SCHOOLS 



for a schoolmaster, being a lerned man, rated, cessed 

 and laid by the auditors this year, bound by the 

 whole Assembly i8 Sept. anno 1565. 



A list of subscriptions promised follows, ranging 

 from the mayor's 4;. a year * and Mr. Corbett's 

 and Alderman Sekerston's 3^. dd, down to one 

 of 4^., the total being ;^5 13^. 6af., just about 

 doubling the old stipend. This was really an 

 inadequate sum for those days, Elizabethan 

 founders aiming at a salary of ;^20 at least. 

 But no doubt the school was still mainly a fee 

 and not a free school. However, 



John Ore bachelor of arts being hired in London by 

 Ralph Sekerston and others to be schoolemaster he 

 appeared ' before the Assembly in the common hall 

 and was admitted to enter and teach upon the proof 

 and good liking, and to have for the year sick or 

 whole j^ 10 to be paid quarterly. 



In 1 5 7 1 , Peile, who was also chaplain, took 

 over the school. He refused to accept half the 

 toll of the corn market and collected his salary 

 by a house-to-house visitation. In 1582 John 

 Royle was appointed master and required to act 

 also as clerk of the chapel and ringer of the cur- 

 few, and was paid only £"] 1 41. ?id. 



The incumbent of the chapel was again do- 

 ing duty as master in 1599, and the corporation 

 ordered that 'Sir Thomas Wainwright shall 

 kepe schoole here untill God sende us some suf- 

 ficient learned man and no longer.' 



In 161 1 we learn that the school was on the 

 west of the cemetery of the chapel, the Port Mote 

 Book ^^ recording a dispute with John Rose re- 

 garding old chantry lands and 'a wall of the 

 cemetery of the chapel of St. Nicholas, on the 

 east part of the Free School.' In 1673, how- 

 ever, it had been moved to the chapel of St. 

 Mary del Key, the antiquary Brome recording : 



Here is now erecting a famous town house. . . Here 

 also is a piece of great antiquity, formerly a chapel, now 

 a Free School, at the West end whereof next the river 

 stood the statue of St. Nicholas, long since defaced and 

 gone, to whom mariners offered when they went to 

 sea. 



In 1745, to the disgrace of the town, the 

 parish vestry directed that ' the school adjoining 

 St. Nicholas Church in which John Walters 

 teaches, being ruinous and a great nuisance, be 

 taken down.' So perished the chapel of the 

 quay, the one ancient building of Liverpool. 



The grammar school was not long in follow- 

 ing it. In 1 8 1 8 Carlisle was informed that the 

 school had been wholly 



discontinued since the death of the late master, Mr. 

 John Baines, an excellent scholar, about 10 years ago. 

 But the corporation have a plan at present under 

 consideration to revive this ancient seminary and thus 

 to give additional splendour to this flourishing town. 



The plan, however, was never executed. The 

 result has been that Liverpool lacked any public 

 provision for secondary education till after the 

 Education Act of 1902. 



Liverpool Institution, Liverpool Institute, 

 AND Liverpool College 



The place of the grammar school was supplied 

 by semi-public private schools, the Royal Insti- 

 tution School founded in 18 19, the Liverpool 

 Institute in 1825, and the Liverpool College in 

 1840. 



In 1864 the first of these schools numbered 

 about 120 boys and had gained a good list of 

 distinctions at the University, reckoning among 

 its old boys the present Canon Duckworth, 

 scholar of University College and fellow of 

 Trinity College, Oxford, and the late George 

 Warr, scholar of Trinity College and fellow 

 of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. This school was 

 crowded out by the two later schools. 



The Liverpool Institute grew out of the 

 Mechanics' Institute, and was managed by a 

 council of subscribers. It supported two schools 

 in Mount Street, a high school for the upper 

 middle classes at fees of 9 to 12 guineas a year 

 for boys up to university age, and a commercial 

 school at fees of ^^3 151. to ^4 10s. a year, 

 being a kind of higher elementary school for boys 

 up to fifteen or sixteen years of age. In 1864 ^ 

 the former had 195 boys, the latter 630 boys. 

 In 1894^ the numbers were 228 and 661 

 respectively. By a scheme of the Board of 

 Education under the Charitable Trusts Acts, 

 1905, this school became a public school and was 

 handed over to the corporation of Liverpool. 

 It was subjected to severe criticism for under- 

 payment of its masters and the inferiority of its 

 buildings at various times, but now this has to 

 a great extent been remedied. In 1906, under 

 Mr. H. V. Weisse with fourteen assistant masters 

 and one assistant mistress, there were 350 boys 

 in the high school at fees of 12 guineas a year ; 

 and 250 in the commercial school at fees of 

 6 guineas. Mr. Weisse is also head master of 

 this school, the Rev. A. Jackson being the 

 senior assistant master with twelve assistant 

 masters and one mistress. The decline in 

 numbers is due to the drifting off of the poorer 

 class to what used to be called the higher grade 

 board schools. 



The Liverpool College was founded and 

 governed by donors and subscribers, the founda- 

 tion stone being laid 22 October, 1840. It 

 was under Church of England management. 

 It maintained three schools. The upper school, 

 at fees of 17 to 23 guineas a year, had five 

 university exhibitions attached, and aimed at 



' Port Mote, i, 291. 

 Op. cit. ii, 743. 



Ibid. 298. 



' Schools Inq. Rep. xvii, 591. 



' Rojal Com. on Sec. Educ. vi, 1 36. 



595 



