SCHOOLS 



many years vice-master, and master from 1854 

 to 1878. When, owing to ill-health, Osborne 

 left in 1870, there were 297 boys in the school 

 and its position as a great public school was 

 firmly established. He was to Rossall what 

 Bradley was to Marlborough and Thring to 

 Uppingham. 



Under the Rev. Robert Henniker, Brough 

 scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, a first class 

 man in classics and a second class man in 

 science, second master at Rochester School, 

 there was a reaction. He trusted too entirely 

 to the monitors and is said to have been generally 

 slack. At the same time, however, he reduced 

 the bullying and the excessive monitorial canings. 

 After five years, during which the school had 

 fallen to '244, Mr. Henniker resigned. 



The Rev. Herbert Armitagc James, educated 

 at Abergavenny Grammar School, scholar of 

 Lincoln College, first class classics in 1867, 

 fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and 

 assistant master at Marlborough, quickly revived 

 the school, as he has since revived two other 

 great public schools. He introduced the Marl- 

 borough system of dividing up the school into 

 ' houses,' under which, though the whole was 

 in one building round a single great quadrangle, 

 special parts were assigned to the care of single 

 masters. Each house had its own monitors, its 

 own library, and competed against the others in 

 games. He also introduced from Marlborough 

 the head master's quarterly review of all forms. 

 He ruled by directness and force. When on 

 one occasion there was an attempt at hissing him, 

 it is reported that he told the boys : ' There 

 are three kinds of animals that hiss, snakes, 

 geese, and cads.' He greatly increased the 

 number of scholarships and raised their standard. 

 His last sixth form contained twenty-six boys 

 who won scholarships or exhibitions at Oxford 

 and Cambridge, including four scholars of 

 Balliol and four of King's. He raised the num- 

 bers from 251 in 1875 to 331 in 1886, when 

 he retired to the deanery of St. Asaph. He has 



subsequently returned to the scholastic profession 

 to be principal of Cheltenham and head master 

 of Rugby. 



The Rev. Charles Coverdale Tancock, scho- 

 lar of Exeter College and first class in classics 

 at Oxford, for eleven years an assistant master 

 at Charterhouse, came in 1887. Change of 

 master and commercial depression at first sent 

 down the numbers to 287. But they soon rose 

 again to 309, and four years later to 391. The 

 establishment of two new 'houses,' a sanatorium, 

 and a science department marked his reign. 

 The increase in numbers led to improved 

 finances, and by 1894 all debt had been paid off. 

 The success of the ' hostel system,' under which 

 the school and not the individual house-master 

 takes the profits of boarders, and after payment of 

 a liberal salary to the house-master, the profits 

 return to the school in the shape of improve- 

 ments and the creation of a reserve fund, instead 

 of contributing to found a family fortune, has 

 nowhere been more marked than at Rossall. 



In 1896 Mr. Tancock's health broke down 

 and he retired. Afterwards he recovered and 

 became head master of Tonbridge School, from 

 which he has just retired (1907). 



The Rev. James Pearce Way from Warwick, 

 where he had built up a considerable school, 

 was appointed in 1 896. Educated at Bath 

 College, he became a scholar of Brasenose, 

 stroked the University Eight and obtained a first 

 class in classics in Moderations and a second in 

 the Final Schools. He went to Warwick 

 in 1885 from a mastership at Marlborough. 

 He has maintained the school at a steady level. 

 There are now, with 23 assistant masters, 330 

 boys. The fees are nearly double what they 

 were sixty years ago, 70 guineas a year. In 

 1904 the school shooting eight won the Ash- 

 burton shield at Bisley. At cricket Rossall 

 plays Loretto and Shrewsbury Schools. In 

 football it follows the Association rules, and its 

 chief match is against Shrewsbury. Dr. Way is 

 retiring at Easter, 1908. 



ELEMENTART SCHOOLS, FOUNDED BEFORE 1800 



Walton on the Hill. — An endowed school 

 existed here in the seventeenth century, but all 

 records have perished ; it is supposed to have 

 originated in a legacy of ;^I20 by Thomas 

 Harrison in 1613. In 1828 it was free to all 

 the boys of the parish for reading, writing, and 

 arithmetic, but small fees were charged for other 

 subjects. The national school, built in 1871, 

 has the endowment, but the old building exists 

 at a corner of the churchyard. 



AsTLEY. — Adam Mort, by his will 1 9 March, 

 1630, gave all his lands in Pennington towards 

 the maintenance of a schoolmaster who should 

 teach all children repairing to the chapel which 



he had built in Astley. Thomas Guest, 

 by will 1731, bequeathed an annuity of 20s., 

 derived from cottages in Spotland. In 1732 

 Thomas Mort gave one-sixth of the corn tithes 

 of Astley ; £^ 6j. a year was also paid by 

 Thomas Worsley of Westleigh. There was a 

 schoolroom in the chapel-yard, but no master's 

 house. Originally there were 80 to 90 scholars, 

 but in 1828 not more than 12 or 13, 



HiNDLEY. — There was in the township of 

 Hindley a school bearing the following inscrip- 

 tion — ' This school was built by the gift of Mrs. 

 Mary Abram, widow, whose soul I trust trium- 

 pheth now amongst the Just, a.d. 1632.' A 



615 



