxon. He had 

 been scholar of Winchester College in 1616,' 

 scholar of New College 1623, Fellow 1625- 

 1629, taking his M.A. degree 15 January 

 1631.^ His death as ' Schoolmaster of the 

 Free Schole in Croydon ' is entered in the 

 Hospital Register as occurring on 6 August 

 1668. 



William Crowe, his successor, aged fifty- 

 two, ' sometime of Gonville and Caius Col- 

 ledge in Cambridge,' entered 9 December 

 1668, on Archbishop Sheldon's nomination. 

 He published in 1672 a catalogue of English 

 writers on the Scriptures.* 



In 1673 1" the people of Croydon groaned 

 under a vicar who spent what time he could 

 spare from drinking and stealing boob in 

 London, in harassing the people with suits 

 for tithe. Complaint was made to the Privy 



* Reg. i. f. 4, 6. This entry too is travestied in 

 the History of Whitgift Grammar School, p. 10, 

 where Brodeus or Brodie appears as Brokus and 

 Martial as Maxtiak, and ' Dictionarie ' is Frenchi- 

 fied into Dictionaire. 



' Vicar of Croydon. 



' Admissions, etc., I. i. 131. 



' Kirby's Winchester Scholars, p. 167. 



« Foster's Alumni Oxon. 



» Catalogus scriptorum in sacram paginam. 

 Wood, Athtnte Oxonienses, ii. 344, 4^80. 



'" Ducarel's Account. 



192 



