A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



admitted at ^2 los. a quarter. The restriction 

 of freedom to these classes was quite unhistorical 

 and unstatutory. 



Now that the chapter revenues were trans- 

 ferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners the 

 last members of the chapter developed a generous 

 regard for the endowment of the school, which, 

 though the moral claim was overwhelming, they 

 had not exhibited before. On 4 April 1850 

 they petitioned the Ecclesiastical Commissioners 

 to increase the ancient salary of ;^I2 to compen- 

 sate for the loss of the minor canonries and 

 chapter benefices held by former masters as an 

 endowment of their office, and of which they were 

 now deprived by the late Cathedral Acts of 

 Parliament. No response was made. A further 

 blow was struck by ' St. John College in the 

 recent case of Arthur Calvert and in the former 

 one of Maltby, who had been Sunday or Saints' 

 day choristers, having objected to admit them to 

 Keeton fellowships,' and the Bishops of Ely, as 

 visitors, confirmed the objection of the college. 



Cole retired from an untenable position. On 

 14 February 1853 ^^^ Rev. Richard Bethell 

 Earle was appointed by George Wilkins, B.A., 

 canon residentiary, and Archdeacon of Notting- 

 ham, as the representative of the chapter who 

 were dying out. On 4 June 1854 he was made 

 curate of Edingley. He informed the Cathedral 

 Commission '^ that he could not get possession of 

 the schoolhouse because the Ecclesiastical Com- 

 mission demanded a rent for it, and the late 

 master made a claim for fixtures which the Com- 

 missioners would not take. So he had no 

 boarders and only seven day boys. ' Without 

 knowing the intention of the Commissioners, I 

 am,' he says, ' necessarily unable to judge whe- 

 ther it is desirable for me to continue to hold 

 the mastership of the school or to incur the 

 necessary expenses in having it fairly and pro- 

 perly organized.' The Ecclesiastical Commis- 

 sioners then and since, in their ignorance of the 

 history and law of collegiate churches, regarded 

 themselves as having no duty to the grammar 

 school, though an integral part of the foundation, 

 and instead of restoring to it a proportionate 

 part of the endowment of which it had been 

 robbed, refused to help it at all. The result was 

 that on 26 August 1858 Earle was appointed 

 vicar of Barnby in the Willows on the death of 

 the former master, Charles Taylor. So the 

 school for five years ceased to exist. 



In 1857 another blow was struck at Southwell 

 School by the severance of its long connexion, 

 extending over three centuries and a quarter, 

 with St. John's College, Cambridge. By a sta- 

 tute made by the Cambridge University Com- 

 missioners 22 May 1857, all local preference for 

 fellowships of the college were swept away, it 

 being provided that ' no preference shall here- 



after be given to any fellowship to any person iit 

 respect of such person's place of birth, or of his 

 having been a scholar on any foundation in the 

 college ... or of his having been a chorister in 

 any capitular or collegiate church,' and the same 

 provision was made as to scholarships and exhi- 

 bitions. The statute, however, only confirmed 

 the extinction of a right which most probably 

 would have been extinguished with the chapter, 

 and was anyhow in fact in abeyance, as only 

 ' colourable ' choristers had for many years gone 

 up to the college. The last Keton scholar 

 was the Venerable Brough Maltby, Archdeacon 

 of Nottingham in 1888, but he won an open 

 scholarship, and to his admission a special proviso 

 was attached, that he was 'no way admitted 

 owing to the fact of his having been a chorister,' 

 since his choristership was nominal. When in 

 1852 he applied for a Keton fellowship he was 

 refused. 



On 8 April 1862 the residentiary canon re- 

 corded that he had obtained from the Ecclesiastical 

 Commissioners the grammar schoolhouse, which 

 they claimed as vested in them, for the future 

 residence of the master, and a sum of money for 

 repairs. The Rev. Charles Peter Incledon was 

 therefore appointed master. Before, however, he 

 could reopen the school at Midsummer 1 863, as 

 intended, he ' met with unexpected misfortune,' 

 and left Southwell. The Rev. James Dudley 

 Cargill, B.D., was then nominated 12 January 

 1864, by George Wilkins, last Canon Resi- 

 dentiary, Vicar General and Canon of Norman- 

 ton. He had 1 1 day boys that year, and in 

 1867 the Schools Inquiry Commission'' found 

 II boarders and 21 day boys. While the school 

 was closed a successful private school had been 

 established to take its place, and Mr. Cargill had 

 an uphill fight. The last Canon of Southwell 

 died II February 1873, ^^^ later in the year 

 Mr. Cargill resigned the mastership. 



The inhabitants of Southwell then petitioned 

 the Bishop of Lincoln, to whose diocese Notting- 

 hamshire had been transferred, to preserve the 

 school. On ascertaining that the Ecclesiastical 

 Commissioners would recognize his appointment 

 and pay ' the ancient salary,' he appointed the 

 Rev. A. C. Whitley. After four years, during 

 which the school did not rise above 13 boys, 

 Whitley left. The bishop then persuaded Mr. 

 John Wright, who had a private school of some 

 30 boys, to move to the grammar school, and pur- 

 ported to appoint him master. In 1888, when 

 the Charity Commissioners took the case up 

 with a view to a scheme, there were 45 boys in 

 the school, of whom 19 were boarders. In spite 

 of the demonstration of the history of the school 

 and its relation with the collegiate church,** the 



"Rep. 1854, App. 754. 



" Sch. Inq. Rep. xvi, 427. 



" The report was made by the present writer as 

 Assistant Commissioner. 



198 



