SCHOOLS 



THE county of Bedford is remarkable in the history of education in that in ancient 

 times it is a striking example of the generality and ubiquity of the provision for 

 secondary education, while in modern times it is an even more striking example of the 

 tendency to concentration of educational institutions in a few great centres, and 

 presents us with the one undoubted specimen of a town which has grown on a school. 

 Modern Bedford is simply the creation of Bedford Grammar School and of the Endowed Schools 

 Commissioners. The commissioners with a wave of their pen rescued the original gift of i^^ acres 

 of meadow land, which had developed into a populous centre, ten times more populous than the 

 town for the benefit of whose school it had been given, from the pauperizing misapplication to 

 which it had for a century been subjected, and restored the bulk of it to its original purpose of 

 education. Fortunately when its great revenues were set free to fulfil their original purpose 

 the school fell under the sway of a man who was energy incarnate. In ten years the town was 

 revolutionized. The population was almost stationary, the value of property was rather diminishing 

 than increasing. But when the scheme under the Endowed Schools Act, approved by Queen Victoria 

 in Council on 4 August, 1873, had set free ten-elevenths of ^^3 0,000 a year for the purposes 

 of education, for which it was intended, had given the original grammar school for the first time 

 an adequate proportion of this income, and had made proper provision for the commercial 

 school, for the high school for girls, and the modern school for girls, besides free elementary 

 schools for the whole population, and had thrown open the privileges thus afforded on equal terms 

 to all who chose to live in the town, a transformation scene took place. Under Mr. James Surtees 

 Phillpotts the grammar school rapidly rose in public estimation. It dawned on the retired officers 

 and Indian civilians, with families still growing and incomes diminished, that here, within 50 miles 

 of Charing Cross, they could find cheap and pleasant habitations, and a public school education for 

 £g to 12 a year for their sons, and high school education for their daughters at the same price. 

 They therefore flocked to Bedford. The grammar school grew from 270 boys to 800. The over- 

 flow filled the commercial school, converted into a ' modern school,' which follows (too closely) in 

 the steps, and indeed, endeavours to rival the grammar school at lower fees. The daughters have 

 filled the high school and the modern school for girls with almost equal numbers. Their success 

 has led to that of the Bedford County School, while private schools innumerable prepare the children 

 for the struggle for scholarships and the demands of the secondary schools. Trade followed in the 

 train of the school, and now there is no busier, no more prosperous, no pleasanter town in England 

 than this unique town which is built upon a school. The figures are startling. The population, 

 which increased only by 1,800 between 1851 and 1861, increased by double that amount from 

 1871 to 1881, and, when the influence of the scheme was fully felt, by four times that amount 

 between i88i and 1891, and again between 1891 and 1901. So that a population of 11,693 •'^ 

 1851, of 16,551 in 1871 had become a population of 28,023 in 1891 and of 35,144 in 1901. 



Besides the school at Bedford, mentioned about 1150, and the antiquity of which is fully 

 discussed later, there was a school in the early twelfth century at Dunstable before the foundation 

 of the Augustinian Priory, and the modern Ashton Grammar School there ranked next to Bedford. 



The only other secondary school in the county, of quite a different type, is the county school at 

 Luton, the growth of which town has been as rapid and as recent as that of Bedford. Luton School 

 only dates from 1904, but in the i6th century one may be strongly suspected there, though no 

 evidence is forthcoming, in connexion with the Trinity Gild. 



At the Augustinian Priory of Bushmead it seems to have been intended at one time to set up 

 a real grammar school for boarders, apparently by way of making money to pay the convent's debts. 

 On 15 July, 1332, Bishop Burghersh granted licence^ to Richard of Stokton, the elder, that for 

 two years he might take at the said house of Bushmead 60 boys, to teach them the science of 

 grammar. Whether this school was ever set up, whether, if so, the number of 60 was ever 



' Line. Epis. Reg. Burghersh, m. 246 d, 

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