SCHOOLS 



In 1768 the trustees began to agitate for a new Bill, ' hoping to extricate themselves from 

 difficulties in which they have involved themselves from bad management' according to Bridle. 

 According to Towersey the usher, one of the chief objects of the Bill was to cut off the masters' 

 coals and candles. The salaries also were too large ' for teaching ten boys, the present number 

 of the school,' said the solicitor to the trustees, 7 February, 1769, when a Bill had been brought in 

 with the object amongst other things of making the Lord Chancellor visitor instead of New College. 

 The Bill, however, did not pass. 



Bridle, who had from 1 748 been rector of Akeley or Oakley, a New College living, which he 

 gave up in 1760 for the richer one of Hardwick, certainly seems to have treated his head-master- 

 ship in his later years very much as a sinecure. He died ii August, 1773. 



John Hook, who succeeded, was a founder's kin scholar of Winchester in 1753 ;"* son of a 

 master of Sir Thomas Rich's School, Gloucester. He went to New College in 1756, and had been 

 head master at Thame before his appointment to . Bedford. The archives of New College 

 and of Bedford Corporation are silent as to the school for nearly the first thirty years of 

 Hook's mastership. The fact that he soon (1776) got a new usher instead of Towersey, who had 

 been there for over twenty years, suggests reform. The new usher, David Williams, was also 

 founder's kin scholar of Winchester in 1757 and of New College in 1762. 



Williams retired to the college living of Saham Toney, Norfolk, in 1787. On 22 October, 

 1787, Charles Abbot, scholar of Winchester 1772, head of the school in 1778, and entered at 

 New College in 1779, was admitted usher. 



In 1790 a movement began for a new Act in view of an expected increase in rents, of ;^i,000 

 to ;^3,000 a year. In a letter of 9 April, 1792, Hook informed the warden of New College that 

 there had only been nine or ten boys from Bedford for the last twenty years. It was now 

 proposed to admit free the children of all the inhabitants and not of freemen only. In 1793 a 

 private Act brought in by the Duke of Bedford became law. Its most important changes consisted 

 in adding to the governing body the members of Parliament for the town, and the master and usher, 

 and increasing the ' check ' trustees to eighteen. The salaries of the master and usher were in- 

 creased to ;^200 and j^ioo respectively, with £2 capitation fee on every boy in the school ; and all 

 sons of inhabitants aged fourteen were admissible free. New College was to send two visitors every 

 year to examine, and three University Exhibitions of ^^40 a year were created. The most notable 

 addition to the eleemosynary provisions was that of an almshouse for twenty poor, ten of each sex, 

 and a residue of ;^ 5 00 a year for doles. 



In 1796 we learn that there were eighteen boys in the school. 



Promptly after Hook's death on 4 November, 18 10, New College at the request of the 

 trustees began to formulate rules for the school, which, wrote the mayor, had * long hid its diminished 

 head before the reputation which had distinguished Winchester, Rugby and Eton,' because the 

 masters regarded their appointments as sinecures. The new rules were made 25 February, 1 8 1 1 . 

 They demanded the constant attendance of the masters and settled the hours at, in summer 7 to 

 9 a.m. ; 10.30 a.m. to I2 ; and 2 to 5 p.m. ; in winter 8 to 9.30 a.m., 11 to 1.30 and 3.30 to 

 6 p.m. The year was divided into halves by two vacations of six weeks each. John Brereton was 

 appointed head master. He was appropriately enough a native of St. Andrew's, Holborn, son of 

 the vicar there, and, like his father, had been a scholar of Winchester, admitted 1793, and a 'jurist' 

 fellow of New College. When appointed he was a master at Blundell's School, Tiverton. 



There were very soon troubles with Dr. Abbot, who objected to a junior "having been placed 

 over his head. He would not take boarders himself and refused to teach those of Dr. Brereton for 

 four guineas a head, ' which the master of Winchester school pays the undermaster.' Five guineas was 

 therefore offered. Then at the next meeting of the trustees Abbot applied to have boarders himself. 

 This was granted, but as the head master's house was not quite ready, alterations at Abbot's were 

 not begun. So then he refused to teach the boarders, telling them they had no business there. 

 In the end he would not take boarders. In 18 17 Abbot was dangerously ill, during which time 

 Brereton's 'brother Tom' supplied his place. On 5 September, 1817, Abbot died. He had been 

 also for some years vicar of Oakley, Raynes, and Goldington, and was eminent as a botanist, the 

 author of a Flora Bedfordiensis. 



The new usher was ' brother Tom,' a scholar of Winchester and fellow of New College. 

 In 1822 the warden of New College writing to the trustees expressed his gratification at the 

 exceedingly good reports of the school. Dr. Brereton introduced school lists made after the fashion 

 of those at Winchester College in the shape of Long Rolls ; long narrow slips which had originally 

 been of parchment, but were then of paper. They were in Latin and were headed with the arms 

 of the school that is of Harper. The earliest Bedford roll preserved at New College is for 



" T. F. Kirby in his Winchester Scholars confuses two John Hooks, one admitted 1 749 and the other in 

 1 7 c ^ both of whom he credits with being masters of Bedford School. Long Rolls show that it was the 

 scholar of 1753 who was master. 



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