SCHOOLS 



on Thursday after 3 p.m. and on Saturday no 

 afternoon school, ' unless for omission of duty or 

 the performance of school exercises which have 

 been ordered.' ' Leave to play ' was not to be 

 granted above one day a week, and ' whoever 

 excepting the Mayor, BaylifFes and Scholars 

 going to the University obtains a Play, doe give 

 2s. 6d. to be laid out in books.' The holidays 

 had grown considerably, being from ten days 

 before Christmas to the day after Twelfth Day ; 

 five days at Shrovetide ; five days at Easter ; three 

 days at Summer Fair, and two days at Winter 

 Fair. The summer holiday was ' att Whitsun- 

 tide 3 weeks in the whole,' but it was pro- 

 vided 



that in the long vacation att Whitsuntide the boyes 

 learne to write, that time being fixed on as the most 

 convenient for a writeing master to teach the schollars 

 of this schoole. 



After four years of Mr. Powell (1704-8), 

 Edward Mainwaring, a fellow commoner at 

 St. John's College, Cambridge, was elected head 

 master on 30 August, 1708, and stayed for 

 nearly twenty years, being promoted to Birming- 

 ham in 1726. Two of his boys entered his 

 old college in 17 16 and 17 17, but both went on 

 to Sedbergh, the most famous school in the 

 north, then under Posthumus Wharton, another 

 Johnian, to ' finish ' before going to Cambridge. 

 In 1724 the salary of the master was £^0, besides 

 the house and field worth about £6, and that of 

 the usher ^^ 1 3 6s. 8d. 



In 1728 a new master's house was built with 

 accommodation for boarders during the regime of 

 William Davies, a Welshman, of Christ Church, 

 Oxford (1708 to 1715), appointed on the recom- 

 mendation of David Pulteney, M.P., on 17 Sep- 

 tember, 1726. He retired after eleven years to 

 a living in Herefordshire. 



Robert Oliver, of Worcester College, Oxford 

 (1727), and afterwards of Merton, M.A. 1734, 

 vicar of Warton in Lonsdale, became head master 

 on 20 October, 1737- He wasalso, on 23 June, 

 1744, made vicar of St. George's, Preston. 

 Three years afterwards, 3 February, 1747-8, 

 the town council resolved that, 'being greatly 

 remiss and negligent in his duty, he be removed 

 from his place as Schoolmaster.' But February, 

 1764, saw him still master and reigning on. 

 According to his account the real charge against 

 him was that he had canvassed for the Whig 

 candidate at the election in 1747 ; though the 

 corporation accused him of cruelty to the boys 

 and only giving two hours a week to his duty. 

 He retired to his livings. 



Another Welshman followed, Ellis Henry, of 

 Wrexham, and of Brasenose College, Oxford, 

 B.A. in 1763. He remained for little more 

 than a year. Thomas Fleetwood appointed 

 13 November, 1770, held for eighteen years. 



Robert Harris, B.D., fellow of Sidney-Sussex 

 College, Cambridge, was elected 24 June, 1788, 



and enjoyed the longest tenure of any master, 

 resigning only in 1835 after a forty-seven years' 

 reign. From 1798 he also had the vicarage of 

 St. George's, Preston, and this he held for no 

 less than sixty-four years, dying at the age of 

 ninety-eight on 6 January, 1862. In 181 8, 

 when Carlisle ^^ wrote, there were some forty 

 boys in the school, the master receiving about 

 j^ioo a year ' exclusive of the compliments that 

 are usually made to him at Shrovetide by the 

 boys under his immediate care.' The ' compli- 

 ments,' according to the Charity Commission 

 which visited the school in 1824, took the sub- 

 stantial form of ' half a guinea to 2 guineas, but 

 one guinea is the most usual sum.' But as there 

 were only fifteen boys in the upper school under 

 the head master the result was not very great. 

 There were no boarders, the head master having 

 given them up some four or five years before. 

 The usher taught reading and the rudiments of 

 grammar, with writing and accounts as an 

 extra. The lower schoolroom was let by the 

 corporation to a private schoolmaster for £6 6s. a 

 year. 



On 26 June, 1835, George Nun Smith, from 

 Yoxford, Suffolk, was appointed head master. 

 There were then forty-nine boys in the school. 

 In 1841 the corporation transferred the school 

 to new buildings at the corner of Winckley 

 Square and Cross Street, then the fashionable 

 part of Preston, which were rented from a 

 private company formed for the purpose of pro- 

 viding the buildings. They comprised a big 

 school and two class rooms, and in the basement 

 a covered play room and a very small play 

 ground. The buildings were bought twenty years 

 later from the shareholders for £2,^J4. ijs. 2^., 

 about a fourth of what they cost, and in 1868 

 the Literary and Philosophic Institution adjoin- 

 ing was acquired for j^i,509 Js. and added to 

 the school. This building contained the Shep- 

 herd Library, founded by will of Richard 

 Shepherd, 18 June, 1759, now removed to the 

 magnificent Harris Institute. The school rose 

 in numbers after its removal, and in 1855 

 numbered 100. 



After short intervals of Edwin Smith, brother 

 of G. N. Smith, his predecessor, and a former 

 sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge (January, 

 1855, to 17 December, 1857), John Richard 

 (17 December, 1857, to December, 1859), ^"<^ 

 John William Caldicott (31 January to May, 

 1859), <^uring which the school declined, the 

 Rev. George Turner Tatham was appointed 

 head master on 26 May, 1859. He found only 

 nineteen boys. By 1867, when Mr. Bryce 

 visited for the Schools Inquiry Commission, he 

 had raised the number to 127, of whom seven- 

 teen were boarders in the head master's house, 

 a private house about seven minutes' walk from 

 the school. As a result of returning prosperity 

 " EitJ. Gram. Schools, i, 712. 



573 



