At the meeting of the "Thirty-men" to fill up the appointment there were two candidates, Mr. Armesteed and Mr. Sokell, but the former was elected. About the year 1628, when this gentleman resigned, Mr. Sokell was elected to the vacancy after a contest. Until 1628 the management of all matters connected with the school had rested with the "Thirty-men," but at that date the Roman Catholic gentlemen, who had been most liberal in their contributions, came to the conclusion that "it was not for their reputation altogether to leave the care of it to others and they to have no hand in it, therefore they took upon them to have a hand about it, and upon their doing so the 30 men, being tenants most of them to some of them, or dependant someway upon them, left it to them; only Mr. Parker was not bound to the gentlemen, and he joined in with them."[1]
Isabell Birley and others had brought out a candidate, named Dugdall, at the recent election of schoolmaster, and were so incensed at his defeat by Mr. Sokell, a Romanist, that they drew up a petition to the bishop of Chester, complaining that "the gentlemen of the parish, being recusants all saving Mr. Parker, had intruded themselves to order all things" about the free school, and begging his lordship to issue an order how the future election of feofees for the school should be made, which he accordingly did, as follows:—
"Apud, Wigan, 31 July, 1628.
"At which day and place diverse of the Town and Parish of Kirkham appeared about the ordering of a schole master thereof for the time to come. At their request it is therefore ordered that the whole parish, or as many as shall appear at some day prefixed, after public notice given the Sunday before, shall elect six or nine lawful and honest men feofees for that purpose, whereof a third part to be chosen by the towne of Kirkham, and the two other parts by the parishioners generally, of which feofees Isabell Wilding's (late Birley) husband and her heirs, because she gave £30 to the schole maister, shall be one.
"Johannes Cestrensis. Edw^d Russell."
The command of the bishop to call a public meeting was carried
out, and in answer to the summons, read in church as directed,
only seven persons presented themselves in "the parlour of Mr.
Brown the curate," viz., Sir Cuthbert Clifton, knt., Mr. Thomas
Westby, Mr. Thomas Hesketh, Mr. Langtree, Mr. John Parker,
gentleman, and of the parishioners, "not one man saving Richard
- ↑ Ancient Manuscript.
