A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Rut it could not compete with the Municipal 

 Secondary School, and though assistance was 

 rendered by the County Council in 1 901, it had, 

 in 1904, to be amalgamated with the municipal 

 school. Its endowments are to be used to pro- 

 vide entrance scholarships to the combined 

 institution. 



BLACKBURN GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



By a deed made between Thomas second 

 earl of Derby and the church masters or church 

 reeves of the parish church on 4 April, 1 5 ' 4> 

 lands partly bought, it would seem, by subscrip- 

 tion of the parishioners and partly given by the 

 earl, were settled for the maintenance of a 

 chantry in the Lady chapel on the south side of 

 the church, with Sir Edmund Button as the first 

 chantry priest. The earl and his heirs were to 

 have the nomination in future of 



an honest secular prest, and no regular, sufficiently 

 lerned in gramer and playn song, that shall kepe con- 

 tynually a Fre Gramer Scole and maintaine and kepe 

 the one syde of the quere, as one man may, in his 

 surplice, every holyday . . . and if it fortune that 

 no secular prest can be found that is able and suf- 

 ficyently lerned in gramer and playn songe, ther to 

 learne and do as is aforesaid, then . . . another 

 secular prest that is expert and can sing both pricke song 

 and plane song and hath a sight in descant, if any 

 such can be gotten, which shall teche a fre Song Scole 

 in Black burne and also shall kepe the quere . . . 

 everj' holyday, and if no such prest can be gotten, 

 then . . . such another secular prest ... as the 

 churchwardens . . . shall think . . . most suffj'cyent 

 for the maintenance of the quere . . . and to kepe 

 there a fre gramer or songe scole. 



This, if correctly copied by Whitaker,' is a 

 unique provision. The requirement that a 

 chantry priest should also, as master, keep a free 

 grammar school, and sing in choir on holy days 

 is common form, but that if no man could be 

 found learned in grammar, one was to be found 

 learned in plain song, part song, and florid solo 

 singing, to keep a free song school, is quite ex- 

 ceptional. It is the first foundation deed yet 

 produced which provides in set terms for a free 

 song school. What the third alternative of a 

 person who could keep either a grammar school 

 or a song school means, it is not easy to see. 

 Perhaps, however, the difference lies not in his 

 qualifications, but in the churchwardens appoint- 

 ing instead of the earl. However, the point 

 was probably not of much practical importance, 

 as there could have been no difficulty in 

 getting a grammar schoolmaster who could 

 also sing in choir, since any cathedral or col- 

 legiate grammar school could have supplied many 

 of them at that time, and Horman, head master 

 of Eton and Winchester in turn, says in his 

 Vulgaria that without knowledge of singing, 



' Whitaker, Hist. ofWhalley (4th ed.), ii, 322. 



grammar cannot be perfect. At all events, when 

 in 1546' Henry VIII's chantry commissioners 

 reported on Blackburn they found 



Thomas Burges, preist, incumbent ther, . . . doth 

 celebrate and manetene the quere every holie day 

 accordinglie, and also doth teache gramer and plane 

 songe in the said Free Skole, accordinge to the 

 statutes of his Foundacion. 



Where, alas I are they ? The ' sum totall of the 

 rentall ' of the endowment was then £^^ 8j. id. 

 net. Edward VI's chantry commissioners add 

 that Burges was '58yeres' old, and they put 

 the ' clere yerely revenue . . . for his salarie ' 

 at j^5 14J. The continuance warrant' issued 

 under the Chantries Act of Edward VI, bearing 

 date II August, 1548, continued the school, but 

 at the stipend of £^\ "js. \d. only. The dis- 

 crepancy is probably to be explained by the 

 exclusion of the copyhold lands given by Lord 

 Derby, which were not within the Act. 



These copyhold lands became the subject of a 

 decree in the Duchy Court ^ in Hilary Term, 

 1557, against the tenants who had withheld 

 rents. It was then stated that the school had 

 been ' convenablie meintened ' ever since the 

 foundation * and manie pore scolars to the num- 

 ber of seven score at the lest there yerly at the 

 same scole instructed and taught.' It was 

 argued that the Act did not extend to lands 

 given to the ' maintenance of Fre scoles nor never 

 was meant to decaye anie grammer scole nor 

 the exhibicion of anie Scolemaster.' The copy- 

 holds were therefore ordered to be surrendered 

 to the new feoffees, and it was 



provided that the said scole and scolemaster shall be 

 . . . kept for the instruccion and teachinge of scollers 

 and youths . . . according to the tenure ... of 

 the foundacion. 



;^20, however, was to be levied to buy back 

 some of the lands from one Nicholas Halsted, 

 who had bought some of the lands in Yorkshire 

 bona fide. 



The decree, which was certainly not in ac- 

 cordance with the general run of decisions under 

 the Chantries Act, seems to have remained a 

 dead letter. For ten years later, 8 August, 1 567,' 

 letters patent were granted to the town incor- 

 porating a body of the exceptional and unwieldy 

 number of fifty governors, and it was recited 

 that there was no less than ;^ 1 3 1 16;. %d. due 

 for arrears of the stipend, of which ^60 was 

 ordered to be paid by the duchy and ^^55 by 

 the copyholders, who had apparently managed 

 to escape paying any rent at all since 1549. A 

 school was built and the rest of the money be- 

 came a school stock. This, with ^250 subscribed 



' Leach, Engl. Schools at the Reform. 1 16-1 7, 121. 



' Ibid. 125. 



* Duchy of Lane. D. & O. x, fol. 270^. 



' Char. Com. Rep. xv, 12. 



59c 



