William Speed: 1672 —1689 - Oundle Schooloundle-heritage.daisy.websds.net/Filename.ashx?system... · CHAPTER VIII William Speed: 1672 —1689 WILLIAM SPEED is the only headmaster

CHAPTER VIII

William Speed: 1672 —1689

WILLIAM SPEED is the only headmaster of Oundle who failedto satisfy Laxton's requirement of a Master of Arts: but he isalso the only one known to have published a volume of Latin

verse. He was an Oxford man, having matriculated from Christ Churchon 15 June 1657, "clerici films", but he did not himself take orders. Whyhe left Oxford without a degree is unknown. On 10 March 1662/3 theCoopers' Company appointed him Master of Gibson's School, Ratcliffe,with an annual salary of £23 .6.8 together with a house. Sir WilliamFowler has given an account of Speed's stay at Ratcliffe in The Cooperianof April 1935, basing his narrative on the records of the Coopers' Company.The Grocers were connected with this school through the gift of HenryCloker, made in 1574, to the Coopers, who were required to pay ^2 ayear to the Grocers: £i of this went to the Master and Wardens for makingsure that the Coopers were in fact observing the terms of his trust; 145.to the almsmen or almswomen of Nicholas Gibson's houses at Ratcliffe,and the remaining 6s. to the master, usher and scholars of Gibson's Schoolthere, in bread and drink, once a year—a curious arrangement for securingsupervision of a charitable trust. Speed stayed nearly ten years at RatclifFe,and seems to have had difficulties with his successive ushers: there wastrouble over the reading of prayers in the chapel twice a week until a parsonwas paid to read them. Speed had been licensed as schoolmaster by thebishop of London in February 1663/4.

In 1669 he published his volume of Latin verse, with the followingtitle-page: Epigrammata Juvenilia in paries auatuor viz. Encomia Seria SatyrasJocosa distributa. Authore Gulielmo Speede. Quotations from Scaliger andHorace follow. Speed presented a copy to the Coopers, but it has unfortun-ately been lost.1

1 While quotation is tempting, a single example may be given of Speed's verses:AD LECTOREM

Omnia si laudas quae scripsi, stultus es ingens:Omnia si culpas, improbus es nebulo.

177

A HISTORY OF THE OUNDLE SCHOOLS

It was after a prolonged disagreement with Edward Webb, his usher,over the sharing of the extra emoluments, that Speed applied for theOundle appointment. Having been elected on 27 September 1672, he in-formed the Coopers on i October that "hee, being chosen master of a freeschoole att Oundle in the county of Northampton by the Company ofGrocers, was to depart from RatclifFe at Christmas next, and prayed theCourt to provide another master against that time". His notice was acceptedand a week later he was given a testimonial of good behaviour: early inDecember he received permission to stay in the Ratcliffe schoolmaster'shouse until after his wife's confinement. This explains why on the day ofhis election to Oundle he had agreed to leave Taylor in possession tillChristmas. The Oundle Register shows that Speed's only son, Joseph, wasadmitted on 7 January 1688/9 at the age of eight: it cannot, therefore, havebeen his birth that delayed Speed's arrival at Oundle.

At the time of his application in 1672, even if Taylor had no opportunityto tell him of the irregularity of the payments since the Fire, Speed musthave realised the financial difficulties of the Grocers' Company, for theCourt did not meet in Grocers' Hall, which was in the possession ofthe Company's creditors. Although the salary of £40 a year at Oundle wasbetter than that he was getting at Ratcliffe, he could have had little guaranteethat he would receive it: but he could hardly have been expected to foreseethat Grocers' Hall would remain sequestered until 1679. Speed was to havecontinuous financial anxiety all his time, and was to leave, discouraged andpartly unpaid, in 1689. The full effects of the Fire of London began to befelt about the time of Speed's appointment, and attention must now begiven to the difficult question of the Grocers' embarrassment.

Oundle School and almshouses formed only one of the charities forwhich the Grocers were responsible. As payments fell in arrears, the num-ber of clamant creditors grew: some became restive and presented a petitionto Parliament in 1671 for an Act allowing the sale of Grocers' Hall: but thispetition, like the Company's own, was rejected. After further threats bythe creditors and appeals by the Company to the Court of Aldermen, theGovernors of Christ's Hospital served a writ in Chancery for payment of

178

WILLIAM SPEED: 1672-1689

the money due to them under Lady Conway's charity and Lady Middle-ton's; and in June they seized the Hall and ejected the Grocers. That is thereason why at the date of Speed's appointment the Court did notmeet in Grocers' Hall. Except for one meeting on 14 October 1674, theGrocers were kept out of their sequestered Hall and offices until 1679: inthat year they mortgaged the Hall to a Mr. Naylor, from whom theyborrowed £2500, which enabled them to buy off their creditors tempor-arily. An appeal in 1674 to the Corporation of London for the repaymentof loans made to it by the Company met with the reply that the Chamberhad not the money to pay. In June 1675 the Irish estates were demised toMr. George Finch on a lease of thirty-one years at ̂ 10 a year and a fine of^3600: but Mr. Finch was slow in paying. In August and September 1681eighty-one were admitted to the Livery, paying the proper fees, but it wasevident that junior members of the Company were increasingly reluctantto take this step. All this time charities in arrears were petitioning or threat-ening legal proceedings: considerable sums were subscribed by individualGrocers to reduce some of the arrears on the Company's charities. Theenlargement and decoration of the Hall was undertaken by Sir John Moorewith a view to having suitable apartments to let to the Lord Mayor as hisofficial residence. When Sir John became Lord Mayor in 1682, a rent 01£200 was paid for this use of the Hall: the same sum was paid by his succes-sors for several years. The following year the Governors of Christ'sHospital, who all through had been their most pressing creditors, wereinduced to accept an arbitration, by which part of the debt was payablein a fortnight, and the rest by instalments. The nine years' arrears on threeor four charities, with the repayment of a debt bequeathed to Christ'sHospital, had amounted in all to less than £1000. Hope was born that theother creditors would take the same course: but it was not to live. Just asthe Fire had put an end to the brighter prospects of 1664, so the QuoWarranto writs of 1684 threw everything again into confusion. Charles IIdied in February 1684/5, and James II soon made things worse. The drasticstep taken by the Company in 1686 will be mentioned in its place.

Speed's first usher was Joshua Ogle, M.A. Oxon., who kept the Register

179


up to 26 May 1673 '• he left on 24 June to become Master of WellingboroughSchool, the bishop's licence being granted on 30 June. Seven years later anold Oundle boy, Edward Pickering, made a gift to Wellingborough School.Ogle did not enter a list of the boys in the School on Speed's arrival, but anew feature of the Register enables some estimate of the numbers to bededuced. For his first few years, but never systematically, Speed added anote to the admission to say when and why each boy left. Of the boys whohad entered before his arrival he recorded the departure of Charles Dowseof Oundle (who had been entered on 4 May 1663) a little before Easter 1674"after 10 or n years", and of some twenty-two others. There may havebeen more—Speed's list of those going to the Universities adds three morenames—but, as the last visitation of 1671 had reported the declining num-bers of the School, it would not be safe to suppose that there were more thanforty boys in the School. Be that as it may be, Speed admitted thirty-threein his first year, including a few boys who returned after some years'absence: there was therefore no reason to complain on the score of numbers.

But there was of quality. Speed must have agreed with Charles Hoole,the author of A New Discovery of the old Art of Teaching Schoole (1660), whowrote that all children, whether intended for scholars or not, should go toa Grammar School and be allowed to stay at it until invited thence by somehonest calling, but if their weakness in English was such as to take themaster's time and attention from the real scholars, then they should be sentto a Writing School. For he found that Taylor, perhaps to swell his numbers,had admitted in breach of Orders some boys not fitted for an education inGrammar, and that he himself had applications from boys of the same type:he proceeded to let such boys go, as a series of dismissal notices in variousforms tells of boys "leaving for a writing school"—there are fifteen suchbetween 1673 and 1677. These boys were not all local boys, for at least threewere Londoners. One of these last, aged thirteen, after only two months inthe School "abiit scriptum utpote rei literariae parum capax", which isplain enough. It would be interesting to know if these boys went to ParsonLatham's school in Oundle, for the title of its headmaster was "WritingMaster". English and Arithmetic formed the curriculum of such schools.

180


A desire for elementary education rather than Grammar was becomingmore general: other boys left Oundle for the school in their parish: Speedwrote of one such that he left "ad scholam parochialem, parsimoniaecausa": the alleged reason may be wrong, but the fact was that elementaryeducation was more sought after than secondary.

Speed was careful to note in the Register the dates of the coming andgoing of his ushers: ten weeks after Ogle left Robert Barriffe arrived. Hewas a yeoman's son, who had been born and educated at Uppingham, andhad entered St. John's College, Cambridge, on i July 1671. He took hisdegree while at Oundle, and is described as B.A. in the record of his ordin-ation as deacon at Peterborough on 19 September 1675: he left Oundle oni June 1676. Six weeks later, on 15 July 1676, Speed noted the arrival ofDs. Laurence Birchall—the Dominus should mean a B.A.: the Grocers con-firmed his appointment, after a report by the overseers, on 8 November.The variant spellings of his name suggest that this was after all not the idealname for an usher. He stayed for twenty-one months, leaving on 15 April1678 without his wages for the last nine months, and, as he was in debt forhis lodgings and accommodation in the town, the usher no longer "livedin". The Court of Assistants on 12 February 1678/9 heard his appeal andallowed him ^5: but it was not paid. On i July 1680 he applied again,pleading his pressing necessity as he was out of employment and lackingbread: the Court ordered the late Wardens "to pay him £15 with whatspeed they can": he was paid. By that time his successor, Knevit Rawlet,had come and gone (24 June i678-December 1679, eighteen months) andyet another usher, John Seabrooke, a B.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge,was in office (24 June 1680-25 March 1681, nine months). During 1680and 1681 an outbreak of small-pox occurred in Oundle, which reduced thenumbers of new entrants to the School in those years to seven and eleven:the average intake under Speed so far had been twenty-four. Speed hadbeen twenty-five weeks without an usher before Seabrooke came, and hewas forty-two weeks without one after he had gone. A Yorkshire man fromChrist's College, Cambridge, one Timothy Place, arrived 11 January 1681/2,and the number of entrants rose again to twenty-two in 1682. Place was

181


ordained in 1683 to the curacy of Little Gidding, thus adding to his irregu-lar pay as usher: he stayed over six years and left on New Year's Day 1687.He was succeeded the same day by one named Bright, who left when Speedhimself departed. The entrance fee may not have reached any usher afterOgle, for the Register appears to be kept in Speed's handwriting. In the caseof George Quarles, only son of George Quarles of UfFord, who arrivedjust after Timothy Place on 31 January 1681/2, it is noted that the ys. 6d.he paid was divided "5: Archid. 2-6 hypodid". Lyster Tigh from Elsinorein Denmark paid IDS. 6d. on entering, shortly before Place left, but thereis no note that this sum, larger than the normal 2s. 6d., was divided. Justover three hundred boys were admitted between 12 January 1672/3 and22 April 1689. In the absence of examinations and periodic inspections, thelist of boys going directly from School to the Universities must be admittedas evidence of efficiency. In a little over sixteen years, Speed records thirty-nine as going direct from Oundle: the number could be increased somewhatby listing boys who were at one time in the School and, after going else-where, found their way to Oxford or Cambridge.

Speed was in charge early in 1673 —the hundredth anniversary of theGrocers' taking over the School was at hand—and while he was still newto Oundle he received from the bishop of Peterborough instructions toreply to a printed leaflet entitled A Certificate in order to the Collecting andReporting the State of the present English Free-Schools, a questionnaire preparedby Christopher Wase (formerly headmaster of Tonbridge and at the timeSuperior Bedle of the Civil Law at Oxford and University Printer), dated16 August 1673 and issued by the Vice-Chancellor and the Regius Professorof the Civil Law. The eight inquiries were:

1. What Free-Schools in each Diocese ?2. Who Founder?3. When Founded ?4. How Endowed ?5. What School-Master and succession of Masters?6. What Exhibitions in whether University ?7. Who Governors and Visitors ?8. What Libraries in them, or in Towns adjoining, with what manuscripts?

182


Wase intended to compile a book on the Free Schools in England,their Founders, Masters, Exhibitions, Overseers and Visitors. It wasreasonable to ask the bishops to assist in the collection of information, foronce again all schoolmasters were licensed by them, and ArchbishopSheldon had as recently as 6 February 1671/2 instructed them to proceedagainst all such as were teaching school without licence. The replies receivedwere filed, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, has placed the manuscriptson loan in the Bodleian Library: there are two letters from Speed in thecollection.2 He answered on 28 August 1675, and after hearing from Wasewrote again on 10 April 1676. Wase's name was familiar to him fromMethodi practicae specimen, an Essay of Practical Grammar, 1660, oftenreprinted, and a Latin Dictionary (with English-Latin and Latin-English) of1661.

Here are Speed's letters:

(a)Oundle Aug: y6 28th: 75:

Worthy Sr

These wholesome Enquiries of yrs, concerning Schooles, coming to my hands,occasion me (& confident I am, many 1000 others both Masters & Schollars wantbut opportunity to doe ye same) to testify my hearty thanks for y* excellent bookesalready published to ye world. They are ample testimonys of y* great abilitys &labours in ye true & old method of Didacticks; now all ye Kingdome over generallyembraced, & found eminently successful!, beyond all ye deluding Quackerys ofnewfangled Impostors. And knowing, that ye Foundations & Endowments &c ofSchooles, faithfully lookd' into, & improved, is a principal meanes of their advance-ment, (for mony is the encourager of other arts as well as ye military:) you haveworthily undertaken to transmit a Record to posterity of our publick Nurserys ofLearning in England, wth ye revenues & advantages belonging to them. May youlive, & prosper long among us, Sr, for ye cotfion benefit of this & future ages; manyof which will be ye safe treasuries of yr name & merits.

As to ye Free Schoole of Oundle in Northamptonshire, it was antiently y6 Guildor Fraternity-house of that Corporation; which ceasing, the house proved uselease,and was begged of K. Philip & Q. Mary for a Schoole & Almeshouse, & then en-dowed by Sr W"1 Laxton Grocer & Ld Mayor of London in ye yeare 1556. To thisFree Schoole he appointed a Master, with a Salary of i8u per an: and an Usher wth

li s da Salary of 06: 13: 08: per an: ishuing out of his Rents in London. These Rents

3 The President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, have very kindly given permissionfor Speed's letters to be quoted in full.

183


afterwards being improved, the Company of Grocers his Executors augmented theMasters Salary to 40" & y6 Ushers to 2011 per an: The Master has a Dwelling housealso repaired constantly by ye Grocers. There is allowed to ye Master likewise from

11 s dy6 King 05: 06: 08 per an:

Our Account of ye Succession of Masters falls short of ye Foundation: that y*we can gather by ye people now alive is as followeth Only one Mr. Freckingham inQueen Eliz: dayes, I accidentally found, reading Hackets Conspiracy, to have beenSchool-Master at Oundle, & suffered ye losse of his nose by that Rebell. Rich:Spencer. John Pemmerton: Anthony Death: Sam: Cobbe. Tho: Johnson: W1"Hickes drove out by ye Presbyterians &c for keeping his Schollars to ye prayers o'thChurch W™ Griffith: W111 Taylour: Wm Speed present incumbent.

The Exhibitions belonging are (i) looo11 for ever given to S* Johns in Cambridgeto maintaine two fellowships & two Scholarships in that house, from Peterboroughin ye first place, & if that faile from Oundle Schoole, given by Edmund Mount-steven Esq: of Paston in ye County of Northampton Anno 1636. (2) One to Emanuelin Cambridge of 3" or 4" per an, by whom I cannot yet learne: There are severallothers in the hands of some Noblemen and Gentlemen in the County of Northamp-ton, who, I suppose, are unconfined, as to either Schoole or Colledge. Likewise ye

Company of Grocers London has always been very liberal & constant in Exhibitionsof 5h: or ioh per an: to 5 or 6 poore schollars, as they can make friends to them.This Charity since ye Great ffire of London is omitted: but it is hoped after a fewyeares it may returne againe.

The constant & only Governours, Patrons & Visitors [of Oundle Schoole]** arey6 Company of Grocers London.

The Library is at present very meane, by what occasions in y6 former Masterstime I know not, but will be againe recruited, when the Grocers shall have recoveredtheir losses. The nearest Library to us is that of Peterborough.

There is a Constant Register appointed by the Founder, wherein is Recordedevery Schollars & his Parents name, Quality, place of nativity, time of admittance& place in ye Schoole, for which ye Schollar so admitted then paid sixpence now twoshillings six pence to ye Usher. Their departure is also to be recorded, & then ye

Ma(ster) is gratifyed viz: of ye Free Schollars.Sr this is all I can acquaint you w01 at present of my place, I being yet a stranger

in it. If anything hereafter, y* is material, come to my knowledge I shall mostwillingly impart it to you, especially it being in order to so beneficiall a designe asyou are upon, which [I pray]d that God graunt you may prosper in is y6 true &hearty desire of

Sr- Your most humble & faithfullservant W1 Speed.

TheseFor Mr. ChristopherWase in Oxford

present.

184


(b)Hond Sr

I received yra though long after its date, and humbly thank you for yr kindinformation concerning my Schoole. I wish I could any way promote y* most worthyundertaking which God graunt yu life to perfect to ye great advantage of our nation.

Sr the Exhibition to Emanuel Colledge is three pounds per an: being 50" givenfor a Schollar out of Oundle Schoole to that Coll: for ever by one Mr Henry GaleVicar of Remington a village within 4 miles of Oundle.

There is a field at Yarwell Northtonshire wthin 4 miles of Oundle rented 12"per an: given to Jn°. Norton of Cotterstock Esq. for ye payment of 2 Exhibitions of4U per an: which by reason of y" neighbourhood of y* family to Oundle, has neverbeen yet otherwise disposed of than to two Schollars of ye Schoole. The Donourwas Clement Bellamy Esq. in Yarwell.

The Company of Grocers London ever have (and resolve againe to do ye same)allowed Exhibitions to ye Schoole at Oundle. They are not confined to any numberor rate but as ye partys concerned can make friends to them. Most comonly theirallowance is 5U per an: the number of Exhibitions 4 or 6. The way is by a petitionto ye Company wth a certificate from ye School Master of ye youths ability in learn-ing and inability in purse.

I have nothing else at present to comunicate but wishing you all health andhappines & subscribe myselfe Honrd Sr

Your most faithfull &humble Ser7* W™ Speed.

Oundle Apr. ye ioth 76.

TheseTo his honoured Friend

Mr. Christopher Wase atSt. Mary Hall in Oxford

PresentCarrige Paid

One or two things have to be said by way of comment. Perhaps his

knowledge is more interesting than his ignorance: he must have felt that

the Constant Register was something unusual and worth mentioning, for

this does not come in answer to any of Wase's specific questions. That

he intended converting it also into a register of leavers is most interesting

in view of the reason given: if the usher received a fee for entering the name,

the master should be "gratified" by the departing pupil. The information

about the Munsteven and Bellamy Exhibitions is mainly correct, but what

of that to Emmanuel, which clearly called forth a question from Wase?

185


Emmanuel College seems to know nothing of it. The college indeed heldthe advowson of Remington: and a Henry Gale was curate there aboutSpeed's time. This might be the Latham Exhibitions, which are otherwisenot mentioned: but they were not tied to Emmanuel: and it cannot be theMontagu (also unmentioned), for that was to Sidney Sussex. These last maybe included in the phrase "several others in the hands of some noblemenand gentlemen in the county". Speed had not read "Racket's Conspiracy"(as he calls it) very carefully, or he would have found Pamplin's name for1591, and not taken Freckingham for the schoolmaster of Oundle. "Peoplenow alive" in Oundle carried the memory of the succession of mastersback to the beginning of the century, but got Pemberton's Christian namewrong. Speed might call the Grocers "Governors, Patrons and Visitors",but he was never to know them in the last capacity. The shadow of the Fireof London hangs over his letters—exhibitions to be restored, library to berecruited and, he might have added, salaries to be paid, "when the Grocersshall have recovered their losses".

Wase never published the contemplated History of Free Schools, but awork of his entided Considerations concerning Free-Schools as settled inEngland received its imprimatur on 25 May 1677 and was published in 1678:"Printed at the Theatre in Oxford and are to be had there And in Londonat Mr. Simon Millers at the signe of die Star near die West end of S. PaulsChurch." The writer in the D.N.B. summarises the book as "urging anincrease in the number of schools and the claims of scholars on the wealthy",but W. A. L. Vincent3 seems nearer the mark in discerning as the object ofthe book an intention to defend the Grammar Schools against a charge ofhaving trained the educated class which had overthrown the King. Wasepleads for more such schools and for die better remuneration of the teachers("a master's stipend is usually below envy"), hoping to induce a new gener-ation of benefactors to come to the rescue of the Free Schools of England.Those of his paragraphs which are given to a kind of historical survey indi-cate plainly that he had found evidence of the antiquity of Gild Schools inthe Certificates of 1546 and 1548 and in the Continuation Orders: it is

3 In The State and School Education 1640-1660 (1950).

186


evident that this was the information about Oundle School for which Speedthanks him in the second letter.

Wase wrote: "But that which is of far greater importance to Parents isbest secured in publick Schools, that their children be trained up in theprinciples of Christian Religion, entire and uncorrupt: that they be builtup in the fundamental points, by Catechism and other seasonable address."Nowell's Catechism may be enjoined by School Statutes and Orders, as atOundle, but not to the exclusion of that in the Book of CommonPrayer—"many catechisms, but one faith". "Everyone who matriculatesin either University is required to subscribe the Articles of Faith andReligion, which supposes him to have been informed in them either byhis Minister or School-Master."

He refers to things familiar at Oundle—"the three or four neighbourministers who annually at certain prefixed time or times preside over thesolemn exercise of the Scholars and from their proficience estimate theabilities and diligence of the Master": and "the worshipful Companies ofthe Great City, their vigilant and faithful Governors": and the "room forbooks. . . annexed to that of the School... its desks or Presses: for indeed,without a certain Repository provided, all utensils are exposed either to belost or injured". Indeed, in his paragraph (§ 41) on the Library he writesstrongly on the need for such an instrument of education: "Words andPhrases are not sufficient to form a discourse, nor a Concordance to make aSermon: they do not therefore obstruct, they may conduce to the Work.A systematical Artist is not the worst Artist." As the desired collection ofbooks cannot everywhere be made in one day, he suggests (p. 104) thatgentlemen on entering their sons should present a book (of the school-master's choice) to the School library, and mentions instances of this atNorthampton School. He stresses also the need for a Library Keeper witha Register of Benefactors, a Catalogue of Books and a Borrowers' Book:and he would have this man salaried. Curiously enough, Wase wouldallow the schoolmaster, but no one else, to insert occasional animadversionsin the margin of any book in the School library.

On Writing, which ought to have a place in the curriculum of public

187


schools, he observes dryly that in the past, when books were rare, "note-taking of Master's dictates improved the learning but withal impaired thewriting" of the scholars. His conclusion, after pleading for generosity tothe schoolmaster, is "it were for the honor and no less for the advantageof Towns that he be so far encouraged as to be enabled to attend his callingwithout distraction, especially if he carry on many to the University, suchas perhaps in all Counties of England some masters are found to be: so willthis Church and Nation be blest with apt instruments for service and theAge to come seasoned with a sense of their duty in all capacities."

Of Speed's wit his entries in the Register provide better evidence thanthe published Epigrams of his youth: there is a bite in some of them, whenhe did not forget that "Brevity is the soul of wit" (as Scaliger no less thanPolonius declared), but unfortunately he was sometimes so pleased with hisepigram that he forgot to add the date. "Diu emansor, tandem exul domimansit" could hardly be bettered: "Long he overstayed his leave, at lasthe left to stay at home" nearly reproduces it. The absence of the date maybe excused on the ground that he did not actually know the day of theboy's last appearance in school. A study of a year's leavers should bringthe School to life: 1675 will serve, if it be remembered that 25 March isNew Year's Day. On 25 March one, aged eleven, after two years, went toWriting School, and another, aged seventeen, also after two years, went toan attorney's office. At Easter another boy of eleven went to WritingSchool. In May, Henry Boteler, at the age of seventeen, after nearly nineyears in the School, went to Magdalene College, Cambridge. In June aboy of twelve went "to a merchant", another of thirteen to Writing School,and a boy of eleven, after only nine months, went to a bakery at Thrapston.About Christmas time, a boy of eleven went "to a chemist", one of nearlysixteen went "ad studium legum", possibly the Temple, and a little boy ofunder ten "abiit stamfordiam Nativitate Xti 75 nee solvit minerval".Though Oundle was a Free School, there were fees and extras: expulsionsfor their non-payment are recorded, and there are comments on parents'unwillingness to pay, such as that of Easter 1675/6, "abiit ut una esset cum

188


matre parcissima"—presumably this London mother of a little fellow ofnine grudged the expense as well as the separation. One Oundle widow tookher boy away "eo quod infamis et avarissima mater solidum non daret incompotatiunculam puerorum": but it is not always the mothers that arethus criticised—"abiit quia pater parcissimus (licet admodum dives) minervalexpendere noluit". Minerval is the word used by Varro for the fee paid bya pupil to his teacher. On 17 January (1675/6) came a real tragedy: JamesClarke, aged ten, "mortuus scilicet tauri ferocis cornibus vulneratus occu-buit"—savaged by a bull. This boy's father had been the intruding rectorof Stoke Doyle, who died 9 May 1667: his mother had been buried there22 June 1671: his eldest brother had entered the School in 1665, and a secondbrother (who did not apparently come to Oundle) was later to be famousas the Esquire Bedell at Cambridge who attempted to arrest Dr. Bentley.Early in February, Matthew Hunt "abiit ob defectum exhibitionis ad aliamscholam viz Uppingham", but he came back after Easter the same year andstayed until he went up to Emmanuel College: it is not known who paidhis exhibition. Later in February—7 February, to be precise—comes ahint of disciplinary troubles. The two sons of Sir Oliver St. John, Bart.,were expelled: "Rebellis et omnium vitiorum reus et incorrigibilis expulsuse schola" and "Rebellis et incorrigibilis e schola una cum fratre expulsus."They had been at Oundle for only three months, and were sixteen and four-teen years of age. A previous nuisance, under fifteen, had been got rid ofafter two and a half months: "Tandem egregius emansor et rebellis inpraeceptorem e schola post correctionem debitam expulsus est." It may bewondered if the due punishment was omitted in the case of the incorrigiblebrothers. A few years later a Nottinghamshire parson's son aged fifteenproved an even more precocious young rascal, and too much for Speed:"Tandem luxuria et mollitie victus, victa quoque praeceptoris patientia,(quum totos dies ac noctes potando et cum feminis consumpsit) expulsuse schola domum missus est." Truancy and disobedience were one thing,but young James Holland's behaviour was another. The system of boardingboys in the houses in the town involved other evils also; fortunately thereis no example in the year 1675. But in other years there are boys who go

189


home like one described as "paene moriens": that small boy lived, and wentto Winchester when his elder brother left Oundle to go there. One ladwent home on Christmas Day "prae corporis aegritudine", but returnedalmost two years later: another "abiit domum aegrotans", he, too, cameback later. Yet another went home "fame prope enecatus in domo huiusoppidi ubi hospitium habuit"—almost starved to death in his lodgings. Aboy of eight "mortuus est", but he died in his own home in Oundle. A hintof the dim light in the old schoolroom may be found in the note that a boyof fifteen went home "captus oculis"—blind.

On the whole, however, Speed's notes are simple—there are about ahundred of them—and laconically say that the boys went ad aratrum, adsarturam, ad tonsuram, ad patris artem exercendam, venditum candelas,ad mercatorem pannarium . . . and so on. The older boys of fifteen or six-teen go to London to be apprenticed; others go to the Universities or toother schools: the younger boys leave to help their fathers in their trades.An occasional note betokens a greater personal interest: for example, of aboy leaving at eighteen and a half, "tandem maturus annorum et procerusadmodum scholae valedixit resque iam rusticas in agro Lincolniensisectatur"—at last full of years and exceedingly tall he said good-bye toSchool and now pursues country matters in Lincolnshire. As a last quota-tion, on New Year's Day 1676 a boy of eleven was sent home "quodlignum fuerit ex quo nunquam fieri potuit Mercurius"—a blockhead thatwould never make a scholar: the use of the Perfect Subjunctive hardlysoftens the blow. It is a pity Speed noted boys' departures only for a fewyears, and even so did not complete the tale.

In the Minutes and Orders of Court the term "trustees" begins to replacethe older term "overseers": but a constant change in the composition of thecommittee was not without effect in adding to the financial difficulties ofthese years. The absence of men of forty years' experience, like Mr. Edwardand Mr. William Cuthbert in the first half of the century, and the shorttime the elderly, substantial tradesmen appointed to act as receiver and pay-master had to live, led to indifferent book-keeping as well as to a lack ofcontinuity. Mr. Filbrigg was elected in November 1676, and on his death

190


in 1687 was replaced by Mr. William Selby, an old boy of the School, aswere Mr. John Lewis and Mr. John Strickson, hatter, elected in 1683. Thelast-named's two sons came to the School in 1673 and ^77'• Paymentsfrom Grocers' Hall were no longer being regularly transmitted to theschoolmaster for himself and the usher, and to the overseers—or trustees—for the almsmen, the nurse, their gowns and fuel, and for repairs: instead,as money became available, so it was sent down for one of the overseers tomake go as far as possible. To do the overseers justice, they did their best,writing frequent letters pleading for more money to relieve the hardshipof the pensioners. The Grocers had to find over .£500 a year for theirvarious charities, the Laxton endowments calling for about a fifth of thatsum. ,

In 1673-4 £,5° was sent to t>e divided among the schoolmaster, usherand almspeople "for present supply", and Mr. Cuthbert had repair billspaid, totalling ^18 .16.6: and that was all: in 1674-5, however, first of all^20 to be divided, then a whole year's money for all concerned, includingmoney for gowns and fuel, and then a second year's money also in full—^249.4 .o in all. Little wonder that in 1675-6 nothing whatever was paid:and in 1676-7 the only payment recorded is one year's arrears of his exhibi-tion to Boaz Meeke, ^5. But the position was better than that: for inDecember 1676 the Court accepted an offer by Richard Booth, Esquire, aprevious Master of the Company, to advance half a year's pay and allow-ances for the School and almshouses at Oundle, on promise of reimburse-ment later: and again, at the end of May 1677,tne Court, after hearingletters from the overseers, moved him "to supply half a year's pay of theusual salaries and pensions by appointment upon his acquaintance in theseparts". Wardens' Accounts 1677-8 show that on 29 January 1676/7 a sumof ̂ 55 .16 .o was sent "for a present supply towards their salaries and allow-ances' ': on 27 June 1677 another £20.16. o and on 18 July 1677 another £ 3 o.All these payments are dated before the Wardens in question took office:the entries, therefore, indicate that in their year Richard Booth was repaidthe ;£io6.12 .o he had advanced.

In October 1678, after a further application from Oundle, there was a

191


vote "of one year's pay according to the donor's original settlement", thatis to say all the additions made by the Company's benevolence were with-drawn. And on 24 October ^38 .6.8 was the sum sent to Oundle. Whenthe overseers in May 1679 indicated the hardship involved in this drasticcut, and applied for more money, their application was referred to theWardens and a committee: and on 24July 1679 a further supply "accordingto the donor's allowance" of ̂ 3 8.6.8 was sent them. The followingjanuary(1679/80) Speed petitioned the Court, not only on his own behalf but alsoon behalf of the poor almspeople, for the arrears of the Company's formerallowance, "being in great distress for want of supply of the stipends, andpay according to the late proposed reducement being not now any compe-tency for a very mean subsistence". The Court, remembering that in thepast the Company had benefited considerably from Laxton's London pro-perty, agreed that the arrears should be paid and the reduction cancelled.Speed was asked to draw up an account of the arrears claimed, as it washoped to pay some part at once and the rest afterwards as the money camein. The optimism thus expressed was apparently unjustified, and the policyof balancing their budget by reducing the benefits to be paid would betried again. On 4 May 1680, during a discussion of a scheme to raise sub-scriptions from members of the Company to meet their indebtedness—and private members apparently responded—the Master, Sir WilliamHooker, reminded the Court of the arrears due to Oundle and announceda subscription of ^100 from himself and ^30 from his son towards theirdischarge. Pepys thought Sir William Hooker "a plain, ordinary, sillyman, but rich": Speed had reason to think more kindly of him. A freshaccount of what had been paid and what was still in arrears was called for.On 29 July Mr. Percival Gilburne called attention to "the perishing condi-tion" of the almsmen: no doubt he had heard from his friend, Mr. JohnLewis: the Wardens were asked to advance some part of the money due inthe hope of being repaid when funds allowed. The Wardens' Accounts of1679-80 are in confusion and left unbalanced: Mr. Ralph Izard has signedtwo items in the Oundle account, which may be taken as paid. They are

on 20 May 1680 (^130 to Speed and £15 to "Mr. Bershall Usher")

192


and ;£i2 ("to the Almespeople there by me paid to Mr. Gilburne"). Theaccounts of 1680-81 show nothing at all paid to Oundle.

In January 1679/80 Speed seems to have waited on the Company withhis statement of arrears. In July he seems to have attempted to appeal toindividual members of Court before they met on 28 July 1681. A letter hewrote to Sir John Moore on this occasion has survived.

"Ye Wpful Sr John Moore in Mincing Lane humbly & truly" is theaddress.

Sir, I am bold on mine owne and your poore pensioners behalfe at Oundle toentreat your Worships presence at a Court at Grocers Hall when called about ourconcernes: and there to favour us with your vote as your conscience and charityshall direct. Their Worships severall times considering their former promises andthat a Master and Usher could not subsist upon 25" per arm. not only made an orderfor the continuance of their late additional! salaryes but were pleased to send mehome January 1679 with encouragement to goe on as formerly; and with promise Ishould be payd as formerly: and it now being i yeare and halfe since I have had any-thing my arreares being ^182.10. last Midsummer. The want of my salary and theloss I sustained by the small pox in our towne has brought a necessity upon me hum-bly to desire your good word towards the pursuance of the order of the Court forthe payment of my arreares according to what your Worshippfull Company prom-ised' and have payd me for severall yeares. To this end fearing to leave my Schooleat this time I have sent up my wife to wait on your Court with my Petition hopingyour and their favour in this affaire so wishing you all prosperity and happiness Ibeg pardon for this trouble and remaine

Your Worships most faithfull and most humble servant,Wm Speed.

Oundle July 19 '81.

When the Court met, Speed's brother appeared with his petition, buton the ground that there was not present a full Court, he was "respitedtill Monday come sen'night" to appear again with his brother's account.On 8 August 1681, therefore, the Court voted £100 "out of the moniespayable by Mr. Finch to the Company" to Speed and ̂ 24 to the almsmen.Mr. Finch had not paid by 30 October, for in response to further appeals'from Oundle, the order was then repeated. Many other charities wereequally importunate at this time. The Wardens and the clerk were orderedto examine the books and draw up an exact account of ah1 arrears in orderthat the most necessitous might first be satisfied when the money should

H.O.S.—7 193


come into the Wardens' hands. By the following 23 January (1681/2) the.£124 had not yet been paid: before July, however, Wardens' Accountsshow that p£ioo was paid to Speed and his usher for part of their arrears,and £24 to Mr. Strickson for the almspeople.

Speed had some fees coming in, perhaps more when he had no usher;indeed that consideration, as well as the saving of the usher's salary, mayhave led him to go so long without an usher. But die almsmen had no suchresource. On 2 April 1683 Sir William Hooker reminded the Court of theindigent condition of the pensioners, and the Wardens were urged to paythem what was available until more money should come in. In the summerone of the Wardens, John Houblon, actually paid ̂ 50 to Speed, which wasallowed by the Court of 2 June. In reply to the clerk Mr. John Lewis, theoverseer, had written to explain that since 1666, when the regular paymentof the pensions for the seven almsmen and their nurse and of the ^5 forfuel ceased, no certain account could be given of the disposal of the sub-sequent sums paid at irregular intervals to individual overseers, some ofwhom were dead and had left no accounts. The Court, after voting ^35to be paid to the overseers for distribution at their discretion (this sum waspaid), requested that they should henceforth keep in a book a permanentrecord of their disbursements.

Wardens' Accounts, 1683-4, show no payments to Oundle at all, and,after Mr. Gilburne on 4 March 1684/5 had again raised the question of thearrears due to the School and almshouses and the matter had been left tothe Wardens, a solitary payment of ^20 for the almsmen appears in theAccounts, 1684-5. The reason for this is obvious: Speed in person presentedhis account of arrears on 2 May 1685, but it was found that a considerablesum appeared in the Wardens' Accounts of 1677-8 as paid to the school-master and the almsmen of which Speed declared he had received no part.As a result of the discovery of this discrepancy, further inquiry had beenordered to prevent either the Company or Speed being wronged. Theoutcome of the inquiry is unknown, and, before Speed next appearedbefore the Court, a drastic step had been taken, nothing having been paidto Oundle in 1685-6.

194


Seeing no way out of their embarrassments, the Grocers applied on3 August 1686 to the Commissioners of Charitable Uses, under the Act43 Elizabeth c. 4. This step was perhaps forced on the Company by a seriesof costly prosecutions by these very Commissioners. An Inquisition wastherefore held on 27 August, and the resulting Decree was made on3 September 1686. These documents are set out in full, but without names,in the 1805 edition of George Duke's book on The Law of Charitable Uses,originally published in 1676 but brought up to date by R. W. Bridgman,who had been the clerk of the Grocers' Company. According to theInquisition of 1686, the income from the estates of the Company, whethercharged with charitable uses or not, amounted to ^879.10.0 per annum:the annual charges on the estates and on the money left in trust for variouscharities were ^538 .7.8: but the arrears on divers of the charities totalled^2316.14 .o, which, in the absence of other debts or mortgages, the sur-pluses of seven years would suffice to wipe out. The schedule of rentsattached to the Inquisition shows that, since the Fire, houses rebuilt on thesites of those bequeathed by Sir William Laxton were producing an annualrent of ^167.6.8: the annual payments to Oundle were said to be ̂ 40 tothe schoolmaster, ^20 to the usher, ^36.8 .0 to the seven almsmen, £5to the nurse and 245. for repairs, a total of £102 .12 .o: there is no mentionof gowns or fuel. The Decree ordered that Grocers' Hall and all other theirreal estates whatsoever mentioned in the Inquisition should be charged withall the growing charitable uses likewise mentioned in it and with thearrears of the said charities, and that the Company should before29 November (1686) convey all these estates to twelve trustees named in theDecree and their heirs, who were to receive the income, pay it to theseveral charitable uses and apply any surplus to the payment of the arrears:when these arrears had been paid off, any surplus should then, and only then,be paid to the Company for their own use. Arrangements for the appoint-ment of new trustees were laid down, and a form of conveyance drafted.The Company had prayed that twenty years might be allowed for thearrears to be met, but the Conveyance, said to be dated 3 February 1686/7,contemplates a transference to trustees for ever. The trustees are believed

195


to have appointed as their receiver and treasurer Ravenhill, the clerk ofthe Grocers' Company: that they did so seems established by the fact thatthe clerk ever since has signed receipts for rents as "Clerk and Receiver",for up to 1686 the Wardens had received them. It is possible that the Con-veyance was cancelled soon after the Revolution, perhaps by the Proclama-tion of November 1688, or when William III became Sovereign Masterof the Company; but any reconveyance to the Company, if made, hasdisappeared. When years later the Grocers sold some property, the pur-chasers said that owing to the Decree the Company could not give a cleartitle, and paid the money into Chancery. The Grocers did not receive ituntil they had redeemed all their charities in 1929-30.

The Company certainly resumed the management of their estates andthe administration of their charities, regulating their expenditure by thefindings of the Inquisition and the directions of the Decree. The sumsspecified in Laxton's bequest were stated: the amount to which these sumshad been augmented by the Company was similarly stated: and then "butof late in regard their whole revenue, which yearly amounted to sufficientto discharge their said whole yearly charities, was consumed by the latedreadful fire, they were willing for the future to pay to the said seven alms-men each of them 2s. per week, and also to a woman attending on them thelike allowance of 2s. per week, to the Schoolmaster £30 per annum, andto the usher j£io per annum, and that of the reparation of the schoolhouseto remain according to the will of the donor". This means that the totalannual expenditure contemplated is £82.16 .o: but the 245. for repairs wasobviously ridiculous. The almsmen and nurse were to continue at theaugmented rate of 2s., three times what Laxton had allowed, but the school-master and usher had their salaries cut. Speed was thus faced with theprospect of a permanently reduced salary: he was to receive ^40, out ofwhich he was to pay his usher ;£io, whereas he had, so he said, regularlypaid him ^20. If the payment of his arrears was to be spread out over some-thing like twenty years, he might well despair of ever receiving them.

Early in May 1687 he again appeared in person to press for payment.He was answered that agreement must first be reached on the true state of

196


his account: there were two points at issue; firstly, the Company's booksshowed that he had received more than he admitted, and secondly, hisclaim that his salary on appointment was fixed at ^60 a year did not agreewith the recollections of members of the Court. The Decree of 1686 hadreduced the combined salary of schoolmaster and usher to ^40, but theoriginal combined salary had been ^60: Speed must have meant that hereceived the ^60 and paid the usher ^20: and if there was no usher to payhe claimed to have the £60. In the course of the last fourteen years Speedhad been without the services of an usher for nearly two—ninety-three weeks to be exact. Later in May he appeared again, and the outstand-ing questions were referred to a strong committee, which reported on18 July that they had agreed with Speed that the arrears due to him andhis usher amounted to ^285 (including the ^40, according to the scalefixed by the Decree, payable at Midsummer 1687): but the Companythought it reasonable, as they could not pay the whole sum at the time, toallow him ^185 to be paid by seven annual payments of ^25, in additionto the annual ^40 for him and his usher. At the same time repairs to "theschoolhouse and barn", to be carried out by the overseers at a cost notexceeding ^£22, were authorised; the succeeding Wardens were ordered toreimburse them. Thus in 1686-7, the almsmen and their nurse were paidin full to Midsummer 1687; the repair money (245.) paid; the year's ^40for Speed and his usher, and a quarter in advance to Michaelmas 1687, ̂ 10:and a half-year of his arrears at the rate of £25 a year—£12.10.0. But inNovember 1687, when Mr. John Strickson applied for the half-year'smoney for the almsmen and the quarter's salary for Speed and his usher,the money was not forthcoming: his offer to advance the ^20.16.0 forthe almshouse and the £10 for the School was accepted with a promise ofrepayment. In 1687-8, therefore, the almsmen and nurse were paid in full,and Speed and his usher received the remaining three-quarters of theiryear's salary and Speed another ^12.10.0 towards his arrears. But in1688-9, while the almsmen were paid in full, Speed received but ^10.

It will be noticed that in all this there is no reference to the trusteesunder the Conveyance: Speed and Strickson dealt directly with the Court,

197


which appears completely in charge of its own affairs. The only part ofthe Decree that seems in force is the reduction of salaries which it author-ised.

The heart had gone out of William Speed: he believed that he had lostheavily in the reckoning of arrears due to him, and even the agreementreached was proving impossible to carry out: he can hardly have expectedto secure the rest of his money. The School was declining, to judge by theentries, sixteen in 1686, eight in 1687, six in 1688 and only three (includinghis only son) in the first four months of 1689. The last entry is dated22 April, and the record of the boys going to Cambridge is left unfinished forthe last two names. He was not in orders, and could not hope to retrievehis fortunes by accepting a living, and ease his declining years—he was thenfifty—by retiring to a parsonage. Without giving notice, Speed left Oundlewith the intention of starting afresh in a private school of his own inHampstead. How his venture fared is unknown. It is worthy of note thatthe outstanding j£i6o of his arrears—though surely there had been someadditional unpaid salary—were paid, ^30 in 1692-3, thereafter ^25 ayear, ending in 1698-9 "To Mr. William Speed late schoolmaster there infull of all arrears per Order of Court . . . . ̂ 5". In view of the way he hadleft his post, he could hardly complain.

A thirteen-year-old boy entered the School on 27 March 1637: he wasThomas Woodcocke from Caldecott, Rutland. A letter from him writtenmany years later appears in the Appendix to Richard Baxter's The Certaintyof the Worlds of Spirits, and is, apparently, the first to report the DrummingWell of Oundle in print.4 He wrote :

When I was a schoolboy at Oundle, about the time of the Scots coming into England,I heard a well, in one Dobs' yard, drum like any drum beating a march. I heard it ata distance: then I went and put my head into the mouth of the well, and heard itdistinctly, and nobody in the well. It lasted several days and nights so as all the countrypeople came to hear it. And so it drummed on several changes of tune. When KingCharles the Second died, I went to the Oundle carrier at the Ram Inn in Smithfield,who told me their well had drummed and many people came to hear it. And I hearit drummed once since.

4 See Appendix for the earliest known account (29 February 1667/8) in the P.R.O.

198


The letter was published in 1691: in all probability Speed read it.Another old boy, the author of The Natural History of Northampton-

shire published in 1712, describes the well as 39 feet 3 inches deep andmentions the way the water enters through sand in a fissure on the side of astratum of stone; and he tells how, after the well was emptied and cleansedone November, the water came in very slowly and sometimes arose inbubbles. The water was as clear and wholesome when the spring wasattended with that drumming noise as at other times. "The noise is some-times so loud as to be heard in places sixty yards distant from the well. Itsbeats or strokes, as to space of time are generally well nigh equidistant oneof another. . . . The noise or sound at first is less loud, becomes louder bydegrees, and then abates again to a softer noise, as at the first." There canbe no doubt that the well did drum. A dozen years later William Stukeley,in his Itinerarium (1724), p. 33, offered an explanation and applied a neatLatin quotation: "Oundle or Avondale" (his margin says Oundale) "isremarkable for a drumming well, much talk'd of by the superstitiousvulgar, no doubt 'tis owing to the passage of the water and air uponcertain conditions thro' the subterraneous chinks: for as Virgil says in hisfine poem called ^tna

Secta est omnis humus penitusque cavata latebris, etc.and that 'tis done by intervals, or pulses as it were, is but consentaneous tomany of Nature's operations."

Other writers of the ever-popular travel-book repeat him verbatim.Dodsley, in Travels of Tom Thumb (p. 17), wrote: "The well at Oundle issaid to drum against any important event: yet nobody in the place couldgive me a rational account of their having heard it, tho' almost everyonebelieves the truth of the tradition." Defoe was another unlucky visitor whodid not hear the well drum: but it continued to do so, for it almost struckthe head-lines later in the eighteenth century: there are repeated referencesin the Northampton Mercury. But changes in water-level and the creation ofwaterworks silenced the well, and to-day it has been concreted over. Thename survives in Drumming Well Lane—that between the School Housegarden and the National School leading through to West Street.

199


It would be interesting to know if William Speed lived to read the workalready quoted, The Natural History of Northamptonshire, by John Morton,M.A., F.R.S., for on p. 462 it contains the following reference to thephenomenal memory of a boy at Oundle:

As to remarkable perfections of the mind: those of them that have not beenacquired, but were wholly or chiefly given by Nature may very properly come intoa Natural History. Such I reckon was the memory of one . . . Clerk a schoolboy inMr. Speed's School at Oundle, who could upon once reading a side in Ovid'sMetamorphosis, or the like Latin Author, in any part of it that he had never read orheard before, immediately repeat it without book, word for word.

John Morton entered the School hi 1686 and went to Emmanuel Col-lege in 1688: he is presumably writing of his own knowledge and not byhearsay—the point is immaterial: "... Clerk" is Samuel Clarke, the eldestson of a London bookseller, who came in 1680 at the age of nine and maywell have overlapped the time John Morton himself was a pupil in Mr.Speed's School at Oundle. The fact that the boy was a Londoner ratherspoils Morton's point, but the reference to work done in the School is allthe more welcome. There is a copy of Morton's book in the School Library.

Speed had deserted the ship just as the tide rose to lift her off the rocks.Had he waited a little longer he would have seen the remarkable changethat came over the fortunes of the Grocers after the Revolution. The for-feiture of their Charters, as the result of the Quo Warranto writ of 1684,was declared illegal: and on 7 July 1690 the Company received a newCharter, confirming their ancient rights and privileges and extending theirmembership to include all persons folio whig the trade of Sugar Bakers. In1690, quarterage was reinstituted and collected until 1759. The restorationof the financial position of the Company was gradually effected: but thefoundation of the Bank of England in 1694 contributed most to its salva-tion, for the first Governor of the Bank was a Grocer, Sir John Houblon,who had been Master in 1690. The first five meetings of the Court of theBank were held in Mercers' Hah1: on 4 October 1694, however, Grocers'Hall (which had been earning the Company ^200 a year when let to theLord Mayor) was leased to the Bank for eleven years on payment of a fine

200


of ^500 and a loan of ^£5000 to discharge the mortgage and the interest onit. The lease was renewed in 1705 for fourteen years at a peppercorn renton payment of a fine of ^5000 and the cancellation of the loan of ^5000:and it was renewed in 1719 for a further fourteen years at a rent of ^300and a fine of ^2500. The Bank continued tenants of Grocers' Hall until1734, and by that time the Company had paid its debts and had a consider-able cash balance.

The Irish estate also helped, for in 1699, when the Company was stillnearly ^£3000 in debt apart from the loan from the Bank, Mr. Finch tooka new lease for sixty-one years at a rent of ;£ioo after payment of a fine of^1400. The fine was applied towards the liquidation of debts and theCompany gradually became solvent again. Thus the faith and generosityof its members in the dark days of James II kept the Company alive andjustified their hope that the Company would become once more "anursery of charities and a seminary of good citizens".

H.O.S.—7* 2OI

Documents

William Speed: 1672 —1689 - Oundle Schooloundle-heritage.daisy.websds.net/Filename.ashx?system... · CHAPTER VIII William Speed: 1672 —1689 WILLIAM SPEED is the only headmaster