A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



The statement must have been made without any search in the records of the corporation of 

 Bedford, or those of New College. 



Among the papers collected by the late warden of New College ** is one addressed * to the 

 right worshipful Mr. Pinke,*' Warden' (1617-47), which contains a list of the ' Schoolemasters of 

 the free schoole of Bedford ' obtained from ' Mr. Barker, rector of Bould-Brickle,' (Bow Brickhill), 

 who himself ' was schoolemaster theire (Bedford) at Newton Longville, [a New College living] 

 28 August, 1629.' This list gives 



Greene, placed there by Sir William Harpur ; Smyth, by the towne ; Whyte, now bysshop of 

 Norwiche, by the towne put in and putt out ; Chambers, put in by the towne, kept in by the 

 coUedge ; Butcher, schoolemaster of Thame, by the coUedge ; Whitaker, by the coUedge ; hee died 

 there. 



Greene ceased to hold office in 1573, when Smyth was admitted by the town, but he does not 

 seem to have been really appointed by them, though at the hearing of a great chancery case on the 

 question of the right, 22 July, 1725, the town are said to have produced a deed poll by them dated 

 15 Elizabeth, 1573. But Harper did not die till 1574 and he must have appointed Smyth, almost cer- 

 tainly a New College man ; being probably identical with William Smythe, of Worlaby, Lincoln- 

 shire, admitted scholar of Winchester College 1560, B.C.L. June 1565, D.C.L. 15 October, 1573. 

 The fellows of New College, who had to become 'civilians,' that is to take degrees in civil law instead 

 of arts, seem to have suffered severely in pocket as compared with the 'artists' and 'theologians,' 

 and there are frequent entries of their leaving their fellowships because they could not afiFord to 

 hold them. The ranks of schoolmasters were therefore largely recruited from them. In Smyth's 

 time, though Oxford was the natural and usual resort of Bedford boys, we find one boy at least 

 going to Cambridge, Francis Betterton of Belgrave, Leicester, aged 18, on 17 January, 1574-5, 

 admitted to Caius College, the only one which records at that date the provenance of its under- 

 graduates. It is particularly interesting as he must have been a boarder, showing that boarders 

 were ab initio. This William Smyth, like Hugh Barker, who when head master of Chichester 

 taught Selden, after taking his D.C.L. left the profession of teaching for that of the practice of the 

 civil law, and he became an advocate at Doctors' Commons in 1577 ; official of the archdeacons 

 of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and in 1 581 a canon of Lincoln. It was perhaps his 

 daughter or granddaughter Mary, daughter of William Smith of Ashby and Great Brickhill, who 

 in 1602 married Robert Barker, who furnished the list to Warden Pinke in 1629. White, who 

 succeeded Smyth, was Francis White, son of the vicar of Eaton Socon, Bedfordshire, educated 

 at St. Neots Grammar School, whence he went to Caius College, Cambridge, and took his 

 B.A. degree in 1583 and M.A. in 1586. We should like to know why he was ' putt out' 

 by the town, as he seems to have been an able man, who when rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, 

 and lecturer at St. Paul's so impressed James I that the king set him to refute the Jesuit Fisher, 

 and made him in 1622 dean, and in 1626 bishop of Carlisle, and 22 January, 1628-9, bishop 

 of Norwich. 



Of his successor, Chambers, nothing has been ascertained. There does not seem to be any 

 fellow of New College or scholar of Winchester of the name who fits the date. 



The next master, Richard Butcher, born at Handborough, Sussex, was admitted scholar of 

 Winchester College 1577, of New College 1 58 1. He also was a 'jurist,' taking his LL.B. , 

 degree. He left New College in 1597, no doubt to become master of Bedford School. There he 

 remained until he went on to be master of Thame School, of which New College not only 

 appointed the master, but were also the governing body. 



Whitaker was probably Henry Whiteacre, admitted to Winchester in 1562, and fellow of 

 New College in 1568 ; but if so he must have been exceptionally old, over fifty, to have become 

 master on Butcher's retirement. 



Robert Barker was another civilian fellow of New College, He entered Winchester as 

 founder's kin in 1580, as his elder brother Hugh had done in 1577, and another brother or cousin in 

 1576, they being among the earliest of founder's kin who flooded Winchester after the unfortunate 

 resuscitation of that exceedingly stale claim by Richard Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, in 1569. 

 Barker became fellow of New College in 1588, and departed [recessit is the technical term used) to 

 become master at Bedford in 1601. ' 



'* I am indebted to the present Warden, the Rev. Canon Spooner, and the college for the use of these 

 papers. Though they were all arranged and neatly docketed in Dr. Sewell's own hand, Dr. Sewell had quite 

 forgotten their existence, and in reply to inquiries for papers about Bedford said there were none. They 

 were found after his death in the Warden's lodgings. 



" Diet. Nat. Biog. His name is one of the earliest cut on Meads wall at Winchester College, to which 

 he was admitted in 1588. 



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