A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



It is interesting to relate, 

 assistant-commissioner found 



however, that the 



' the girls learning Latin and Greek equally with the 

 boys . . . the fees [^z zs. a year.' But as most 

 of them left at the age of 14 their classical education 

 did not come to much. The first class of 4 boj-s and 

 4 girls did Valpy's Latin Delectus and the elements 

 of Greek Grammar ; ' they seemed to know a little 

 and might perhaps have answered well if they had 

 not been so frightened.' 



As the population was then some io,ooo, the 

 existence of this starved endowed school had 

 only become a hindrance instead of a help to 

 education. The college at that time paid the 

 master, James Jelley, ^t^o a year more than the 

 original sums granted for his salary. 



In 1872 the Endowed Schools Commissioners 

 were moved by the people of Middleton to take 

 action for the improvement of the school ; a 

 visit of an assistant-commissioner was promised, 

 but nothing was done. In 188 1 the Oxford 

 University Commissioners' Statutes converted 

 the Middleton scholarships at Brasenose College 

 into two Dean Nowell's exhibitions of £2$ 

 each, with preference for Middleton School. 



In 1887 the Charity Commissioners investi- 

 gated Middleton's claims. There were then 

 54 children in the school, of whom 13 were 

 girls, under the Rev. James Jelley, a demy of 

 Magdalen College, Oxford. But the average 

 age was thirteen, and the highest achievement, 

 preparation for the Oxford local examinations. 

 The college (21 June, 1889) intimated their will- 

 ingness to co-operate in reforming the school by 

 increasing their annual payment tOj^200, and by 

 giving ;^500 towards new buildings, and a scheme 

 on that basis was published by the Charity Com- 

 missioners in 1890. But the local committee, 

 relying on vague rumours as to the value of the 

 property, refused this quite adequate offer, being 

 the full amount to which, on the original pro- 

 portions, the school was entitled, the total income 

 of the estate being in 1893 j^i,030 a year. 

 The result was that nothing more was done. 

 Mr. Jelley obtained clerical work, and in 190 1* 

 there were only 1 8 boys. The school is still the 

 old room built by Nowell, 50 ft. long by 25 ft. 

 wide, and is 



an interesting specimen of Tudor architecture, of 

 the local sandstone pointed with hard millstone grit, 

 in which the mouldings of the string courses and 

 dripstones are in most places sharply cut and unworn 

 to the present day. 



The question of a new scheme to take advan- 

 tage of the offer made by Brasenose College is 

 now once more under consideration, and it is to 

 be hoped that this interesting and once famous 

 school may be revived. 



End. Char, for Middleton, 19. 



PRESCOT GRAMMAR SCHOOL' 

 We have no account of the foundation of 

 this school, which was in existence in the early 

 years of the fifteenth century ; it was formerly 

 supported by gifts, mulcts, rents, and the interest 

 of invested moneys. On an inquisition taken at 

 Wigan the commissioners state '" : — 



2do Octobris, 1627. James Renricke did give 

 300 //' for the mainteynance of a Freeschoole in the 

 parish of Prescott and att the request of Edwarde 

 Eccleston esqe deceased that the same schoole should 

 be erected in Eccleston soe as the said Edwarde 

 wold give in addicion thereto an 100 ^ and an acre 

 of land : but the matter hath beene neglected by 

 the space of 23 yeares, and now promoted by 

 the schoole wardens of Prescott whose desire is that 

 the said 300 R may be conferred to the mainteynance 

 of the schoole of Prescott. . . . Henry Eccleston, 

 Esq., Sonne and heire of the said Edward summoned 

 before us the said commissioners, hath beene offered 

 that if he would obtaine the said 300 //' and give 

 1 00 /; and an acre of land for the aforesaid use that then 

 the schoole should be founded in Eccleston aforesaid, 

 the which the said Henry Eccleston hath neglected 

 and is content the said schoole should be erected in 

 Prescott aforesaid. 



The schoolwardens of Prescot were ' to pro- 

 secute suites for obtaininge the said 300 //.' 



The school building, which is cruciform, was 

 erected in 1750, upon land given by Basil 

 Thomas Eccleston. The school had a prefer- 

 ence with other Lancashire schools to scholar- 

 ships at Brasenose College, Oxford, but this has 

 been lost. The present endowment amounts 

 to about ;^I20 per annum. About 50 boys are 

 in attendance. 



MANCHESTER SCHOOLS 

 The Grammar School 

 The origin of Manchester Grammar School 

 is somewhat of a mystery, which the author of 

 the standard history^ of the school has deepened 

 rather than cleared. 'After the dissolution of 

 monasteries,' he says, 'education diffused itself 

 generally and the important object of the 

 foundation of Grammar Schools very soon 

 became a measure of general policy. It appears 

 that the bishop of Exeter, Hugh Oldham, 

 had during the latter part of his life erected a 

 Free School on a site near the present 

 college at Manchester, the boundaries of which 

 are specified in the foundation charter (schedule 

 annexed), executed by John and Hugh Bexwyke 

 on I April, 1525,' and he bequeathed ' for 

 endowment . . . divers lands specified in con- 

 veyances executed by the same parties ' in 15 15. 



" Baines, Hist, of Lams, iii, 701 ; Char. Com. Rep. 

 xxi, 219. 



'" Harl. MSS. cod. 2176, fol. 39^ and 42 ; quoted 

 in Baines, op. cit. p. 701. 



' WiUiam Robert Whatton, ^he Hist, of Manchester 

 School, 1834. 



578 



