The History of Colchester Royal Grammar School/Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
By Letters Patent dated July 6th in the 26th year of her reign (1584) Queen Elizabeth authorised the foundation of a "free Grammar-School" in Colchester, granting for that purpose to the Bailiffs and Commonalty (the sixteenth century equivalent of Mayor and Corporation) the endowments of two former chantries, with instructions to allot from this source such properties as would yield an annual income of 20 marks for the maintenance of the schoolmaster. As has been explained above (p. 3) this grant cancelled an earlier grant of 1539, which has been lost for that reason; but in a preamble these new Letters Patent recite a story which in part bridges the intervening gap of 45 years. We are told that on November 12th, 1539, Henry VIII had granted the same two chantries to the Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Commonalty "to erect and maintain within the said town a free School" to meet the needs of the municipality, and had ordered that Statutes and Ordinances for the government of the School should be framed by Thomas, Lord Audley of Walden, then Lord Chancellor, working with the Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Commonalty. But the money had not been so used, nor the Statutes been framed, as was discovered by an inquisition at Stratford Langthorne, when it was further disclosed (or alleged) that the grant itself was invalid on account of the inclusion of the word "Burgesses," the town having been incorporated in the names of Bailiffs and Commonalty alone.
This brief story may be somewhat enlarged. The two chantries were those of Joseph Elianore, founded in 1348 in St. Mary-at—the-Walls, and of John de Colchester, founded in 1321 in St. Helen's Chapel. Elianore, a Bailiff of the Town, amply endowed his chantry for two chaplains "to pray daily for his good estate as long as he lived and after his decease for his Soul, and for the souls of Philippa, John, Hubert, and Elias, and all his benefactors and for the souls of all faithful persons departed this life." John de Colchester, Rector of Tendring, made provision "for one priest to perform divine service daily in St. Helen's Chapel aforesaid for the health of his soul, and of the souls of his ancestors parents and heirs." The advowsons rested with the founders until their deaths and then devolved to the Bailiffs and Commonalty. This accounts perhaps for the fact that these two chantries were suppressed eight years before the general Dissolution of Chantries by Edward VI (1547). As has already been stated the Statutes for the governance of the 1539 school were to be framed by laymen, without interference by the Bishop of London. Lord Audley died in 1544, and meanwhile the municipality appropriated all the chantry lands for their own uses, though paying the schoolmaster a stipend of £6 13s. 4d. There is mention of a schoolmaster (ludi magister), one Robert Cock, in a lease of 1540 (Oath Book, 1540-1; Rot. 20). In 1553 Robert Wrennald was paid £6 13s. 4d., and in 1558 Richard Whittel received the same sum (Morant, III, 9). In 1574 a Thomas Lovell resigned the post of schoolmaster, and William Barkeley was elected in his place (Victoria County History, Essex, II). But beyond the allotment of the stipend nothing seems to have been done, and in 1578 the Burgesses petitioned Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State, informing him that the conditions of the Letters Patent of 1539 had not been fulfilled, and requesting him to use his influence with the Queen to have the matter rectified. This was effected by the Letters Patent of 1584, when on regranting the endowments of the two chantries it was stipulated that the stipend was to be provided not out of the town funds, but in rentals of properties assigned to the schoolmaster himself; and as a further safeguard the Bishop of London, who with the Dean of St. Paul's was to frame the Statutes, was appointed in perpetuity Visitor of the School.
In August, 1584, an assembly at Colchester made the following orders :-
"Imprimis, yt ys concluded, agreed, and ordered by the said Bayliffs, Aldermen, and Commonaltye of the said Towne that the howse called Westons, which hath byn used to be a Grammar Schole-howse, in the parishe of All-Saints, shall be purchased of John Christmas, Gent., and that he the said John Christmas shall have for his right in the said house, of the Bayliffs and Commonaltye of the Town, 20 L. of lawful money of England, and that the assuerance for the same howse shall be made by the advice of the Councell of the same Towne.
"Item, yt ys agreed that the said howse shal be the free Grammar Schole-howse of the same Towne and that Edward Watson Master of Artes shal be Grammar Schole—Master of the said Towne, duering the pleasure of the said Bayliffs and Cominaltye."
This decree went on to assign certain lands to the School (and the master) and made provision for the election of "syxteen free Schollars " by the Balliffs, specifying that theirs was to be the only valid nomination.
At this point we first hear of "the howse called Westons," which was to serve as the Grammar School house for three centuries. It will be noticed that it had "byn used to be a Grammar Schole-howse," and that it was to be purchased of John Christmas. A John Christmas was a Bailiff in 1539, when the first grant of the chantries was made, and will have been responsible for the settlement of that year. From these facts we may perhaps sketch the course of events between 1539 and 1584 as follows. Presumably the School remained in St. Mary's until 1539 or thereabouts. In 1539 came the grant of the chantries and fresh resources. Perhaps the municipality had felt the need for a reconstitution of the School, or perhaps the impelling motive was the opportunity of seizing the rich chantry lands under the pretext of a zeal for education. Or perhaps the old school had for some reason ceased to exist. This we do not know, but the mention of the Bishop of London in the Letters Patent of 1539 strongly suggests that in fact it was still in existence, and was to be replaced by, or absorbed into, the new. Indeed, perhaps it was the very danger of interference by the Bishop that prompted the municipality to move the School out of his soke to some other part of the town. But to what part? Opportunely Bailiff Christmas owned a house, called Westons, at the far end of the town (the Crouched Friars had once drawn rents from John Weston's tenement in All Saints); what could be more convenient than to place the newly—constituted school in this house? The schoolmaster could be allotted a suitable salary from the town funds, and perhaps Master Christmas was reasonable enough to exact no exorbitant rent for the use of his house.
In any case, the house had already "byn used to be a Grammar Schole-howse" before 1584, but was only then purchased, which suggests some irregularity in the previous arrangement concerning the use of Christmas's house, for Henry's Letters Patent had instructed the town to "erect and maintain" a school.
With minor structural alterations Westons served until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it had so far deteriorated as to be considered irreparable, and in 1853 the Grammar School was moved for the second time in its history, to its present quarters on the Lexden Road. The old school-house was bought in auction by a carriage-manufacturer. Strange as it seems, although the change was made less than a century ago, the identity of Westons was almost "lost," and a genuine doubt has existed in recent years as to which of the buildings in Culver Street occupied the site of the old school, the issue being further confused in October, 1939, when the demolition of All Saints Court and adjacent buildings revealed the timber frame (now erected in the Castle) of what appeared to be the hall of some public building. This, however, was not the School: Westons now houses Adams's Garage. The transition from carriage-manufactory to garage is natural enough, and the ground plan of the garage conforms to that of the School as it is shown in a perambulation of All Saints Parish of 1794, despite the very different use to which the building is put (see Appendix 2). Moreover, when the school-house was sold by public auction (Essex Standard, May 4th, 1853) the premises were described as having a frontage of 79 feet; and Adams's Garage is the only property in that part of Culver Street with that frontage. Little information survives concerning Westons. A brief description in White's Directory (1848) tells us that "The Grammar School is an old building in Culver Street containing a large school room, and a house for the master's residence, with a garden of 20 rods, and some outbuildings." The perambulation plan of 1794 bears out this description.
In addition to this bare reference, however, we may discover a little from the School accounts. In 1723, for instance, there was "a cellar dug, and a new floor laid over the East part of the School (? hall) even with the floor over the West part." In 1642-3 the Corporation reimbursed Dugard, then master, for building "a fire-room, and a study over it adjoyning to the school" (Morant, iii, 15, 16). It was Dugard who instituted the School's "log-book," known as Liber Scholae Colcestriensis, in which entries continued to be made for two centuries. The following accounts are taken from it.
In 1639 £2 12s. 8d. was paid for "gravelling of ye Streete and raileing in before ye schoole," and in this same year occurs this entry: " Item 19,000 of brick." I believe that these bricks were used to build the walls round the garden ; one of these, the east wall, may now [1947] be seen to the side of the car park in Culver Street, where the brickwork appears to be of seventeenth-century date. Of the interior a little may be gained from these entries from the same source (1638).
| Imprimis planchering [i.e. flooring] ye Hall | 2 | 5 | 0 | ||
| Itm | planchering (or covering three chambers with half-inch deales) | 3 | 3 | 7 | |
| Itm | a table for ye Schoole | 0 | 16 | 0 | |
| Itm | a Register book to write ye Schollers names in when they are admitted | 0 | 6 | 0 | |
| [This was doubtless the Liber Scholae Colcestriensis.] | |||||
| Itm | Carpenters work about ye Schoole, vis. mending ye declaiming pew and setting up benches, ec. | 0 | 17 | 0 | |
| Itm | a Common Bible for ye Schoole | 13s/4d. | |||
| and a desk to lay it in | 3s/4d. | 0 | 16 | 0 | |
| Itm | paid to Mrs Kemp for a long settle in the Hall, two portalls in the Hall and a portall [i.e. door-frame] in the chamber over ye Hall | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
Today the ground floor has been radically changed, and a new front inserted, while the garden is occupied by workshops. The old building is nevertheless recognisable, and much should be made of it by Colcestrians. Three hundred years is sterling service, and Westons represents in constancy the character of the School itself during that time—there were fewer changes seen between 1584 and 1853 by far than between that date and the present day.
In 1584, then, rather than 1539, really began the second chapter of the School's history. The provisions decreed by the Assembly were affirmed in May, 1585, when a formal Foundation Deed was drawn up. The "Free Grammar School" was established in Westons, with Edward Watson, M.A., as master. Sixteen free scholars were to be instructed, and chantry property to the annual value of 20 marks was allotted " to and for the maintenance of the said Free-school, and the School-master thereof for the time being, for ever." The lands selected are listed in detail in Morant (iii, 10, ll; see Appendix 2, and also Fig. 2).
| (According to the Statutes all the Masters were in Holy Orders until 1899, when the office was opened to laymen. | ||
| app.—appointed | res.—resigned | d.—died.) |
| 1539—1584 | ||
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| 1584—1899 | ||
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| 1900 | ||
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- ↑ By item 21 of the Statutes and Ordinances a Master who accepted a benefice after his appointment was to be replaced. Griffin, however, although appointed Rector of Greenstead, Jan 16th, 1667, retained the post of master until 1671.
- ↑ Slinger, like Griffin, accepted benefices while still master of the School. He was appointed rector of East Donyland Feb. 4th, 1686, and of Layer Breton Oct 15th, 1692.