SCHOOLS 



University ' (/» studto generall) the profits of a chantry founded at the altar of St. Andrew in the 

 conventual church for the souls of his parents and brothers and sisters. Whether this provision for 

 one learned person out of fourteen in the monastery was kept up we do not know. A visitation by 

 Bishop Grey in 1432* does not point to a high degree of culture. The bishop found the rule 

 broken, and directed that the canons were not to be visited by friends without the licence of the prior, 

 nor were the canons to go into the town ; while it was specially directed that ' one was to be pro- 

 vided to instruct the novices and canons in the elements of learning {in primitivis scienciis).' This 

 would prima facie mean simply reading and singing ; but, on the whole, in view of the fact that 

 a contemporary biographer of William of Wykeham, writing about this year, tells us that he never 

 passed ' the bounds of the primitive sciences,' though he 'had been nourished in secular learning ' and 

 undoubtedly knew Latin, this may be taken to mean that what the canons and novices were to be 

 taught included grammar. 



It is to be feared that the present Dunstable School can trace no connexion with the twelfth- 

 century school, which, if it went on, as is probable, to the dissolution of monasteries, then passed 

 with its endowment, if any, to the crown. 



The present secondary schools, for there are two, owe their erection to schemes by the Charity 

 Commissioners made under the Endowed Schools Acts ; one school called Chew's Foundation, 

 under a scheme approved by Queen Victoria 28 June, 1880 ; and the other, called the Ashton 

 Grammar School, under a scheme approved 12 August, 1885. Both schools owe their origin to 

 j William Chew, citizen and distiller of London, and his sisters and co-heirs. He had declared his 

 intention of founding a charity school at Dunstable for forty poor boys, and this was effected by 

 deed of Frances Ashton, Jane Cart and Thomas, son of Elizabeth Aynsworth, 16 December, 1724, 

 granting property which in 18 19 came to be worth ^^330 a year; with an augmentation by 

 Mrs. Ashton in 1727 of land which produced £2^ ^ y^^""- The same Mrs. Ashton by her will 

 30 March, 1727, founded some almshouses. The latter endowment had increased so much that by 

 the scheme of 1885, after reserving ;^220 a year for the maintenance of the almshouses, the rest was 

 applied to a school. The school was opened in 1888. In 1905 Mr. Llewellyn Charles Waldron 

 Thring became head master. Educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 he obtained a Second Class in the Classical Tripos there in 1888. Since 1896 he had been partner 

 in Brunswick House Preparatory School at Hayward's Heath, Sussex. There are now seven assis- 

 tant masters and 147 boys, of whom sixty-four are boarders. A new scheme is in course of making 

 by the Board of Education. 



BIGGLESWADE FREE SCHOOL 



At Biggleswade we learn of the existence of a school from an Inquisition of Charitable Uses 

 held during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, under a commission of 16 February, 1658. 



It was given in evidence in 1660 that all the inhabitants had and claimed free schooling for their 

 children, while in particular Henry Pigott, ' gentleman, as owner of a chapell in Holme, doth claim 

 a right of free schooling or teaching by the said schoolmaster.' The mention of this chapel and the 

 fact that there was a Trinity Gild in Biggleswade before 1548 strongly suggest that though the 

 chantry certificate specifically states there was no school then, in 1547-8, maintained by the Gild, 

 Peake's bequest of 1557 was in some way a revival of or substitution for a school kept by the 

 Gild or Gild priest.^ 



Edward Peake of Southill by will 12 April, 1557," gave to Humphrey Copley his 



cottage with the appurtenants lying and being on the west part of my capital! or cheife messuage . . . 

 upon condition that [he] doe at all tymes permitt and suffer one sufficient lerned schoolmaster by the 

 church ministers and constables of Biggleswade aforesaid for the tyme beinge for ever to bee nominate, 

 peaceably and quietly to have and take his mansion howse and dwellinge yerely for ever in and upon 

 the said cottage in Holme. 



He also gave his ' capitall or cheife messuage ' and lands, then in the tenure of Richard Wallop, 

 to feoffees ' on condition' to pay an annuity of ;^io 'for the use and behoofe of the schoolemaster.' 



' Line. Epis. Reg. Grey, fol. 197 </. 



' Pat. 14 Edv/. IV, m. 4, 1475, 12 Feb. Licence for Fraternity or Gild of Holy Trinity in Biggleswade 

 church with a chaplain at ^^lo a year. 



' By an extraordinary accident this was misprinted in the Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry 

 Concerning Charities in 1821 {Ciar. Com. Re/>. v, 5) as 1775 instead of 1557. As it was in i8zi elementary 

 the result was that this school was not included in the subsequent Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission and was 

 entirely overlooked and no official inquiry has ever been made into it as a Secondary School. 



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