west, but was taken down after the Dissolution, when the abbey church was sold to the parish. Portions of the abbey buildings, including the Lady chapel of the church, now converted into a dwelling-house, are incorporated in those of Sherborne grammar school, founded (although a school existed previously) by Edward VI. in 1550, and now holding a high rank among English public schools. The almshouse known as the hospital of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist was founded in 1437 on the site of an earlier establishment, and retains a Perpendicular chapel, hall and other portions. The abbey conduit, of the middle of the 14th century, is conspicuous in the main street of the town. Of the old castle, the gatehouse and other parts are of Norman construction, but the mansion near it was built by Sir Walter Raleigh.
As there is no evidence of Roman or British settlement, it is probable that Sherborne (Scireburn, Shireburne) grew up after the Saxon conquest of the country from the Corn-Welsh in the middle of the 7th century. It is first mentioned in 705 as the place where St Aldhelm fixed his bishop-stool for the new diocese of Western Wessex, being chosen probably for its central position. Æthelberht, king of Wessex, was buried here by the side of his brother Æthelbald in 866. For the next eighteen years its freedom from Danish attack made Sherborne the capital of Wessex. In 978 Bishop Wulfsey introduced the stricter form of Benedictine rule into his cathedral of Sherborne and became the first abbot. The see, which was united with that of Ramsbury in 1058, was removed to Old Sarum in 1075. In 1086 the bishop of Sarum and the monks of Sherborne held the place, which seems to have been of fair size and an agricultural centre. On the separation of the offices of bishop and abbot in 1122, the abbot’s fee was carved out of the bishop’s manor, but did not include the town. Bishop Roger of Caen (1107–1139) built the castle, described by Henry of Huntingdon as scarcely inferior to that of Devizes, “than which there was none greater within the confines of England.” Its strength made Stephen force Bishop Roger to surrender it in 1139, but during the civil war in his reign it passed into the hands of the empress Maud. It was later granted to the earls of Salisbury, who seem to have allowed it to fall into disrepair, for in 1315 and in 1319 the abbot of Sherborne was appointed to inquire into its condition. It was recovered by the bishop in 1355, and retained by the see until granted in 1599 to Elizabeth, who gave it to Sir Walter Raleigh. The abbey church was partly burnt in 1437, in a riot due to the monks’ refusal to recognize the town’s chapel of All Hallowes as the parish church, though they had restricted their use of the abbey church for parochial purposes. Signs of this fire are still visible on the walls, which are in part tinged red by the flames. The town, though frequently the centre for medieval assizes and inquisitions, never became a municipal or parliamentary borough, but was governed by two constables, elected in the manorial court. In 1540 Sir John Horsey, who had bought the manor and church at the Dissolution, sold the abbey to the vicar and parishioners. The Reformation made no break in the continuity of the school, which had probably existed in the abbey since the 11th century. Edward VI. by his charter in 1550 made its governors one of the first purely lay educational corporations founded in England. The town suffered severely during the civil wars, the castle being besieged by the parliamentary forces in 1642 and 1645. The fairs now held on the 8th of May, the 26th of July and the first Monday after the 10th of October were granted to the bishop in 1227, 1240 and 1300. After the decline of the medieval trade in cloth, lace and buttons were the only articles manufactured here until the introduction of silk-weaving in 1740. In June 1905, in commemoration of the 1200th anniversary of “the town, the bishopric and the school,” an historical pageant, invented and arranged by Louis N. Parker (at one time music-master at the school), was held in the grounds of Sherborne Castle, and set the model for a succession of pageants held subsequently in other historic English towns.
See William Beauchamp Wildman, A Short History of Sherborne from A.D. 705 (1902), and Life of S. Ealdhelm, first Bishop of Sherborne (Sherborne, 1905).
SHERBROOKE, ROBERT LOWE, Viscount (1811–1892), British statesman, was born on the 4th of December 1811 at Bingham, Notts, where his father was the rector. He was educated at Winchester and University College, Oxford, where he took a first class in classics and a second in mathematics besides taking a leading part in the Union debates. In 1835 he won a fellowship at Magdalen, but vacated it on marrying, in 1836, Miss Georgina Orred (d. 1884). He was for a few years a successful “coach” at Oxford, but in 1838 was bitterly disappointed at not being elected to the professorship of Greek at Glasgow. In 1841 Lowe moved to London, to read for the Bar (“called” 1842); but his eyesight showed signs of serious weakness, and, acting on medical advice, he determined to try his fortune in the colonies rather than in London. He went to Sydney, where he set to work in the law courts. In 1843 he was nominated by Sir George Gipps, the governor, to a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council; owing to a difference with Gipps he resigned his seat, but was elected shortly afterwards for Sydney. Lowe soon made his mark in the political world by his clever speeches, particularly on finance and education; and besides obtaining a large legal practice, he was one of the principal writers for the Atlas newspaper. In 1850 he went back to England, in order to enter political life there. His previous university reputation and connexions, combined with his colonial experience, stood him in good stead. The Times was glad to employ his ready pen, and as one of its ablest leader-writers he made his influence widely felt. In 1852 he was returned to Parliament for Kidderminster in the Liberal interest. In the House of Commons his acute reasoning made a considerable impression, and under successive Liberal ministries (1853–1858) he obtained official experience as secretary of the Board of Control and vice-president of the Board of Trade. In 1859 he went to the Education Office as vice-president of the Council in Lord Palmerston’s ministry; there he pursued a vigorous policy, insisting on the necessity of payment by results, and bringing in the revised code (1862), which embodied this principle and made an examination in “the three R’s” the test for grants of public money. He felt then, and still more after the Reform Act of 1866, that “we must educate our masters,”[1] and he rather scandalized his old university friends by the stress he laid on physical science as opposed to classical studies. Considerable opposition was aroused by the new régime at the Education Office, and in 1864 Lowe was driven to resign by an adverse vote in Parliament with reference to the way in which inspectors’ reports were “edited.” The result was unjust to Lowe, but a good deal of feeling had been aroused against Lingen’s administration of the Education Office (see Lingen, Baron), and this was the outcome. Lord Palmerston’s death in October 1865 was followed by the formation of the Russell-Gladstone ministry and the introduction of the Reform Bill of 1866. Lowe, a Liberal of the school of Canning and Peel, had already made known his objections to the advance of “democracy”—notably in his speech in 1865 on Sir E. Baines’s Borough Franchise Bill—and he was not invited to join the new ministry. He retired into what Bright called the “Cave of Adullam,” and opposed the bill in a series of brilliant speeches, which raised his reputation as an orator to its highest point and effectually caused the downfall of the government. He remained, nevertheless, a Liberal; and after the franchise question had been settled by what Lowe considered Disraeli’s betrayal, and he had been elected the first member for London University, he accepted office again in the Gladstone Cabinet of 1868 as chancellor of the exchequer. Lowe was a rather cut-and-dry economist, who prided himself that during his four years of office he took twelve millions off taxation; but later opinion has hardly accepted his removal of the shilling registration duty on corn (1869) as good statesmanship, and his failures are remembered rather than his successes His proposed tax of a
- ↑ This phrase is always ascribed to Lowe, and has become history in association with him., But what he really said in his address to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in 1867 was that it was necessary “to induce our future masters to learn their letters.”
