SCHOOLS 



Mr. Wright recommended the foundation of a girls' school, to which the money spent on 

 marriage portions might more profitably be applied ; and the imposition of tuition fees in all the 

 schools. New College had already recommended the removal of the restrictions on boarders ; on 

 which Mr. Wright remarked : 



The jealousy of boarders and of their being made eligible for the prizes and exhibitions is 

 strong afld all but universal in the town ; but the comparative inferiority of the school seems to be in 

 a great measure attributable to the want of the proposed exhibitions. 



All the reforms recommended were carried out by the Commissioners appointed under the 

 Endowed Schools Act, 1869, by a scheme approved by Queen Victoria in Council on 4 August, 

 1873, one of the earliest and certainly the most successful of the schemes made under the Act. 

 It reduced an unwieldly body of fifty-one trustees to the more manageable number of twenty-seven ; 

 including, representatives (two) of New College, of Cambridge and London Universities, and of the 

 Lord Chancellor, and of parents of the scholars in the schools ; together with the Lord-Lieutenant 

 and members of Parliament for Bedford. It abolished the dual control of New College and the 

 trustees, placing the whole power in the new body of trustees. It divided the income into eleven 

 parts ; giving one part only for eleemosynary purposes in the shape of almshouses ; two-elevenths 

 for elementary education ; four-elevenths to the ' Modern ' schools, as the Commercial School was 

 now called, for boys and a new prospective Modern School for girls ; and the remaining four- 

 elevenths to the Grammar School, and a similar new prospective girls' High School. Between the 

 boys' and girls' schools of each kind the money was divided according to a complicated scale of 

 numbers ; but, speaking roughly, three-fifths to boys and two-fifths to girls. Tuition fees were 

 imposed on all; the maximum tuition fees allowed in the Grammar School being ^12 z. year 

 and in the girls' High School ;{^20 a year ; and £(> and £^ a year in the Modern Schools. The two 

 girls' schools were to be established on the site of what were called the best almshouses, on 

 the north side of the Bromham Road, as they became vacant, and as soon as there were sufficient 

 funds for the purpose. 



On the new scheme coming into operation Mr. Fanshawe retired, and died shortly afterwards 

 in May 1876. It was by a curious coincidence that though New College now ceased to appoint 

 the head master the choice of the new electors fell on a New College man, when in October 1874, 

 James Surtees Phillpotts, M.A., B.C.L., was appointed, to begin work after the Christmas holidays, 

 in January, 1875. Grandson of the famous bishop of the western see, who was known to his 

 contemporaries as Henry of Exeter, he was, like most of his predecessors, a scholar of Winchester 

 (1852), and fellow of New College (1858). He won the Stanhope Historical Essay in 1859, a 

 First Class in Classics in Moderations in i860, and in the Final Schools in 1862. He went to 

 Rugby as an assistant master, when he became a brother-in-law of Dr. Jex Blake, who was head 

 master there in 1874. He was, with the doubtful exception of Priaulx, who as we saw eventually 

 combined the offices of proctor and town clerk with that of schoolmaster, the first lay head 

 master of Bedford. 



The title of ' second founder ' has been much abused, being applied in successive generations 

 to every benefactor and every head master who extends or resuscitates an old school. But Mr. 

 Phillpotts may, in a very real sense, be termed the second founder, for without his unbounded 

 energy and resourcefulness, his readiness to risk his whole fortune on the school, it would never 

 have been removed from its old narrow quarters to its present extensive site, and placed once for 

 all in a position to be and remain one of the largest of the ' Great Public Schools.' He found a 

 fine and well-trained nucleus of 270 boys left by Mr. Fanshawe. But it was still a question 

 whether the so-called Modern School would not very soon usurp the place and the title of the 

 chief school of the foundation. Mr. Phillpotts' phenomenal developments soon placed the question 

 beyond discussion. 



One of the first things done was to show that though the school was called a grammar school it 

 was not going to neglect modern subjects of instruction. A chemical laboratory was opened 



m 1875. 



The adjacent brewery buildings were purchased for j^ 2,600 in 1875 and the front part of the 

 house attached to these buildings was subsequently converted into temporary class rooms, while 

 the back part was turned into a carpenter's shop, the first instalment of a regular system of manual 

 instruction which grew and grew till it finally developed into the present well-equipped 

 Engineering Department. Games were not neglected — a subscription was started for fives courts 

 and a gymnasium, the latter being formed out of some of the brewery buildings. These were 

 completed in 1878. Meanwhile the state of the school finances was lamentable. The governors 

 had raised the fees to S"] los. for boys under thirteen and 9 guineas for those above that age ; but 

 owing to the rights reserved under the old scheme for those already in the school, Bedford-born boys 

 were absolutely free, while others continued to pay only one guinea a year. The result was that 



