A History of Giggleswick School from its Foundation, 1499 to 1912. Edward Allen Bell
not begin to teache or dismiss the School without convenient Prayers and Thanksgivings. The Prayers would probably consist of the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed.
Of Grace there is no mention, but in 1547 Edward VI had issued injunctions that "All Graces to be said at dinner and supper shall be always said in the English Tongue."
Every year the Master was allowed to appoint three weeks for the boys to be exercised in writing under a Scrivener. There were in Yorkshire peripatetic Scriveners, who used to wander from school to school and teach them for a few weeks in the year, after which the writing in the school would be neglected. At Durham School the writing had to be encouraged by a system of prizes, by which the best writer in the class would receive every Saturday all the pens and paper of his fellows in the form. St. Bees Grammar School in 1583 tried a similar system from another point of view, they paid the Usher 4d. yearly for every boy "that he shall teach to write, so long as he takes pains with them." But paper was a very great expense; for by the year 1600 there were only two paper factories in England and the price for small folio size was nearly 4d. a quire. Writing indeed was only beginning to be common in the schools, it had long been looked upon merely as a fine art and for ordinary purposes children had been taught by means of sand spread over a board. Henceforward steps are taken all over England to ensure its teaching; at first the expert, the Scrivener, goes round from school to school, but later the ability of the Ushers improves and no longer need they fear the competition of a rival, they begin to teach the boys themselves and writing becomes a part of the ordinary curriculum.
It will be recognized that there is a central motive of religion pervading the teaching and conduct of schools towards the close of the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth, as there always had been. "We have filled our children's bones with sin" says Hezekiah Woodward, "and it is our engagement to do all we can to root out that which we have been a means to root in so fast." A more serious spirit was abroad. The young man was to abstain from singing or humming a tune in company "especially if he has an unmusical or rough voice." Schoolmasters were to abstain from "dicing and carding," scholars from misdemeanour and irreverent behaviour towards others.
Latin, Greek and Hebrew, became the "holy languages" because they were so closely allied with the Sacred Scriptures. Throughout education a deeper sense of the value of religious teaching, a deeper conviction that sin was detestable, a greater respect for outward sobriety fastened upon the minds of those who were responsible for education, and the children whom they trained grew up to be the fathers and mothers of the intense enthusiasts, who enforced religious freedom by the execution of their King.
Chapter IV.
Christopher Shute and Robert Dockray, 1599–1642.
CHRISTOPHER Shute was appointed Vicar of Giggleswick in 1576. He had been a Sizar of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1561 and graduated B.A. in 1564, M.A. 1568, and B.D. in 1580. He was a writer on religious subjects and published "A Compendious Forme and Summe of Christian Doctrine, meete for well-disposed Families" and among other writings "A verie Godlie and necessary Sermon preached before the young Countess of Cumberland in the North, the 24th of November, 1577."
After he had been appointed Vicar of Giggleswick by Queen Elizabeth, he took a very sincere interest in the fortunes of the School, and at his suggestion and Henry Tennant's the Statutes of 1592 were set forth. In 1599 he began a Minute-Book to record "all constitutions, orders, eleccions, decrees, statutes, ordinances, graunts, accounts, reckenninges and rents for the free Grammar Schoole of Giggleswick of the donacion and grant of the most famous king of late memorie, Edward the Sixt by the grace of God, King of England, Fraunce, Ireland, etc. Beginning the five and twentieth daie of March, Anno Domini, 1599. Annoque regni Reginæ Elizabethæ etc. quadragesimo primo." These being Governors:
Christopher Shute, Vicar.
John Catterall.
Henrie Tennant.
Anthony Watsonne.
Richard Chewe.
Thomas Bankes.
Henrie Somerscales.
Richard Franclaund.
He did not give the book definitely until 1604 "ad usum legum, decretorum, electionum, compitorum," and there are no entries in it between the years 1599 and 1603.
The period during which Christopher Shute was a Governor was marked by great prosperity in the fortunes of the School. During the first twenty years of the new century, many rich gifts were received. The first of these that is recorded is in 1603 when John Catterall, Esquire, of Newhall, leased to his fellow Governors a meadow in Rathmell for "their only use and behoof" for twenty-one years; the Governors leased it in their turn for an annual rent of 33s. 4d. and eventually, though the exact date is not mentioned, John Catterall bought it back for a fixed sum of £13 6s. 8d. and an annual rent of 33s. 4d. as the former lessee had not paid his rent.
In 1603 also, William Clapham, Vicar of "Runtoun in the county of Northfolke by his last will and testament bearing daite the fyft day of July, 1603," bequeathed to the schoole the patronage, free gift and advowson of the Churches and Rectories of Fulmodestone, Croxton and Rolleston in the county of Norfolk, "And the yearlie pension or porcionn paiable out of them of iiijli. viijs. viijd. I will that iiijli. thereof be yearlie for ever imploied towards the maytaynance or fynding of a poore scholer of the said schoole of Gigleswick, being of the said parish of Gigleswicke or Clapham, to be kept to Learning in somme Colledge in Cambridge: Provided alwaies and my will is that he shall be one of the Claphams or Claphamsons, if there shall be anie of those names meete and fitte theirfore, and to have the said yearly allowance of iiijli. for the space of seaven yeares, if he continue and abide in Cambridge so long." … "And the other viijs. viijd. I will that the one half theirof shall be bestowed yearlie toward a potacionn amongst the poore schollers of the same schoole, for the tyme being one Saincte Gregories daie, and the other half distributed amongst the poore of the said parish of Gigleswick yearlie on Easter daie for ever, to be ordered, governed and distributed from tyme to tyme by the Feoffees, overseers, governors, and rulers of the said Schoole for the tyme being, whereof one to be a Clapham if their be anie of the name in the same parish meet for that office."
Potations, thus provided for by William Clapham, were common to many schools and were gifts of food and beer by the Master to the Scholars, who in their turn were expected to bring gifts of money and thus enable the Master of a Free School to get an addition to his pay. At Nottingham Dame Mellers in 1512 did "straitlye enjoyne that the Scholemaister, and Usshers, nor any of them, have, make, nor use any potacions, cock-fighte or drinking with his or their wiffe at wiffes' hoost or hoostices, but only twice in the yeare nor take any other giftes or avayles, whereby the Schollers or their Frendes should be charged, but at the playsure of the frends of the Scholers, save the wages to be payde by the sayde Gardyans." On the other hand in the Hartlebury School Statutes, 1565, it is written "the said Schoolmaster shall … take the profitts of all such Cocke-fights and potations as be comonlie used in Scholes." At Cambridge "they have a potation of Figgs, Reasons and Almons, Bonnes and Beer at the charge of the sayed Determiners."
Such was the custom and William Clapham evidently intended by his gift of 4s. 4d. to relieve the Master from the expense and allow the gifts to be pure profit. Unfortunately no record has been traced of any gifts though there are entries in the Minute-Books of payment of expenses on March 12, 1626, "charges this day vis. vid.," which probably refer to the expenditure upon the scholars. Such mention is quite exceptional up till the close of the seventeenth century. The usual accounts are much briefer,