SCHOOLS 



Winchester. There seem to have been at- 

 tempts at reforming the monasteries in the 

 sixteenth century, by improving their learn- 

 ing, and not limiting it, as before, to the two 

 or three who were sent to the universities 

 each year. But this movement had hardly 

 begun in 1516, and the Carthusians, if they 

 observed their rule, were of a more secluded 

 order than the Benedictine monks of Win- 

 chester, or the Augustinian canons of Netley. 

 Besides, the phrase, ' taking the office of a 

 grammar school,' which is also used of Erlys- 

 man, on being elected headmaster of Eton in 

 15 1 1, points to an organized school, and is 

 entirely different to that of ' teaching the 

 canons ' {ad informandum canonicos) used in 

 the other cases cited. It is possible that the 

 Charterhouse monks had been compelled to 

 establish a Public Grammar School, as Wol- 

 sey had already begun to suppress priories to 

 found colleges, though it was long before 

 Henry VIII. had begun to appropriate mon- 

 astic revenues to educational purposes. What- 

 ever kind of school it was, at present it can 

 only be presented as a problem for the next 

 Carthusian historian to affiliate the school 

 founded by the Etonian Sutton to the school 

 officered by the Wykehamist Jakes 101 years 

 before. 



The present school was first opened in 

 July, 1 614; — two years after the death of its 

 founder. 



The reasons why one school becomes great 

 and another of practically the same founda- 

 tion remains small are always obscure. Char- 

 terhouse took rank rather with Westminster 

 than wdth St. Paul's and Merchant Taylors', 

 and became a ' great Public School,' while 

 Dulwich, though a college not less richly en- 

 dowed, and Whitgift's School at Croydon 

 remained small and obscure. As compared 

 with Dulwich and Croydon it would appear 

 that the proximity to London and the large- 

 ness of the foundation distinguished Charter- 

 house, while as compared with St. Paul's and 

 Merchant Taylors', Charterhouse, like West- 

 minster, had the advantage of suburban 

 freedom, and what was then considered am- 

 plitude of site. It enjoyed ' spacious gardens, 

 walled orchards, and other pleasances ; en- 

 riched with divers dependencies of lands and 

 tenements thereunto belonging, and very 

 fitly seated for wholesome ayre and many 

 other commodities.' Smithfield, by which it 

 was seated, had been celebrated from the days 

 of Thomas Becket, as the playground of 

 London and its schoolboys, and even in 

 Stowe's time was still the resort of the London 

 schools on festival days. 



Even as late as 1780 Charterhouse was 



more in the country than Harrow and Eton 

 are now. Moreover, like Westminster, it had 

 a strong nucleus of resident boarding scholars, 

 and so became mainly a boarding-school in- 

 stead of a day school. The roU of Charter- 

 house worthies is, it must be admitted, below 

 that of Westminster, which for a century and 

 a half was unquestionably the first school in 

 the kingdom in the numbers and ' quality ' of 

 its alumni, and the profusion of cabinet min- 

 isters, judges, bishops and famous persons who 

 issued from it. In the nineteenth century 

 the propinquity to London which had been 

 the cause of the success of Charterhouse and 

 Westminster, became in turn the cause of 

 decadence, when the town enveloped and 

 destroyed the amenity of its surroundings. 

 When the Public Schools Commission 

 issued, in 1864, their report on the nine ' Pub- 

 lic ' Schools, Charterhouse, like Westminster, 

 was confronted with the alternative of leav- 

 ing London or becoming mainly a day school. 

 Having less sacred grounds to part from and 

 also having fallen to lower numbers and fewer 

 boarders, it wisely elected to leave London. 

 The Public Schools Act, 1 867, authorized the 

 sale of the old and the purchase of a new 

 site. Some 5^ acres of the old site were sold 

 for ;f90,ooo to Merchant Taylors' School, for 

 which it was a paradise. The new site of 

 seventy acres, at Godalming, the property of 

 the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury, bought 

 from the British Land Company, cost only 

 £,/^,2Qo} The school which migrated from 

 London to Godalming in 1872 numbered 

 only 147, and 30 of these were left behind ; 

 but, including new recruits, 150 boys and 10 

 masters assembled on the top of the hill, a 

 mile from Godalming in 1872. 



The headmaster, William Haig Brown, had 

 been appointed in 1863, and may almost be 

 dubbed a second founder for his persistence 

 crowned by success, in pressing the removal 

 to the country. He was educated at Christ's 

 Hospital, was second classic at Cambridge in 

 1846, and became Fellow and Tutor of Pem- 

 broke College. After a short time as assistant 

 master at Harrow, he became headmaster of 

 the Proprietary School at Kensington, which, 

 under him became a great school, but is now 

 extinct. 



After 24 years' service he retired at 

 Christmas 1897, to become master of Charter- 

 house, the hospital branch of Sutton's 

 foundation. He has a good chance of 

 immortality through having written two 



1 ' Lessington,' a field of ^ acres by 'Under 

 Green,' cost £Sy°°° ^'^ 1897; more than 70 acres 

 had cost 25 years before. 



97 



