A HISTORY OF SURREY 



unwieldy governing body of twenty-four 

 members, consisting of two vicars, the church- 

 wardens, and other nominees of the vestries 

 of ' the borough ' and ' the foreign.' On 

 22 November 1864, a subscription, amount- 

 ing to ;£i,ioo, in memory of Peter Martin, a 

 Reigate surgeon, was applied to the establish- 

 ment of exhibitions at the school. 



At the date of the Schools Inquiry Report ' 

 there were thirty-six boys in the school, of 

 whom twenty were foundationers, paying 

 only 5^. a quarter ; seven were boarders, pay- 

 ing ^^45 to £60 a year ; and eight weekday 

 boys, paying jC8 a year. 



By schemes under the Endowed Schools 

 Acts, 19 August 1871, and 13 May 1875, the 

 endowment was augmented by the incorpora- 

 tion of some more charities for apprenticeship 

 and doles, and brought up to about ^^350 a 

 year, while new buildings were added, and the 

 management was vested in a governing body, 

 consisting of ten nominees of the Town 

 Council, and five co-optative governors, 

 reinforced under a scheme of 16 May 1893, 

 by three representatives of the Surrey County 

 Council. In 1889 the numbers had risen to 

 ninety-six, including nineteen boarders, under 

 the Rev. A. C. Fox, formerly a Bible clerk at 

 All Souls' College, Oxford, and headmaster of 

 Tideswell Grammar School, Derbyshire. On 

 his retirement in 1895, Mr. Henry Arthur 

 Hall, a senior optime of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, succeeded. Under him, in spite 

 of a considerable grant by the County Council 

 of over ^1250 a year, the school was not a suc- 

 cess. In 1898 there were only eighty-four 

 boys. An amending scheme of the Charity 

 Commissioners of 17 November 1899, which 

 substituted representatives of King's College 

 and University College, London, for one of 

 the nominees of the Town Council and one 

 co-optative did not mend matters. When 

 the present headmaster, Mr. Robert Stewan 

 Rugg, of Queen's College, Oxford, succeeded 

 in September 1899, there were only about 

 fifty boys. The rise in numbers to 128 which 

 has since taken place has made the inadequacy 

 of the site, little more than an acre, and of 

 the buildings more strongly felt. An assembly 

 hall, a chemical laboratory and two class- 

 rooms, one partitioned into three, are not 

 adequate in these days for a school which 

 ought soon to reach 150. 



BATTERSEA GRAMMAR SCHOOL 

 This foundation has had a somewhat un- 

 fortunate history owing to its having from 

 the beginning up to the present time en- 



' Schools Inquiry Reports, xi. 192. 



218 



deavoured to perform two entirely distinct, 

 and for the most part incompatible functions. 

 It was founded by Sir Walter St. John, 

 bart., whose family had acquired the manor 

 of Battersea from the Archbishops of York. 

 By deed of 7 September 1700, he gave thirty- 

 one acres of land in the parish of Camberwell, 

 of which Battersea was then part, to twelve 

 trustees, for a schoolmaster to teach (a) read- 

 ing, writing and arithmetic gratis to twenty 

 poor boys ; and (b) the same with the addition 

 of Latin and Greek, to any other scholars, at 

 a salary from their friends and parents. It 

 was required that the master should be an 

 M.A. of Oxford or Cambridge It is perhaps 

 needless to say that the attempt to combine 

 a low type of elementary school with a Gram- 

 mar School proved a failure. For many years 

 the vicar of Battersea was appointed master ; 

 and appears to have thought that he fulfilled 

 all that was required of him by supervising 

 the teaching of twenty poor boys by some one 

 else. From 1800 to 1852 there was practi- 

 cally no school of the foundation ; twenty 

 poor boys being sent free to the National 

 School of the parish, the schoolrooms in the 

 house given by Sir Walter St. John being let 

 out in tenements. 



In 1852 Mr. Starling filed a bill in Chancery 

 and obtained a scheme whereby the school 

 was restored as an independent entity. But 

 in 1866, with an endowment of ^£315 a year, 

 it was merely an elementary school, with fees 

 of twopence or threepence a week, and re- 

 ported on as inferior to the unendowed 

 elementary schools of the best type. 



By a scheme made under the Endowed 

 Schemes Acts, 9 August 1873, provision was 

 made for the establishment of an Upper 

 School, and, if funds admitted, a Middle 

 School, in addition to the elementary school. 

 In 1875 the Upper School was opened on 

 the hill above Clapham Junction Station, in 

 St. John's Lodge, which, with additions, cost 

 some ^8,ocx), derived from the proceeds of 

 sale of the school lands. By 1877 ^^^ere were 

 eighty boys in the school. The Rev. E. A. 

 Richardson, of Queen's College, Oxford, was 

 headmaster, and the fees charged were £i2 a 

 year. The education aimed at was of the 

 usual lower-grade Grammar School type, in- 

 cluding Latin but not Greek, French and 

 German, and a little science taught out of 

 Roscoe's elementary chemistry, without any 

 practical work. 



A Middle School was also built, adjoining 

 the elementary school, in High Street, Batter- 

 sea, the fees being only £2 a year, and the 

 education was called commercial, consisting 

 mamly of arithmetic, geography and French. 



