A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



coqroration, and that he should be paid for teaching 

 writing 7/. 6/, for writing and common arithmetic 

 1 01., and for fractions i zs. 6d. per quarter by each 

 boy. 



The head master appears always to have been 

 appointed by the mayor and council, and the 

 usher and writing master also until the alteration 

 in 1824. 



The Charity Commissioners of 1 826 report : — 



There is a building adjoining the church-yard on 

 the west side, which bears the date of 1682. This 

 building consists of a school-room, appropriated to the 

 use of the master and usher, and two rooms above, in 

 one of which the writing master instructs the boys 

 belonging to the school, and in the other he teaches 

 girh in writing ; there is also a library' over the 

 porch. . . . The school-house is repaired out of the 

 funds of the corporation, and is now in a very good 

 state. 



The school appears always to have been open to 

 the admission of all boys of Lancaster and its neigh- 

 bourhood without restriction, and previously to 1824 

 no payment was made to the master or usher, except 

 a gratuity at Shrovetide, under the name of a cocli- 

 penny ; the reasons which made it necessary for the 

 corporation to adopt the system that all the scholars 

 should pay a certain sum per quarter, are stated in the 

 report of the committee, and it will be observed that 

 the funds appropriated to the maintenance of the 

 school (exclusive of what is contributed gratuitously 

 by the corporation) are wholly insufficient for the 

 support of a free school. 



There are at present 60 boys in the school, many 

 of whom are instructed in the classics, besides some 

 additional scholars under the tuition of the writing 

 master only. 



It is customary for several members of the corpora- 

 tion to visit the school three or four times in the 

 course of the year." 



An old boy has left the following notes on the 

 school between 1825 and 1832 : — 



The School was a two floored building. The 

 School room on the ground floor ran the whole length 

 of the building ; the upper storey was divided into 

 two rooms. The entrance to the School was in the 

 centre of the front. All South of the door, on each 

 side, was considered ' low side,' all north ' high side.' 

 Mr. Bcethom presided over the ' high side,' but on 

 Wednesdays the masters exchanged classes. . . . Mr. 

 Sanderson (the Writing & Mathematical Master) had 

 the upper rooms, & after saying one lesson half the 

 boys went to be instructed by him in the forenoon, the 

 others in the afternoon. . . . We had two home lessons 

 to prepare each night. They were neither long nor 

 difficult, but it must be remembered that music, 

 drawing, dancing, foreign languages (except Greek & 

 Latin) \vere extra-mural, & if studied at all, had to 

 be acquired in the evening or early morning. . . . The 

 fixed holidays were 4^ weeks at Christmas & Mid- 

 summer, Monday & Tuesday at Shrovetide and 

 Whitsuntide, and Fridays, Mondays, & Tuesdays at 

 Easter, the Kings birthday, Mayor choosing day, the 



" Char. Com. Rep. xv, 262 (1826). 



Monday before (called Auditors day), the middle fair 

 days & one day each Assizes. We had usually one 

 day before & one day after the Christmas vacation to 

 foUou the hounds ifthey cast offnear the town. ... On 

 the Monday before Mayor choosing day the Corpora- 

 tion Accounts were audited. At about a quarter past 

 eight in the morning the Mayor Bailiffi & Auditors 

 preceded by the mace bearer — wearing their laced 

 hats but no other insignia — entered the School & 

 invited the Masters to assist them to audit the accounts, 

 & to give the boys holiday. Immediately after our 

 dismissal we used to set ofl^ with the Mace bearer to 

 turn out the other Schools. ... On Mayor choosing day 

 we marched to St. John's Church with the Corpora- 

 tion in the morning, & in the afternoon we were 

 regaled by the new Mayor & bailifis ; we received 

 two Mayors cakes, two apples, two pears, a cup of 

 sweet wine, and a horn of nuts at each place. . . . The 

 boys at the National School used to waylay & rob us, 

 but most people tried to create a diversion by throwing 

 them apples out of the front windows & letting us 

 escape at the back. . . . The first six boys had wedding 

 money, that is, each watched one day a week & 

 solicited remembrance of the happy couples as they 

 emerged from church. If any inquisitive person 

 ventured to ask what claim we had upon him the 

 answer was ready, that it was ' an ancient custom & 

 had to be kept up.' In the case of a gentleman's 

 wedding the present was generally a guinea, the usual 

 donation half a crown. 



In 1850 Mr. Beethom resigned, and the Rev. 

 Thomas Faulkner Lee was appointed head mas- 

 ter. He found 17 boys; by 1865 he had 158. 



In 1 85 I the corporation presented a memorial 

 to the Lords of the Treasury, which recited that 

 the endowment was paid chiefly out of the funds 

 of the corporation, and that it was believed that 

 such endowment had been augmented from time 

 to time by individuals whose benefactions, having 

 at a remote period been intrusted to the cor- 

 poration, had become intermixed with their own 

 corporate property, and were not then distinguish- 

 able therefrom, with the exception of a field of 

 about four statute acres called the Usher's 

 Meadow, and an annual sum of j^ i o payable to 

 the usher under Randall Carter's will. There is 

 no evidence apart from what is above set out in 

 support of this conjecture, which appears to be 

 an attempt to supply ' business ' reasons for the 

 strong support which the corporation had lent 

 out of its common funds to the school. The 

 object of the memorial was to obtain consent to 

 the appropriation of land for a new school, and 

 in reply the Treasury authorized the corporation 

 to appropriate land in East Road for a school and 

 master's house, and to mortgage the master's 

 house, but not the school, to raise so much 

 money as might be necessary to make up the 

 deficiency between the subscriptions received 

 and the actual cost. Towards the cost, which 

 appears from the minutes of the corporation to 

 have been about ^2,000, the corporation applied 

 the proceeds of sale of the old school, and ^^500 

 from their corporate funds. The rest of the cost 



568 



