SCHOOLS 



Nowell in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The 

 name Schoolcroft certainly justifies the inference 

 of the existence of an early school to which it 

 belonged. Probably the schoolmaster was main- 

 tained, as in modern America, by the assignment 

 of certain crofts for his support, just as the village 

 blacksmith or the hayward used to hold portions 

 in the common fields ex officio. 



However that may be, from the year 141 2 

 Middleton became an endowed free grammar 

 school. On 22>August in that year the bishop 

 of Lichfield, this part of Lancashire being at that 

 time included in the diocese of Coventry and 

 Lichfield, granted licence to Thomas Langley, 

 bishop of Durham from 1406, in 1407 chan- 

 cellor of England, and thirty years later a cardinal, 

 to consecrate the church of Middleton, which he 

 had rebuilt. Langley was born at Langley Hall 

 in the parish of Middleton, and is supposed to 

 have been educated at the grammar school. The 

 re-built church included a chantry of St. Cuth- 

 bert which the bishop founded, the priest of which 

 was to pray for souls and, in the words of the 

 later Chantry Certificate, ' to teache one gramer 

 skole, fre for poore children.' The foundation 

 deed is unfortunately not forthcoming, but no 

 doubt the wording was much the same as in the 

 case of the chantry school which the same bishop 

 founded in Durham itself^ two years afterwards. 

 There was another chantry in the church said 

 to have been founded by the lord of the manor, 

 the priest of which no doubt was to keep a song 

 school. 



The endowment of the chantry consisted of 

 lands at Whessoe and Sadberge in Durham, but 

 chiefly of a rent-charge out of the manor or lord- 

 ship of Kevardeley in Lancashire belonging to 

 the monastery of Jervaulx, out of which also the 

 main part of the endowment of the Durham 

 schools, ^16 13J. ^d. a year,' came. This 

 endowment was purchased for Durham after 

 Langley's death by his executors under licence 

 I October, 1440. Probably the same was the 

 case with this school also. 



The Lichfield register records the institution 

 on 10 March, 1443-4, of Henry Penulbury 

 (Pendlebury), to the perpetual cure of the chantry 

 of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Cuthbert 

 in the church of Middleton in succession to 

 Thomas Percevall, the last chaplain, on the nomi- 

 nation of Nicholas Hulme, true patron of the 

 same. Nicholas Hulme was one of Langley's 

 •executors. 



The next master we hear of was named 

 Clayton. He is referred to by his successor, 

 Thomas Mawdesley, who was presented to the 

 rectory of RadclifFe 24 November, 1534, in his 

 will (mentioned later on), wherein he directed that 

 his body should be buried in the school chapel. 



' y.C.H.Dur. i, 371. 

 ' Ibid. 373. 



under the blue stone * wher my maister Clayton ' 

 lies. Clayton was probably Nicholas Clayton, who 

 entered in ' Canon Law at Cambridge in 1 496, 

 depositing 3 canon law books for his caution,' 

 and who was dispensed from lecturing in 1497. 

 The Chantry Certificate of 1546 shows 



' the chauntrie in the paroch churche of Mydleton, 

 Thomas Mawdesley, preiste, incumbent ther, of the 

 foundacion of Thomas Langley, sometyme bishopp of 

 Durham, ther to celebrate for the sowles of the kinges 

 of Englande, the said bishop and his ancestors, and 

 the incumbentes herof to teache one gramer skole, 

 fre for poore children . . . The same is at the aher 

 of Saynt Cuthbert . . . and the same prist, nowe 

 incumbent, doth celebrate and teache gramer accord- 

 inge to the entent of the saide foundacion.' The 

 goods of the chantry were a chalice of silver of 10 oz., 

 ' thre vestiments ' i.e. sets of vestments, 'one masse 

 boke, and 2 alter clothes. Sum totall of the rentall 

 £,6 1 3/. 4</. Sum of the annual reprises, 1 3/. ^d. 

 And so remanyth £6.' 



The ' reprise ' or taking back or outgoing of 

 13^. 4^. was no doubt, as in the case of the 

 Durham chantry school, for distribution to the 

 poor on Langley's obit on 20 November. The 

 Chantry Certificate of 1548 gives the additional 

 information that Thomas Mawdesley, incumbent, 

 was ' of the age of 50 yeres . . . and his lyvynge 

 besides is nil.' £b a year was not a sufficient 

 endowment for the master of a wholly free 

 grammar school, but supplemented by fees it no 

 doubt was enough. The School Continuance 

 Commissioners, Sir Walter Mildmay and Robert 

 Kelway, on 1 1 August, 1548, finding 



that a Grammer Scole hathe likewise beene continually 

 kept in the parish of Midleton with the revenues of 

 the chauntry founded in the parish church there 

 and that the Scolemaster there had for his wages 

 yearly £^ los. Sd., which scole is very meete and 

 necessary to continue, 



appointed that 



the said Grammer Scole shall continue still and that 

 Thomas Mawdesley, scolemaster there, shall bee and 

 remayne in the same rowme there and shall have for 

 his wages yerely £^ 10/. 8d. 



Why this deduction of gs. 4^. was made from 

 the clear £6 found by the Certificate does not 

 appear. Probably it was made for the fee of the 

 collector who collected the rent from Jervaulx 

 Abbey, now the king's property. The Ministers' 

 Accounts for the Duchy of Lancaster show in 

 1548-9 IIOJ. 8^. paid 'to Thomas Mawdesley, 

 Schoolmaster [ludimaglstro) in Mydelton,' and 

 the payment was continued until 1562. 



Thomas Mawdesley by his will of 12 March, 

 1554) g*^^ additional endowment to the school 

 which he had taught for some thirty-five years. 



575 



