SCHOOLS 



But he proceeds to annihilate the credit usually 

 given to Oldham of being the founder, by saying 

 (though only in a note) that ' to Hugh Bexwyke, 

 ... in some way connected with the bishop 

 and perhaps his chaplain, the school is mainly, 

 if not altogether, indebted for its very existence.' 



How a school founded by a deed of 1525, 

 and endowed several years before — the historian 

 has quoted a deed of 151 5 — could be due to a 

 general movement following on the dissolution 

 of monasteries is not easy to understand. The 

 foundation or endowment of the school was in no 

 sense a measure of general policy, but the out- 

 come of the spirit of the time acting on the 

 minds of charitably disposed individuals. 



What part precisely Oldham played is not 

 easy to determine. He was undoubtedly the 

 principal benefactor. But the school seems to 

 have been endowed at least in 1506 as a free 

 school, if it did not exist earlier as part of the 

 foundation of the Collegiate church in 1420. 

 Hugh Bexvsryk, priest, was not even a subor- 

 dinate founder ; but another member of the 

 Bexwyk family, Alexander, or, more properly, 

 Richard Bexwyk, merchant, was connected with 

 the early history of the school. For on the dis- 

 solution of the chantries in 1548, the com- 

 missioners who surveyed them found ^ in 



the towne of Manchester a chauntrie of two pryests 

 within the parish church there, off the foundacion 

 of Alexander Bessike, merchant, to celebrate there 

 for his soulle, and thone of the two pryests to teach 

 a fre schole, which is observed accordinglie. Robert 

 Prestwich, clerke, and Edward Pendilton, school- 

 master, incumbents there, have the clere yerely revenue 

 of the same for their salarie, £S 1 2s. ^d., and their 

 lyvinge beside is nil. The landes and tenementes 

 belongynge to the same are of the yerely values of 

 £S 12S. zd. 



The two commissioners. Sir Walter Mildmay 

 and Robert Kelway, charged with ordering the 

 continuance of such chantry endowments as 

 were for grammar schools, preachers, and the 

 poor, on II August, 1548, appointed that 'the 

 free scole in Manchester shall continue, and 

 that [blank in MS.] Pendilton,' scolemaster 



' A. F. Leach, Engl. Schools at the Reformation, from 

 P.R.O. Duchy of Lane. Div. xviii, vol. Toy'xb. 



' Edward Pendilton is described by Anthony Wood, 

 the seventeenth-century historian of Oxford Uni- 

 versity, as the 'famous schoolmaster of Manchester 

 in Lancashire, who circa 1 547 was admitted to the 

 reading of any book in the faculty of grammar, that 

 is, to the degree of Bachelor of Grammar ; but the 

 day or month when is not set down in the public 

 registers, now very much neglected.' The degree in 

 grammar was a quite ordinary degree inferior to that 

 of master or bachelor of arts, and was in fact a 

 licence to teach as a schoolmaster, i.e. in a secondary 

 or boys' school, while the M.A. degree was a licence 

 to teach as a master of the schools, i e. in a university 

 or men's school (Boase, Reg. of the Univ. of Oxford). 



there, shall continue in the same roome of 

 Scolemaster, and shall have for his wages yerely 



That this chantry was the beginning of the 

 endowment of the grammar school there seems 

 no reason to doubt. But there is a mistake 

 in the name of the founder of the chantry, if, 

 as would appear, this was the Jesus Chantry, 

 founded in 1506 by a deed between James 

 Stanleye, master, and the fellows of Manchester 

 College, including John Bexwyk and Richard 

 Bexwyk the younger, Richard Bexwyk the 

 elder, and others, master, wardens and yeomen of 

 the Gild of St. Saviour and the Name of Jesus, 

 This deed recites that — 



lately a chapel was built and founded on the south 

 side of our collegiate church to the praise of God and 

 the honour of our Saviour and his name Jesus, by 

 Richard Bexwyk the younger ; 



and it granted to Sir Oliver Thornellye, chaplain, 

 licence to receive and keep all the offerings at 

 the image of St. Saviour in the chapel. This 

 was the chantry part of the foundation. 

 Richard Bexwyk, or Beswyk, as he spells him- 

 self, the younger, was a considerable merchant 

 trading chiefly with Ireland, where he made his 

 will, ' written with myn own hand,' 30 June, 

 1 5 1 o. He gave ;^200 ' to the making of a milne 

 upon the water of Herks for the fyndyng of 

 the four conducts ' (i.e., hired chaplains of 

 Manchester College), desired that ' the terme of 

 Manchester mylnes, whan that they fall, goo 

 to the same,' and left ^i^o *to the honoryng 

 of chapell of Jesu.' He further directed that 

 ' if my goods in Ireland will not perform my 

 will my goods in England to answer it.' But 

 the conducts never got these mills since they 

 were transferred to the school trustees. 



The fact that stalls were assigned and are still 

 reserved for the Archididasculus and Hypodidas- 

 culus in the choir of the Collegiate church, 

 which stalls were erected between 1506 and 

 15 12, is also strong evidence of the existence of 

 the school earlier than the received date. The 

 miserere of the master shows a fox running away 

 with a goose and a bear licking his cubs into 

 shape, while a young bear reads a book. The 

 usher's miserere represents a girl — it may be St. 

 Margaret — coming from a shell and slaying a 

 dragon, and was perhaps intended to symbolize 

 knowledge slaying ignorance. The master's 

 stall is between those of the canons and minor 

 canons on the Decani or south side, and that of 

 the usher is similarly placed on the Cantoris or 

 north side. This is the regular position for the 

 master at Lincoln, and probably at York, and 

 was adopted by Henry VIII in the Cathedral 

 Grammar School of the new foundation. 



Whatever Richard Bexwyk may have done, 

 the deeds still extant in the possession of the 

 governors of the grammar school establish the 



579 



