A HISTORY OF SURREY 



two already in the school were admitted. Mr. 

 Colebie, as he signs himself, was dead almost 

 within a year of election. An inscription in 

 the old church recorded his burial on the 

 same day with his son, 30 September 1651, 

 while his only daughter followed on 4 Novem- 

 ber. Mr. William Newman was elected his 

 successor on 8 October 1651, and admitted 

 on 3 November. He lived for almost exactly 

 ten years, and saw the Restoration. Notice 

 of a meeting for election of a successor on 

 his death was given on 6 November, and he 

 was buried 8 November 1 661. Mr. John 

 Bradford, M.A., was chosen on 11 November, 

 and thirteen free scholars were admitted two 

 days afterwards. He was of Brasenose Col- 

 lege, Oxford, where he matriculated 9 

 December 1653, and became M.A. 27 June 

 1660. From March 1658 he had been 

 Schoolmaster-fellow of Dulwich College. On 

 20 October, 1662 the school property was 

 let for £,1"] a year with a fine of L\l paid 

 down, while the house next to the school 

 formerly let to a tenant was now let to the 

 schoolmaster himself at ^£5 a year, no doubt 

 for the accommodation of boarders. On the 

 same day it was ' ordered that there be a new 

 comon scale made for the use of the Schoole 

 and thereon ingraved the Mr. and 12 schoolers 

 belonging to the said schoole, with this in- 

 scription, " the free schoole of Camberwell 

 founded by Edw. WiUson, clerk." ' So this 

 very interesting seal is not, as has always been 

 supposed, the original, but is nearly half a cen- 

 tury later. To a minute of 1673 Bradford 

 signs himself 'D.D. Schoolmaister,' having 

 been made a Doctor of Divinity at Cambridge 

 'by royal letters ' in 1671. At this time he 

 was also rector of St. Edmund the King, 

 London. On 21 December 1674 he retired 

 to the living of Sefton, in Lancashire ; and 

 became a Canon of Canterbury, October 

 1685, dying in December the same year. 

 Daniel Ballow, who had matriculated at the 

 age of fourteen ' in 1663 at Magdalen College, 

 Oxford, succeeded 5 January 1675, at the 

 age of twenty-six, and held till his death in 

 1687. No incident is recorded of his reign, 

 except an ineffectual protest in 1685 by him 

 and two other Governors against the Gover- 

 nors renewing a lease of the school house to 

 Mrs. Walker at £20 when some one else had 

 offered £15 more. Mr. Michael Johnson, 

 elected to supply Ballow's place, resigned 

 before admission, • considering my coming to 

 Camberwell is like to be too expensive to me 

 and ungratefull to you.' Nehemiah Lam- 



• His father was an Oxford professor, and he 

 probably went to Magdalen College School. 



bert, an M.A. of King's College, Cambridge, 

 and therefore an Eton scholar, was chosen on 

 30 May 1687. He rebuilt the house next 

 the school at a cost of ^^400, so that the 

 Governors declared that ' he hath bin a great 

 benefactor to the publick schole.' In 1693 

 he took a lease of Mr. Walker's house next the 

 school, which his vwdow was allowed to retain 

 after his death, and of which she was granted 

 a new lease on condition of rebuilding after 

 its ' ruine by the late dreadfull storme ' on 

 19 September 1704, and promised another 

 lease of twelve years on its expiration. A 

 half-obliterated inscription by the north 

 door of the church recorded Lambert's 

 virtues as ' an industrious shepherd of Christ 

 and teacher of youth,' and his death on 

 26 March 1 700." On 6 May 1700, Mr. 

 Alexander Jephson, M.A., the first of that 

 family, which afterwards held the school in 

 intermittent succession for a century and a 

 half, became master. This first Jephson 

 resigned in 1709. 



On 8 August 1709, Adam Langley, scholar 

 of Westminster, who was elected to Christ 

 Church, Oxford in 1691, succeeded.' In 

 1716 the school got into Chancery owing to 

 the new Governors, headed by the rector of 

 Lambeth (who, according to the fashion of 

 those days, was also Bishop of Lincoln, and 

 preferred the delights of London to pro- 

 vincial splendour) very properly refusing to 

 carry out the unstatutable reversionary lease 

 to Mrs. Lambert at £20 a year, when another 

 person (a relation no doubt of the Head- 

 master, as his name was John Langley) had 

 offered L\o a year, with a ^^40 fine. In 1729 

 the practice began, which prevailed up to 

 1819, of letting the whole of the school lands 

 and tenements to the schoolmaster. They 

 were then let to Langley for £,zi a year and 

 £25 fine, with a covenant to rebuild the 

 stables. Langley had become vicar of Black 

 Bourton, Oxfordshire, in 1700, and from 1720 

 to his death held the vicarage of Stanford-in- 

 Dale, Berks. He was succeeded on 11 

 January 173 1-2 by his son, of the same name, 

 of Trinity College, Oxford, the first who in 

 the Governors' Minutes is described as 

 Reverend, though most if not all of them had 

 been in holy orders. He does not seem ever 

 to have acted as Headmaster, since on 16 June 

 1733, he was ' admonished for non-residence 

 and required to provide somebody well 

 qualified to instruct the scholars during his 

 absence and to reside himself or else to quit 

 his pretensions to the said mastership.' On 



» Manning and Bray, Hist, of Sutt. iii. 427. 

 ' Alumni Westmonaiterienses. 



214 



