A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



' xx/. and xxd.' In 1829 the school was removed 

 from the churchyard and rebuilt stone for stone 

 on its present site. About 50 boys attend the 

 school, and the present endowment amounts to 

 L^ZZ ps"" annum. There is a project on foot 

 for the erection of new buildings. 



ROCHDALE GRAMMAR SCHOOL^ 



The rectories of ' Blacborne, Rachedale, and 

 Whalley,' formerly appropriated to the abbey of 

 Whalley, together with the chapels annexed, 

 having come to Matthew [Parker], afterwards 

 archbishop of Canterbury, the rectorial tithes 

 were leased to Sir John Byron, who, amongst 

 other conditions, engaged to pay an annual sti- 

 pend to each of the ministers performing divine 

 service in the chapels of the said parishes. 

 As he failed to fulfil this part of the agreement, 

 the archbishop brought him into court. After a 

 protracted and costly litigation, Sir John Byron 

 cast himself upon the clemency of the archbishop, 

 who adjudged that he should, over and above his 

 rent and the stipends to be paid to the ministers, 

 pay /17 a year for the maintenance of school- 

 masters of a free grammar school to be founded 

 in Rochdale in the archbishop's name. The 

 £17 ^ year was to be charged upon the tithes of 

 the parish in perpetuity.^ The school was 

 accordingly founded by deed of the archbishop, 

 (i January, 1564-5), covenanting with Corpus 

 Christi College, Cambridge, and the vicar and 

 churchwardens of Rochdale, the vicar having on 

 4 November, 1462, already given a plot of vicar- 

 age land for the schoolhouse. It was required 

 that not fewer than 50 nor more than 1 50 boys 

 should be taught by the master and usher. The 

 endowment was augmented by Dr. Chadwick in 

 1682 (;^3), Jeremy Hargreaves in 1696 G^2o), 

 James Holt in 17 12 (^^loo), and also by Mary 

 Shepherd (part of ;^i2o). Dr. Samuel RadclifFe 

 in 1648 left £4.0 a year in land at Harrowden, 

 Bedfordshire, to two scholars of the schools of 

 Steeple Aston in Oxfordshire, of Rochdale or 

 of Middleton in Lancashire, or to any of the 

 undergraduates of Brasenose College who were 

 unpreferred.' 



In 18 1 4, when the rectory of Rochdale was 

 sold under an Act of Parliament obtained by Arch- 

 bishop Manners Sutton, ^{^1,300 consols were 

 purchased for the benefit of the schoolmaster and 

 usher, and for other purposes. In 1825^ the 

 whole endowment amounted to ^36 14;. a year, 

 and the Rev. William Hodgson was master with 

 16 boys and some girls. In 1866* Mr. James 



' Baines, Hiit. of Lanes, iii, 49 ; F. R. Raines, 

 Memorials of Rochdale Grammar Scioo/ (Rochdale, 1845). 

 ' Harl. MS. cod. 7049, fol. 271. 

 ' Carlisle, Endowed Schools, \, 719. 

 ' Ck^r. Com. Rep. xix, 267. 

 ' Sckc^.ls Inq. Rep. xyfi, 390. 



Bryce, as assistant commissioner to the Schools 

 Inquiry Commission, reported that the school 

 consisted of 40 boys receiving a commercial 

 education, which meant elementary mathematics, ' 

 bad Latin, and some geography and history. 

 The school had been rebuilt in 1864 and had 

 room for 80 or 100. 



It has now seemingly disappeared, while the 

 funds of the Free English School, founded by 

 Jane Hardman, 12 April, 1769, to give ele- 

 mentary education to poor children, was by 

 a scheme under the Endowed Schools Acts, 

 (i6 May, 1893) converted into an endowment 

 for exhibitions tenable at secondary schools, 

 Manchester Grammar School being specially 

 mentioned. 



RIVINGTON AND BLACKROD GRAM- 

 MAR SCHOOL' 



Rivington Grammar School was founded in 

 1566 by James Pilkington, bishop of Durham, 

 who obtained letters patent from Queen 

 Elizabeth for the school to be called the Free 

 Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth, with 

 licence in mortmain up to ;^30 a year. 



Bishop Pilkington drew up elaborate statutes. 

 The meetings of the governors were to open 

 with prayer, and absentees were to be fined 2j. 

 They promised not to suffer the teaching of 

 popery, superstition or false doctrine in the 

 school, but ' only of that which is contained in 

 the Holy Bible and agreeing therewith.' 



When any learned man cometh to the Church or 

 near hand, the governors shall desire him to examine 

 the Schoolmaster and Usher in learning and religion, 

 . . . and also to try and appose the Scholars . . . 

 One day of the first week of every quarter . . . the 

 Governors all shall . . . come jointly to the School 

 there to learn and examine what Scholars have best 

 profited in learning ; and them that have done well 

 they shall praise and set him above his fellows in the 

 same form ... or else, if they find it meet, they shall 

 remove him higher by the master's consent to another 

 form ; and he that is found to have done best of all 

 the school, shall have authority to get his fellows 

 licence to play once in the term . . . the meaner sort 

 they exhort and encourage to ply their books . . . but 

 those that be dulards, unthrifts, runaways, negligent 

 . . . these they shall see corrected with the rod, as the 

 faults shall deserve, if the offender be under sixteen 

 years old, or else with some open punishment to make 

 him ashamed, as to sit in the midst of the school 

 alone, . . . where his fellows may finger and point 

 at him ; or to keep him in school when others do 

 play or to get rods for correcting of other his fellows 

 or holding them up that shall be beaten or bear the 

 rods on high before his fellows to the Church at 

 service time . . . But if he be above correcting with 

 the rod, then shaU they, with the advice of the 



' Baines, Hist, of Lanes, iii, 59. School Statutes, ed. 

 Septimus Tebay (Preston, 1864.) A large number of 

 documents relating to the two schools are still unread. 



606 



