42 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Henry Wallis, who succeeded Upham, was bound under a penalty 
to pay the £20 every year. In the time of the Commonwealth 
the difference between the shares of the vicar and the schoolmaster 
had become greater ; but then the Mayor and Commonalty made 
up the ministerial stipend to what was regarded as an adequate 
amount, out of the town revenues, and doubled the payment of the 
schoolmaster. The stipend, in fact, never represented the whole 
of the outlay on the school, as we see even from such entries as 
the payment of 14s. 8d., in 1592, to Kempe, towards building his 
study and trimming his chamber. Probably the Almshouse Chapel 
and its appurtenances continued to be the school-house and master's 
residence, 1 with sundry alterations, until, in 1657-8, the old 
school-house in the Orphans' Aid, in which so many Plymothians 
now living were educated, was erected at the cost of the Mayor 
and Commonalty, though subsequently rented from the other 
Charity, and in some way associated with the Almshouse property, 
which it adjoined, and which received a small annual payment 
from the Orphans' Aid on its behalf. 
The Corporation at this time undertook indeed what was essen- 
tially the foundation of the Grammar School on an enlarged basis. 
Not only did they build the new school-house, but they resolved 
that in future the salary should be £40, with the Orphans' Aid 
house and garden ; and that forty boys should be taught free, the 
master being allowed to make his own advantage for the rest. 
Upon this understanding, on the 8th July, 1658, articles of agree- 
ment were entered into with Nathaniel Conduit, of Ilminster, 
who became the first master in the new premises. 
It is not my purpose to trace the history of the Grammar 
School in detail. It will be sufficient to say that in the last 
century it lost its free character altogether, and became simply a 
subsidized school of the ordinary classical type ; though under the 
mastership of Dr. Bidlake, which ended in 1810, it attained a 
high and well-deserved reputation. On the appointment of Dr. 
Bidlake's successor, the salary, then £30, was raised to £50, on the 
condition that two sons of poor freemen of Plymouth should be 
educated therein free; and at the present time ten boys are 
educated on payment of two guineas per annum. The only other 
1 It and the dwelling attached were leased, in 1710, to William Strong, at 
a fine of £70, and on condition that £60 should be laid out in altering the 
premises. 
