Book >Ot'^sXx7 
 
A HISTORY OF 
 THE PERSE SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE 
 
PUBLISHERS. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN &= CO., LIMITED 
 GLASGOW: MACLEHOSE, JACKSON S' CO. 
 
TOMB OF THE FOUNDER, DR. STEPHEN PERSE, IN THE CHAPEL OF 
 GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
A HISTORY OF 
 
 THE PERSE SCHOOL 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 J* M.-^' GRAY, B.A. 
 
 KING S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 WITH SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 BOWES & BOWES 
 
 1921 
 
vV 
 
 (^ 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
 
 As the author has been unable, owing to absence 
 from England, to see the book through the press, 
 this work has been kindly undertaken by the Master 
 of Jesus College and Mr. E. M. W. Tillyard, M.A., 
 to whom our thanks are due. 
 
 We also wish to express our gratitude for the 
 kind loan of pictures, from which the illustrations 
 were taken, to the following : the Headmaster 
 (Dr. W. H. D. Rouse), the Syndics of the Cambridge 
 University Press, the Master and Fellows of 
 Gonville and Caius College, the Proprietors of the 
 Illustrated London News, R. Parker Smith, Esq., 
 Mr. W. F. Turner, and Messrs. Rattee & Kett. 
 
 BOWES & BOWES. 
 August y 1 92 1 . 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I WISH to thank Dr. J. Venn, President of Gonville 
 and Caius College, for giving me access to the 
 college records and for imparting to me the valuable 
 results of some of his own researches. I am 
 indebted to the late Dr. Peile, Master of Christ's 
 College, for useful information, both of his own 
 and from the records of his college. My thanks 
 are also due to the following for allowing me to look 
 at college registers : Rev. T. A. Walker, LL.D. 
 (Peterhouse) ; Mr. W. W. Rouse Ball, M.A. 
 (Trinity) ; Mr. J. H. Sleeman, M.A. (Sidney, 
 Sussex) ; the late Dr. S. A. Donaldson (Magdalene) ; 
 Mr. D. L. Harris, M.A. (Downing). 
 
 I have made frequent use in the following pages 
 of Cooper's Memorials and Annals of Cambridge. 
 
 J. M. GRAY. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I PAGE 
 
 Stephen Perse i 
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 The Early Days of the Perse. (1618-36) - - - 22 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 The Civil War Period. (1636-52) 40 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Commonwealth and Restoration Period. (1652-87) 54 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Decline and Fall. (1687- 1787) 70 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Last Days of the Original Scheme. (1787-1841) - 87 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 From one Reform Movement to another. (1833-73) - 106 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Last Fifty Years - - - - - - -139 
 
 Index ------ 158 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Tomb of the Founder, Dr. Stephen Perse - Frontispiece 
 
 (From Venn's Biographical History of Gonville and Caius 
 College) 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Old School in Free School Lane, circa 1840 (Exterior) 24 
 (From Le Keux's Memorials of Cambridge) 
 
 Old School in Free School Lane, 1845 (Interior) - 48 
 (From The Illustrated London News) 
 
 " Perse School Christmas Annual," 1874 - - - 66 
 
 The School Hall, circa 1902 82 
 
 The Perse Players, in 'The Death of Roland,' 1921 - 118 
 
 The School War Memorial 156 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 STEPHEN PERSE 
 
 For a town of its size and importance, Cambridge 
 was signally deficient in facilities for school educa- 
 tion in the latter half of the sixteenth century. 
 The population was recorded in 1587 as approxi- 
 mately five thousand, exclusive of members of the 
 University. At the same date, Bury St. Edmunds 
 and Ely each had less than half that number of 
 inhabitants. Yet each of these places had a free 
 grammar school, which was thrown open to the 
 sons of the inhabitants. Two small schools were 
 attached to King's and Trinity Colleges, but were 
 confined exclusively to the choristers on those 
 foundations ; otherwise Cambridge possessed no 
 endowed school.^ The wants of the town were 
 
 ^ In 1443 Henry VI. established a school in connection with 
 King's College. Provision was made therein for a master and 
 sixteen choristers. In its origin it was a song school and was not 
 in any way intended to provide for local requirements in education. 
 It was by the Founder's directions confined exclusively to choristers, 
 who were often recruited from places beyond Cambridge and its 
 immediate neighbourhood. At the end of her reign Queen Mary 
 
 P.S. A 
 
2 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 inadequately met by a few private schools kept 
 by members of the University. These schools were 
 all short-lived. None of them were conducted on 
 a scale sufficient to cope with the educational 
 requirements of the town. 
 
 Realising how backward Cambridge was in this 
 respect, the Corporation, in 1576, appointed nine 
 of their number as a committee ** to devise and put 
 in wrytinge some good devise for the erecting of a 
 grammer schoole within the said towne, and how 
 ye charges of the same male be borne and raysed." 
 Later in the same year, a further committee of 
 eleven was appointed to " rate and assesse what 
 somes every person shall paie towards ye charges 
 thereof." Apparently the difficulties attendant 
 on the levying of such a rate put an end to the 
 discussion, for nothing further was heard of the 
 proposal. 
 
 As public enterprise had failed, the inhabitants 
 of Cambridge were obliged to wait until a private 
 benefactor should provide for their needs. The 
 first step towards the endowment of a school was 
 made by William Bridon, who had entered Clare 
 
 made provision for a similar school at Trinity, which was to comprise 
 a master and ten choristers. This also was primarily a song school. 
 In 1570 the teaching of grammar in Cambridge University was 
 prohibited by statute, except in the case of the choristers of these 
 colleges. 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 3 
 
 Hall in the same year as the Corporation had put 
 forward their proposal. Bridon was apparently a 
 man of considerable means. After taking his 
 degree, he married and settled in Cambridge. He 
 died in or about 1590, and by his will bequeathed 
 the sum of one hundred marks for the founding of 
 a grammar school, or for some other work for the 
 encouragement of learning. 
 
 Unfortunately Bridon's gift was destined to lie 
 useless for a quarter of a century. His bequest was 
 deemed quite insufficient for the erection and endow- 
 ment of a grammar school even when it was sup- 
 plemented by another sum of one hundred marks. 
 This second gift came from Thomas Cropley, who 
 was also a member of Clare Hall, where he entered 
 as a sizar in June, 1577. Cropley was evidently 
 an intimate friend of Bridon, for in his will Bridon 
 gives a legacy to one of Cropley's daughters. By 
 his marriage with Anne, sister of Clement Hodson, 
 alderman of Cambridge, Cropley was brought into 
 contact with many of the leading townspeople. 
 From them he came to realise what were the educa- 
 tional deficiencies of Cambridge. By his will 
 (dated November 24th, 1607), he added another 
 hundred marks to Bridon's, hoping that the work 
 so long delayed might at last be carried out. Never- 
 theless his hope was not immediately realised. 
 
4 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 The money lay idle for eight years, for two hundred 
 marks was considered no more adequate for the 
 purpose than one hundred. 
 
 Another graduate of the University, who took an 
 interest in local affairs, was Stephen Perse, fellow of 
 Caius College. He was senior to both Bridon and 
 Cropley, for he had entered Caius in 1564. From 
 the fact that he assumed the arms of the family it 
 is to be presumed that he was connected with the 
 Perses of Northwold, Norfolk. Of this family, 
 the earliest known is a John Perse, who died in 1 505, 
 leaving considerable bequests to Northwold. It 
 was his son (also John) who, in 1560, received the 
 grant of arms, which have since become associated 
 with the Perse School.^ Stephen's father was also 
 John, and was in all probability a grandson of the 
 first John. This third John was originally of 
 Great Massingham in Norfolk, but subsequently 
 removed to Swaffham Market in the same county. 
 Stephen Perse was born at Great Massingham in 
 or about 1548. According to the Caius admission 
 register Stephen's father was " mediocris fortunae," 
 that is to say probably of the rank of a superior 
 yeoman farmer. He had one other son. He was 
 
 ^ Sable, a chevron ermine, between three cockatrice's heads erased 
 argent, lingued gules : and Crest, on a torse argent and sable, a 
 pelican or vulning herself proper. Motto : Qui facit per alium facit 
 per se. 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 5 
 
 sufficiently wealthy to put his boys to school at 
 Norwich, and to send Stephen to Cambridge as a 
 pensioner. 
 
 Of the undergraduate days of Stephen Perse we 
 know nothing. He took his B.A. degree in 1569. 
 His name appears last on the Ordo for that year, 
 but as this list can in no way be said to be a true 
 order of merit, and as two years later Perse was 
 elected to a fellowship at his college, there is no 
 reason for believing that his academic attainments 
 were mediocre. ' Two examples of his classical work 
 survive. One appears in a collection of Latin 
 verses published by the University in 1603, in 
 commemoration of the accession of James I. The 
 contribution made by Perse is an ode of welcome 
 to the new king. Like most of the other pieces in 
 the collection, it is faultless both in its Latinity and 
 its versification : otherwise the verses possess no 
 remarkable merit, and are inclined to be bombastic. 
 The other set of verses penned by Perse are to be 
 found on the monument erected to his memory in 
 Caius College Chapel.^ The most that can be said 
 of these pieces is that they are typical of the period, 
 being neither below nor above the average. The 
 
 * Cp. p. 21. A set of verses, which bear a strong resemblance 
 to the other known works of Perse, appears on the mural monument 
 erected in St. Edward's Church, Cambridge, to the memory of his 
 brother-in-law, William Becke. 
 
6 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 " six mapps," mentioned in an inventory of his 
 goods which was compiled after his death, perhaps 
 indicate a taste for geography. But Perse was 
 clearly not a bookish man, for the same document 
 informs us that his library was appraised at less 
 than one half the value of his wearing apparel. 
 
 At this period most of the fellowships at Caius 
 College were allotted to the study of Theology or 
 Law, but Dr. Caius had recently added to the 
 foundation two fellowships attached to the study of 
 Medicine. On his election, Stephen Perse " sett 
 downe his profession in divinity." On May 7th, 
 1573, he was ordained both priest and deacon by 
 the Bishop of Peterborough, but does not appear to 
 have ever held any ecclesiastical preferment. 
 Shortly after his ordination, he ** was permitted and 
 furthered " by Dr. Legge, then Master of Caius, 
 *' to chaunge both his sayd profession and his 
 place to another fellowshipp, whereby he professed 
 physick." Within a very short period he again 
 returned to the study of divinity. Finally, in 1 58 1, 
 he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine and was 
 permitted by Legge " to professe physick in the 
 same place which he last desired, and by consent 
 was graunted, for a divine." ^ 
 
 ^ Heywood and Wright, Cambridge University Transactions during 
 the Puritan Controversies, i. 325, 330. 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 7 
 
 All these changes had been sanctioned by the 
 Master of the College but not by the Fellows, who 
 complained that the last transaction was ** to ther 
 mislikinge." The Fellows were at variance with 
 Legge in other matters. In 1581 they petitioned 
 the Chancellor of the University concerning their 
 grievances. The preferential treatment accorded 
 to Perse forms one of their charges against the 
 Master, but nothing further is heard of this par- 
 ticular complaint. Perse was allowed to retain his 
 fellowship, and to devote himself to the study of 
 medicine. The animosity against him died out, 
 and in time he came to be on the best of terms with 
 the other Fellows of his college. He proved him- 
 self a competent man of affairs, and from 1579 to 
 1593 acted as college bursar. In 1589 he was 
 chosen to represent the faculty of medicine on the 
 Caput — the executive council of the University. 
 
 The interests of Stephen Perse were not confined 
 to Caius College. After 1581, he came in contact 
 with people outside the University. Prior to that 
 date he had, in accordance with the usual custom, 
 taken pupils. After obtaining his degree in 
 medicine he abandoned the greater part of his 
 tutorial work and practised as a physician in the 
 town. For this new sphere he had an able rival in 
 William Butler of Clare Hall, the physician of 
 
8 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 James I. and friend of Nicholas Ferrar. Butler 
 was perhaps the most renowned English physician 
 of his age, but " he was a man of great moodes." 
 Some of his cures were effected in an alarming 
 manner, and the uncertainty of his temper must 
 have deterred many a patient from resorting to him.^ 
 Conventional methods would be more popular than 
 the extraordinary treatment which people were liable 
 to suffer at Butler's hands. Patients would, therefore, 
 prefer Perse to his more brilliant contemporary, 
 who " would suffer persons of quality to wayte 
 sometimes some houres at his dore, with coaches, 
 before he would receive them." There was, how- 
 ever, no professional jealousy between the two, for 
 Perse made a bequest to Butler ** to make him a 
 ringe in token of my especiall love to him." Perse 
 was also on good terms with another local physician, 
 Isaac Barrow. Perhaps Perse succeeded to Barrow's 
 practice, for James, " sometymes servant to Dor 
 Barroe," subsequently entered the service of the 
 former as surgeon. Perse was godfather to Barrow's 
 son, Isaac, the future Bishop of St. Asaph. 
 
 Late in life Stephen Perse married. No definite 
 date can be assigned for this marriage and the 
 christian name of the lady is not known. She was 
 
 ^ In Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, iii. 119-124, will be found 
 some account of Butler's eccentricities. 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 9 
 
 the daughter of Simon Ellvin, of Heveningham 
 Park, near Norwich, attorney-at-law. Her mother, 
 her sister Eleanor, and her brother Thomas, who 
 was about thirteen years of age when his brother-in- 
 law deceased, are all mentioned in Stephen's will. 
 As Perse makes no mention of his wife in his will, 
 it must be concluded that she died before 161 5. 
 His mother-in-law is mentioned there in terms of 
 the deepest possible affection. Stephen's memories 
 of his married days must therefore have been happy. 
 Although in his latter days he was left a widower 
 and childless, Stephen Perse was not without kins- 
 folk in the town of Cambridge. , Mrs. Ellvin 
 resided with her son Thomas in St. Edward's 
 parish. At Trinity there was another Stephen 
 Perse, who became a divine and fellow of his college. 
 Yet another kinsman was Martin Perse, the head of 
 the Northwold branch of the family, who came to 
 reside in Cambridge in the early years of the seven- 
 teenth century, and concerning whom this book will 
 have more to say. On the death of his brother, 
 John of Swaffham Market, Dr. Perse became the 
 guardian of his niece Katherine,^ who also settled in 
 Cambridge. In 1604 Katherine Perse married 
 William Becke, a barrister of the Middle Temple, 
 who had formerly been her uncle's pupil at Caius. 
 
 ^ Ely Episcopal Records, p. 254. 
 
lo HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 The Beckes resided in Luthburne Lane in the 
 refectory of the Augustinian Friars. In 1615 they 
 had a family of four sons and several daughters. 
 
 Thirty years of practice as a physician enabled 
 Stephen Perse to amass a considerable fortune — 
 ** ultra communem Academicorum sortem," as the 
 writer of the Annals of Caius College somewhat 
 enviously comments. With his savings he pur- 
 chased the old refectory and close of the Augustinian 
 Friars at Cambridge, where his brother-in-law 
 resided. He was the owner of other property in 
 Cambridge, as well as freehold and copyhold lands 
 at Impington and Cottenham in the county. 
 
 But wealth was not all that his doctoring brought 
 him. He found himself brought closely into touch 
 with the townspeople of Cambridge. In the earlier 
 days his college pupils had been friends or the sons 
 of friends from Norfolk, and persons of some 
 affluence : in his later days they were without 
 exception boys of quite humble origin. Many of 
 them were local boys. In some cases he gave them 
 instruction to prepare them for the University. 
 Bartholomew Church, for instance, was grounded 
 by him in the principles of rhetoric and dialectics, 
 before he was admitted at Caius in 1601. The 
 relations between the tutor and his pupils were often 
 very homely. Three of the very last of his pupils 
 
STEPHEN PERSE ii 
 
 obtained special mention in his will. The kindli- 
 ness, moreover, was not confined entirely to these 
 boys. Perse struck up friendships with many of 
 his neighbours in Cambridge, the great majority 
 being people of a very humble class. ** James my 
 surgeon," *' Henry Prist my barber," and Perse's 
 two menservants are all remembered in their master's 
 will. Other friends, whom Perse was careful not to 
 forget, were evidently patients or people with whom 
 his practice brought him in contact. He was 
 obviously something more than a physician to many 
 Cambridge famiHes, and after his death his kindliness 
 must have been greatly missed in many homes. He 
 did something more than distribute promiscuous 
 doles to obtain a reputation for charity. He learnt 
 to study, and by studying to understand, what were 
 the real and lasting wants of the town. Having no 
 family dependent on him, he was in a position to 
 evolve a scheme devoting a considerable portion of 
 his wealth to the fulfilment of those wants. 
 
 Perse's will is dated September 27th, 161 5 — 
 only three days before his death, but from its 
 elaborateness and the minuteness of its details it is 
 quite clear that it was not a disposition of his estate 
 hurriedly conceived upon his death-bed It was a 
 scheme over which much time and thought had been 
 expended. He had two objects in view when he 
 
12 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 formulated his plans. In the first place, like so 
 many Elizabethans, he took a great interest in the 
 social problems of the day and had the desire for 
 their solution close at heart. In the second place, 
 he watched with dismay the dissensions between 
 the Town and University, and hoped by the creation 
 of a common interest to pave the way for reconcilia- 
 tion. First of all, as a patriotic son, he made a 
 special bequest to the poor of his birthplace and the 
 neighbouring parish of Harpley. Then he pro- 
 ceeded to map out his plan for the benefit of the 
 Town and University. The central feature of the 
 whole scheme was a free grammar school, and this 
 was to be the connecting link between the two 
 corporations. Perse did not, however, confine his 
 plan solely to the erection of a school. One of his 
 chief objects was to prevent — or at any rate to 
 relieve — destitution as much as possible. Pre- 
 vention could be effected primarily by training up 
 children to habits of industry : hence a raison d'etre 
 for the school. Poverty could be further mitigated 
 by providing for the aged, who had merited peace 
 and security after a life of industry. Perse, 
 therefore, proposed to erect an almshouse adjoin- 
 ing his school for six poor widows, preference 
 being given to parishioners of St. Michael's and 
 St. Edward's. 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 13 
 
 The school, however, was to be something more 
 than a piece of machinery in a general scheme of 
 social reform. Perse hoped that its foundation 
 might ultimately put an end to the bitter rivalry 
 between Town and University, which he had 
 witnessed throughout his life. It is unnecessary to 
 go into details of the many conflicts between the 
 two. Suffice it to say that in 1 6 1 5, the very year in 
 which Perse died, the quarrel became acute, when 
 the Town petitioned the Crown for a new Charter 
 conferring an extension of their privileges and the 
 University presented a counter petition alleging that 
 the proposed extension would be an encroachment on 
 their own rights. The bequest of Stephen Perse is 
 in significant contrast to the bitter feeling displayed 
 at the time by both parties. He was anxious to 
 prepare the way for reconciliation at once, for one 
 of his very first requests is that the three University 
 esquire bedels will co-operate with his old friend, 
 Isaac Barrow, and three aldermen of the town, 
 mentioned by name, in order to carry out his scheme. 
 He devises a certain portion of his property to the 
 seven upon trust, to sell the same and expend the 
 proceeds in carrying out the trusts of his will. 
 
 Perse hoped to heal the breach by making the 
 school essentially a Town school, and yet giving it 
 a very direct connection with the University. With 
 
14 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 that object in view, he imitated the twin foundations 
 set up by William of Wykeham and Henry VI. He 
 did not need to create a college, for one was already 
 at hand. At his own college of Caius he founded 
 six scholarships and six fellowships, for election to 
 which special preference was to be given to boys 
 educated at his school. The scholars were each to 
 receive f^\ -per annum and the fellows Ifi. They 
 were all to be. housed in a special building which 
 Perse directed to be built at a cost to his estate 
 of is^o. 
 
 Perse, furthermore, described in some detail the 
 principles that were to regulate his school. The 
 first governors were to be his three executors. 
 These were Valentine Carey (then Master of Christ's 
 and Dean of St. Paul's, afterwards Bishop of 
 Exeter) ; his kinsman, Martin Perse ; and the 
 Founder's solicitor, Robert Spicer, to whom Perse 
 left a ring of the value of ;^3 " for ould remembrance 
 of friendshippe." These three were to frame rules 
 for the conduct of the school, which they were to 
 submit to the Justices of Assize for revision or 
 confirmation. The appointment of the masters and 
 of the Perse scholars and fellows of Caius was to be 
 in their hands. After the decease of the last sur- 
 vivor of these three, the management of the school 
 was to be entrusted to the master and four senior 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 15 
 
 fellows of Caius. As remuneration for their services 
 as governors the fellows were each to receive an 
 annual stipend of thirty shillings : the Master was 
 to be paid three pounds. The school itself was to 
 be erected on *' all those garden grounds parcell of 
 the Fryars,^ now in the occupacion of John Paske, 
 William Smithson, and Benjamin Prime, or either 
 of them, and also all that parcell of ground lying 
 between the said gardens and the wallnut trees in 
 
 Fryars close, and the garden grounds and 
 
 tenements now Mr. Ward's, adjoyning upon the 
 said gardens," — that is to say at the south end of 
 the street which was then known as Luthburne 
 Lane, leading from the present Benet Street to 
 Pembroke Street. The almshouses already men- 
 tioned were to be built within the circuit of the same 
 grounds. 
 
 On this site the executors were to erect ** a 
 convenient house to be used for a Grammar Free 
 Schoole, with one lodging chamber for the Master 
 and another for the Usher." These two were to be 
 graduates of Cambridge University. The Master 
 was to be of the degree of Master of Arts at least, 
 and to receive a stipend of forty pounds a year. 
 The Usher was to have a salary of twenty pounds, 
 and was expected to be a Bachelor of Arts at least. 
 
 ^ Sc. the Augustinian friars. 
 
1 6 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 The two were to teach gratuitously five score 
 scholars born in Cambridge, Barnwell, Chesterton, 
 or Trumpington, '* and no more, nor any other." 
 This last injunction should be noted : this pro- 
 vision was intended to prevent the school from 
 being swamped with non-foundationers to the 
 detriment of the foundationers — that is to say, to 
 emphasise the fact that the school was primarily 
 intended for the benefit of the Town. Any boy 
 who had attended the school for at least three years 
 was to be eligible for a Perse scholarship, and in the 
 due course of events a Perse fellowship, at Caius. 
 Furthermore, preference was to be given to boys 
 formerly educated at the school in appointment to 
 any vacancy in the posts of master or usher. 
 
 All the foregoing regulations reveal the thorough- 
 ness with which the Founder planned his scheme in 
 his desire to avoid all ambiguity in the interpretation 
 of his will. In face of this it is somewhat surprising 
 to find how very unsatisfactory is his treatment of 
 the financial side of the scheme. Perse instructed 
 his executors to sell his property in St. Sepulchre's 
 parish, known as the Horn, to provide the necessary 
 capital for erecting the school buildings. The 
 executors are also " to use their best means for 
 obtaining of the two hundred marks heretofore 
 devised by Mr. Thomas Cropley and Bridon " for 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 17 
 
 furthering the same object. Perse desired to 
 guarantee a permanent and non-fluctuating income 
 to his charity. With this object in view he pro- 
 posed to offer upon receipt of satisfactory security 
 a sum of ;^2ooo to the corporation of Norwich, and 
 a sum of ;^iooo to each of the corporations of 
 Cambridge, Bury, and Lynn. These sums were 
 to be regarded as loans, and the recipients were to 
 pay interest at the rate of five per cent, annually 
 into the funds of the trust. The corporations were 
 not to be allowed to exercise their own discretion 
 as to the investment of the money thus lent. Perse 
 gave specific instructions as to the manner in which 
 they were to obtain the required interest. The 
 capital was to be lent out upon good security in sums 
 not exceeding forty pounds to young tradesmen 
 belonging to the four different towns at five per cent, 
 interest and no more. The Founder thus calculated 
 that the five thousand pounds capital would produce 
 an income of £2^0^ which would be sufficient to 
 meet the expenses of the trust. 
 
 If the Norwich and the other three corporations 
 accepted these terms, there was a perpetual guar- 
 anteed income for Perse's trust. But would the 
 four think the terms worth accepting ? Would 
 they consent to become revenue collectors to the 
 Perse trustees ? The Founder was short-sighted 
 
1 8 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 in that he did not see that the answer to these 
 questions would most obviously be a decided 
 negative. The bargain was a very one-sided one. 
 The sole benefit the towns could hope to derive was 
 the possibility of indirect improvement of trade by the 
 encouragement of struggling beginners. Against 
 this were to be set hard facts. The corporations 
 were to receive no remuneration whatever for their 
 services as collectors, and they were asked to meet all 
 deficiencies out of their own pockets. As they were 
 precluded from exacting anything more than five 
 per cent. — at that time half the recognised legal 
 rate of interest — they were asked to run very con- 
 siderable risks. The bargain was not good enough, 
 and accordingly each corporation renounced its 
 legacy, when the terms of the will were made known. 
 Apparently Perse in his lifetime received an 
 intimation that his legacies might not be deemed 
 altogether acceptable and he prepared for such a 
 contingency. It is this alternative scheme which 
 shows the most want of care. Perse added the 
 following clause to his will : — 
 
 " Provided alwayes and my minde is, that if any incon- 
 venience be by my Executours and supervisours seen into 
 that the saide ccl" per annum shall not be sufficiently 
 assured, to continue in perpetuity by such assurances as 
 may be taken from the said Corporations (which I desire 
 may be for the good of many of the said corporations). 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 19 
 
 then I will that the said d" so bequeathed as aforesaid 
 to the said Corporations of Norwich, Cambridge, Burie, 
 and Lin, or so much thereof as shall not be secured, be by 
 my Executours .... bestowed and layde out in the pur- 
 chase of lands to raise or make up the revenue of ccl" per 
 annum ultra reprisas .... Soe alwayes as the yearly 
 revenue thereof be yearely from time to time received, 
 layd out, and paid, in such manner, to such uses, intents, 
 and purposes, and to such persons as before in this my will 
 is appointed to be paid in perpetuity." 
 
 At first sight this insertion appears quite satis- 
 factory, but in considering Perse's will it must be 
 borne in mind that the testator always clung to the 
 idea that the income of the trust would be a fixed 
 one. Even when he sanctioned the investment of 
 the capital in land, he still thought that the land 
 would bring in a steady rental of {^1^0 — no less 
 and no more. Not only did he consider that the 
 income would be permanent ; he also carefully 
 specified the precise amount which was to be paid 
 to each individual object of his benefaction. In all 
 these payments amount to ^{[243 14s. 8d., leaving a 
 surplus of £6 5s. 4d. Perse thought that this 
 surplus was always going to be six odd pounds, 
 and no more. Accordingly, without the slightest 
 possible hesitation, he directed that it should be 
 " from time to time bestowed upon such charitable 
 uses, as my Executours for their times, and after my 
 supervisours, shall think fit." So long as this 
 
20 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 residue did not exceed six or seven pounds, this 
 discretionary power was a matter of no great impor- 
 tance ; but when this surplus began to increase — 
 indeed eventually to exceed the amount ear-marked 
 for the special objects of the will — it became an 
 instrument with which unconscientious trustees 
 might stultify the intentions of the testator. As 
 will be seen on a later page, it was quite possible for 
 an unscrupulous set of trustees to regard themselves 
 as the deserving objects of Stephen Perse's charity 
 and to leave the principal objects of his will to 
 subsist on their bare statutable payments — pay- 
 ments which were rendered all the more meagre by 
 the decrease in their relative value as years went on. 
 It was not until 1837 that this loophole for legal 
 malversation was closed by order of a court of law. 
 During the intervening two centuries the school was 
 to suffer severely for the want of foresight with 
 which the Founder expressed his wishes. 
 
 It would, however, be unjust as well as ungrateful 
 to blame the Founder for being unable to foresee 
 the future. The clause empowering the trustees to 
 invest in land is a hasty insertion made in all 
 probability as Perse lay on his death-bed. For the 
 moment the intimation, that the corpor^itions might 
 renounce their legacies, looked as if it might bring 
 the great scheme to an untimely end. But Perse was 
 
STEPHEN PERSE 21 
 
 not the man to be easily frustrated. He endeavoured 
 to adapt his plans to changed circumstances, but 
 his alterations were hurriedly made and necessarily 
 suffered from the imperfections of haste. 
 
 The will bears date September 27th, 161 5. 
 Three days later Stephen Perse passed away. He 
 was buried in Caius College Chapel, where a large 
 mural monument was erected to his memory by his 
 relations. He is there represented in effigy kneeling 
 in his doctor's robes. Above him are his crest and 
 coat of arms, now familiar as the armorial bearings 
 of the school. Below are the following lines com- 
 posed by Perse himself : — 
 
 Praenomen Stephanus, cognomen Perse vocatum, 
 
 Sola Deo soli vita corona fuit. 
 Cum vivente Deo remanet mihi vita perennis, 
 
 Jamque cano soli iravrore So^o Oew. 
 Haec moriens cecini lecturo Perseus ipse : 
 
 Non uUi melius quam mihi notus eram. 
 
 Christin, surnamed, Stephen Perse I hight, 
 Sole life with God alone, my crowne my light, 
 
 With living God eternall hfe I live. 
 
 This now my song : to sole God praise I give, 
 This Epitaph by me Perse was devized, 
 To none else my thoughts better were comprised. 
 
 In the town of Cambridge was destined to rise a 
 greater monument still- — a monument which 
 fittingly commemorates a life which, though quiet 
 and uneventful, was well and nobly spent. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE. (1618-36) 
 
 Two of Perse's executors, Carey and Spicer, very 
 soon relieved themselves of their duties. By an 
 indenture dated November 17, 161 5, they confided 
 the sole execution of the will to the third executor, 
 Martin Perse. Such an arrangement was not 
 unnatural. Although residence was expected of 
 him as Master of Christ's, Carey was frequently 
 absent from Cambridge. As Bishop of Exeter and 
 Dean of St. Paul's he had a good many other irons 
 in the fire. Spicer was advanced in years. He 
 acted as Registrary to the Perse trust to the day of 
 his death, but the prospect of setting the Founder's 
 scheme in good order could not have been inviting 
 to a man of his age. Accordingly the sole respon- 
 sibility devolved upon Martin Perse, who, from his 
 intimate association with Stephen during his latter 
 days, was eminently fitted to carry out the trust 
 according to the spirit as well as the letter of the 
 will. 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 23 
 
 The Founder's fear that the corporations would 
 not accept the proffered loans proved by no means 
 unfounded. All four renounced their legacies, and 
 the executor had to look about for land in which to 
 invest the trust capital. In 1617 he purchased the 
 manor of Frating and other adjoining properties in 
 Essex. Next year he conveyed this purchase to the 
 then master and four senior fellows of Caius upon 
 the trusts of the will. Apparently not all the avail- 
 able capital was invested in this estate, and the rental 
 fell short of the required two hundred and fifty 
 pounds by {jii is. od. For several years the 
 residue remained uninvested and the deficiency in 
 income was made up by an annual payment from 
 Martin Perse. In 1627 the transaction was placed 
 upon a permanent and more satisfactory basis. In 
 consideration of the grant to him of liberty to cut 
 the woods and underwoods of Frating, Perse con- 
 veyed to Caius seventy-seven acres of arable 
 land at Bassingbourne in Cambridgeshire. 
 
 By the beginning of 161 7, Martin Perse found 
 himself in a position to take steps for the erection of 
 the grammar school and almshouses. All outstand- 
 ing leases had been bought in, and the property 
 rounded off by the purchase of the adjoining land. 
 The Horn was sold, but it is not clear whether the 
 two hundred marks bequeathed by Bridon and 
 
24 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Cropley were obtained. A sufficient sum of money 
 was, however, forthcoming for building purposes. 
 The foundations were laid in February, 1617.^ 
 By Michaelmas, 161 8, the building was ready for 
 the reception of masters and boys. It lay at the 
 south end of what was then known as Luthburne 
 Lane, but subsequently changed its title to Free 
 School Lane. To the south of it and facing the 
 King's Ditch lay the " six severall low tenements " 
 built for the almswomen. At the north end of the 
 Friars' Close and just opposite St. Benet's Church 
 there still stood the old refectory of the Augustinian 
 Friars. The Founder had bequeathed this house to 
 his niece, Katherine Becke, whose husband had died 
 in 1 6 14. Shortly after Stephen's death she married 
 Martin Perse, and the two resided in the house until 
 1632, watching the little seedling planted by their 
 kinsman pass safely through the critical stages of 
 these early days. Long after the house had passed 
 into other hands its former connection with the 
 family of the Founder's sister was perpetuated by 
 the familiar Perse coat of arms carved ** over ye 
 chimney-piece on ye wainscot " of the dining room 
 and the arms of the Becke family in the " matted 
 room." 2 
 
 * Bowtell MS. vii. p. 2722. 
 
 * Warren's Book (ed. A. W. W. Dale), pp. 123, 140. 
 
OLD SCHOOL IN FREE SCHOOL LANE (eXTERIOR), CIRCA 184O 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 25 
 
 As the school buildings did not entirely cover the 
 remainder of the site, there was an open space left 
 on the north side. This was made into a garden 
 which, in 162 1, was let on a fifty years' lease at an 
 annual rent of forty shillings, the said rent to be 
 expended on all necessary repairs to the school. 
 The school itself stood between this garden and 
 the almshouses. It consisted of three sides of a 
 quadrangle facing the lane. In the centre was the 
 schoolroom. Flanking it on either side were the 
 houses of the Master and Usher. The entrance 
 from the lane to this quadrangle was through a gate- 
 way surmounted by the arms of Stephen Perse. 
 Within the gateway was a small court some twenty 
 yards square. Entrance to the schoolroom was 
 obtained by two narrow passages passing through 
 the houses of the respective masters. The room 
 itself was sixty-four feet in length, twenty feet in 
 width, and in height up to the cornices some sixteen 
 feet. The whole was surmounted by a fine open 
 roof. The room was lighted by mullioned windows 
 filled with panes of thick diamond-shaped glass. 
 Except for the roof, there was no attempt at 
 decoration. 
 
 The early Masters inhabited the house on the 
 north side of the school, but at some period during 
 the eighteenth century they changed their residence 
 
26 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 for that of the Usher. From an inventory of the 
 fittings of the Master's house made in 1687 we can 
 obtain some idea of what the interior was like. It 
 had an upper floor as well as garrets just under the 
 roof. Entrance was obtained by a door leading 
 from the forecourt straight into the parlour. 
 Directly opposite to this door was another leading 
 out into the garden behind. Above this parlomr 
 was the study. The kitchen, *' butteries," and 
 pantry were all crowded on the ground floor. Out- 
 side was a considerable garden flanking the school 
 on the north and west sides. In it the Master had 
 a summer house and — more important still from 
 the domestic point of view — a well and pump. 
 
 The Usher's house was probably more or less a 
 replica of that of the Master. Apparently it was 
 not so large, for in 1664 the Usher paid tax for only 
 two chimneys as against the Master's four. The 
 Usher was not so fortunate as to possess a garden, 
 unless he shared that of the Master. 
 
 Such then were the buildings which were to be 
 the home of the Perse for nearly two centuries. At 
 Michaelmas, 161 8, the Master and Usher were 
 appointed and the first boys admitted. It was not 
 until 1624 that the Perse Account Books begin to 
 record the names of the two Masters. Thomas 
 Lovering is the first Master mentioned in these 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 27 
 
 books, but from various college admission registers 
 we learn that he was appointed four or five years 
 before 1624. He was obviously the man for the 
 executors of Stephen Perse to appoint. About 
 1 6 14, Thomas Ellvin, the Founder's young brother- 
 in-law, went to a school kept by the future 
 Master of the Perse in St. Edward's Church. 
 Stephen Perse must, therefore, have known and 
 appreciated Lovering's undoubted teaching ability. 
 Graduating from Pembroke Hall in 161 5, Lovering 
 was not long afterwards appointed headmaster of the 
 King's College School, where he continued until his 
 appointment to the Perse. Some of his verses — 
 both English and Latin — are still extant,^ and 
 exhibit a literary facility of a high level. Both as a 
 teacher and pioneer he was well fitted to do the 
 spade work required in a new school. No appoint- 
 ment could have been more gratifying to Stephen 
 Perse had he been alive. 
 
 No permanent rules for the conduct of the school 
 were made until 1622. Then both Carey and 
 Spicer joined with Martin Perse to frame ordinances, 
 which in compliance with Founder's directions were 
 
 1 These are to be found in the following works : Ralph Winterton's 
 Aphorismes of Hippocrates (1633), William Hawkins' Corolla Varia 
 (1634), Lacrymae Cantabrigienses (1619), Cant. Dolor et Solamen 
 (1625), and Epithalamium . . . Principum Caroli Regis et H. Mariae 
 (1625). 
 
28 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 duly submitted to the two Justices of Assize for 
 confirmation. From these rules much can be 
 gleaned about the life of the early members of the 
 Perse School. As the Founder had requested, free 
 scholars' places were limited to one hundred boys 
 from Cambridge, Barnwell, Chesterton, and Trum- 
 pington. The executors did not, however, in 
 further conformity with the instructions laid down 
 in the will restrict the advantages of the school to 
 free scholars only. Nevertheless, whilst throwing 
 the Perse open to non-free scholars, they carefully 
 took steps to prevent the headmaster from neglecting 
 the free scholars for those who paid. They strictly 
 forbad him to take in other than foundationers 
 *' except the Master and Usher doe take to them 
 such further sufficient help as the Executors think 
 fit." 
 
 The manner of admitting a free scholar seems 
 remarkably simple to those who live in an age of 
 competitive examinations. The candidate's parents 
 appHed to the churchwarden of his native parish for 
 a written statement that the boy was born or baptised 
 in Cambridge or one of the three privileged villages.^ 
 The father or mother brought this certificate to the 
 executors (and after their deaths to the Master and 
 
 ^ Some sixty or seventy of these birth and baptismal certificates 
 can still be seen in the Caius College Treasury. 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 29 
 
 four senior fellows of Caius). If there was only one 
 candidate in the field, the governors of the school 
 would admit the boy at once on receipt of such a 
 certificate. In the event of two or more applicants 
 for a single vacancy, it was directed that ** a poor 
 man's child shall be preferred to it before a rich, so 
 that he makes suit for it in time." The parent of 
 the successful candidate received from the governors 
 a written order of admission, which he presented to 
 the headmaster. Apparently the headmaster used 
 sometimes to anticipate this order and receive the 
 boy a week or a fortnight before the admission was 
 formally granted.^ Upon entrance all new boys 
 were required to pay twelvepence to the Usher *' in 
 lieu of his pains for writing their names into the 
 book and tables." 
 
 These formalities once finished, the boy settled 
 down to the routine of school life. He was an early 
 riser, for he was expected to be in his place at the 
 school by six o'clock in the morning. At half-past 
 six the scholars assembled for prayers, after which 
 
 ^ Such appears to have been the case under a later Master, as can 
 be gathered from the following extracts from Alderman Samuel 
 Newton's diary for the year 1666-7 • " Feb: 12th. On Tewsday was 
 the first time John Newton my sonne went to the Grammar Free 
 Schoole in Cambridge — Feb: 26: Joh. Newton was entred by Dr 
 Bradyes order into the Free Schoole. On Tewsday Do' Robt 
 Brady Ma'' of Caijus Coll: gaue mee his order under his hand to 
 Mr Griffith ma' of the said schoole for his receiving the said John 
 Newton in the same schoole." 
 
30 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 ordinary lessons continued until eleven. The after- 
 noon's work began at one and lasted until five, when 
 the boys again came together for prayers before 
 dispersing to their homes. 
 
 The curriculum provided for teaching ** as well 
 in good manners as in all other instruction and 
 learning fit to be learned in a Grammar School." 
 This general instruction would give the Master 
 scope to employ what methods of teaching he liked. 
 Latin would be the chief scholastic exercise, the 
 thorough teaching of the Roman tongue being, as 
 the name implies, the very purpose for which 
 grammar schools were designed. On his arrival at 
 the Perse, a boy would, therefore, be expected to be 
 equipped with some knowledge of the rudiments 
 acquired either at home or at a petty school. For 
 instance, John Newton, who was admitted to the 
 school in 1667, shortly before his eighth birthday, 
 was able soon after his admission to write in his 
 father's diary in a sprawling hand with the guidance 
 of lines ruled in pencil. At the Perse almost the 
 whole of the schoolboy's time would be devoted to 
 the study of Latin. In his first year he would be 
 fully occupied in learning the elements of Latin 
 accidence, and would probably be expected to 
 commit to memory lists of common words. In his 
 second year, after fully mastering grammar, he 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 31 
 
 would turn to an elementary phrase-book such as 
 Sententiae Pueriles^ thereby becoming familiar with 
 the structure and idioms of the language. In his 
 third year conversational methods of teaching would 
 be introduced, and one of the many manuals bearing 
 the title of Conjahulationes Pueriles would be placed 
 in his hands. The boys in the higher forms would 
 read Ovid, ** Tully," and Virgil, and in the highest 
 form of all would gain an insight into Latin drama. 
 Seneca would be the most popular tragedian, and the 
 plays of Terence and Plautus would also be read and 
 perhaps acted. Greek would probably not be learnt 
 until a boy had reached one of the higher forms. 
 Boys at the top of the school might possibly begin to 
 learn Hebrew. A boy who remained at the Perse for 
 some five or six years would have a good colloquial 
 knowledge of Latin. Towards the end of his 
 school career the constant speaking of the language 
 would be indispensable and the writing of Latin 
 letters would be insisted upon. As the history of the 
 Perse will show, the small Latin and less Greek 
 taught in the ordinary seventeenth century grammar 
 school awakened the latent powers of more than one 
 schoolboy of humble origin and served a useful 
 purpose in mental discipline. 
 
 Little or no provision was made for other subjects 
 which are now regarded as indispensable in secondary 
 
32 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 education. We hear nothing of the teaching of 
 mathematics. Dead languages had priority over all 
 other branches of learning. John Newton had to 
 wait till his school days were over before he could 
 learn '* the French language " and the gentle art of 
 playing on the ** Base Viall." 
 
 As a rule boys left at an earlier age than is usual 
 nowadays. Those who did not intend to proceed 
 to the University were generally apprenticed to 
 some local tradesmen between the ages of twelve 
 and fifteen. Other boys went up to college when 
 they were between fourteen and seventeen years old. 
 During the eighteen years of his headmastership, 
 Lovering sent a large number of boys to the Uni- 
 versity — probably a far larger number than came 
 at that time from any other school of the same 
 size. About one hundred of his former pupils can 
 be traced as having entered different colleges at 
 Cambridge, and of these fifteen became fellows of 
 colleges. A certain number of these were attracted 
 to Caius College by the prospect of obtaining a Perse 
 scholarship and fellowship, but a large number 
 entered at other colleges as pensioners, or, in the 
 case of poorer boys, as sizars, who sometimes paid 
 their college bills " in wares " in default of money.* 
 
 ^ An example of a former Perse boy paying his bill partly " in 
 wares " is given in Peile's Biographical Register of Christ's College, 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 33 
 
 A Perse boy, who had graduated at the University, 
 had a special preference in selection for any vacancy 
 in the post of Master or Usher. If we take into 
 consideration the salaries usually paid to members 
 of the teaching profession in the seventeenth century, 
 both these posts were well paid. The Master 
 received the forty pounds' stipend directed to be 
 paid to him by the Founder. In further conformity 
 with the will of Stephen Perse he was required to be 
 of the standing of Master of Arts at least. The 
 executors further ordained that he was not to hold 
 any fellowship or ecclesiastical preferment in con- 
 junction with his mastership under penalty of 
 forfeiture of his post at the school. The ordinances 
 did not require the Master to be in his place at the 
 school before seven o'clock in the morning. They 
 also allowed him to be absent during school time 
 for not more than one hour during the day. 
 
 The Usher was not permitted so much liberty as 
 the Master. He had to be in attendance during 
 the whole of school hours. His stipend was twenty 
 pounds per annum, and he was required to be a 
 Bachelor of Arts at least. Like the Master, he was 
 not allowed to hold preferment outside the school. 
 
 vol. i. p. 383. The first payment received from the father of Jeremy 
 Goose, the boy in question, is " taken at his shop from his admission 
 26 April 1627 to 16 August 1628 — 2" 8s 4d." The final bill is partly 
 paid " in wares." 
 
 p.s. c 
 
34 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 The Usher was also expected to undertake the duties 
 of registrar. He was required to keep an admission 
 book recording the names of all free scholars as they 
 entered the school with the date and year of their 
 election. As has been noticed already, he received 
 twelvepence from each new scholar by way of 
 remuneration. It was further directed that the 
 Usher should ** from time to time bring the said 
 book to the Executours during their lives, and after 
 to the Supervisours, that the schollers so elected 
 may also be written in the book remaining with 
 the Executours or Supervisours, that they may 
 both agree." This duplication was not enough 
 for the executors. Their sixth ordinance decreed 
 that there shall be a small handsome frame of board, 
 with a paper pasted thereon, *' wherein all the free 
 schollers names shall be from time to time written 
 by the usher of the school, and as any of the schollers 
 goes away, his name shall be crossed out, and the 
 schollers name put in that is new chosen, and 
 the time of his election. And once every year the 
 table shall be renewed by taking off the old paper 
 and putting on a new with all the free schollers 
 names, written thereupon that then are remaining 
 in their places, which Table shall continually hang 
 up in the school, to that end that every one that 
 cometh into the school may see whether the full 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 35 
 
 number of free schollers be there from time to time 
 taught according to Dr. Perse's Will." 
 
 Had all these records been preserved the historian 
 of the Perse would have had a plenteous store from 
 which to gather materials for his work. Un- 
 fortunately, the ushers little knew how precious 
 were the documents entrusted to their care. Not a 
 single complete register survives. Two loose pages 
 from one book ^ are all that remain of what might 
 have been an invaluable store of historical matter. 
 
 There is no record in the Perse Accounts of any 
 payment being made to any assistant master except 
 the Usher. At one period, however, Lovering had 
 a ** further sufficient help," as enjoined by the 
 school ordinances, to assist in the teaching of non- 
 foundationers. Presumably the Master paid this 
 assistant out of his own pocket. Th6 assistant in 
 question was a Mr. Burgis, who, about 1630, was 
 appointed Master of Saffron Walden Grammar 
 School. He was destined to regret his promotion, 
 for divers inhabitants of Walden '* brought him to 
 such infinite suits and charges, that, being now in 
 holy orders, he is likely to be turned out into the 
 wide world a-begging." ^ 
 
 ^ Now to be seen in the Caius College Treasury. 
 
 * Calendar of State Papers (Domestic), ccxlvi. (letter dated Feb. 8. 
 1636-7) and ccxlvii. (letter dated Feb. 1637). Mr. Burgis is appar- 
 ently to be identified with. Peter Burgess, of St. John's College, 
 
36 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Burgis went to Saffron Walden at the general 
 request of the townspeople — a fact which testifies to 
 the reputation enjoyed by Perse masters at this time. 
 The fame of the school reached further than neigh- 
 bouring counties. We find among Lovering's 
 pupils boys from such distant places as Northumber- 
 land and County Cork. Parents of exalted rank 
 also entrusted their sons to Lovering's care. Talbot 
 Pepys of Impington, Recorder of Cambridge, sent 
 two of his sons to the school. ^ Sir William Beecher, 
 Clerk to the Privy Council of James L, withdrew his 
 son from Eton to place him under Lovering,^ and 
 Lord Chaworth of Ardagh sent his second son to 
 the school. As the school ordinances directed, the 
 free scholars were most frequently drawn from the 
 humbler walks in life. With all its deficiencies 
 the seventeenth century grammar school was demo- 
 cratic — a quality regrettably absent in many of its 
 modern successors. 
 
 Lovering was fortunate in having the ready co- 
 
 Cambridge (M.A. 1630), who was ordained deacon (Peterborough) 
 September 20, 1629, and licensed to practise medicine in 1634. 
 
 1 Talbot was great-uncle of Samuel Pepys, the diarist. Roger 
 and John Pepys, the two sons here referred to, are frequently 
 mentioned in their cousin's diary. Roger Pepys was Recorder 
 and Member of Parliament for Cambridge 1661-79. John Pepys 
 was Fellow of Trinity Hall in 1641. 
 
 2 The son, William Beecher, was Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge, 
 1631-47- 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 37 
 
 operation of those whom the founder had requested 
 to carry out his will. Alderman Robert Lukin, one 
 of the seven devisees for the sale of the Founder's 
 property, sent his son James to the school. Still 
 closer was the connection between the school and 
 the near relations of the Founder, more especially 
 Martin Perse. Two step-sons of Martin Perse, 
 Perse Becke and William Becke, were among the 
 first boys to be admitted to the school. Both of 
 them proceeded to Caius, where they became Fellows 
 on their great-uncle's foundation. At a later date 
 Martin Perse sent his own sons, Valentine and 
 Martin, to the school. They subsequently became 
 scholars on the Perse foundation at Caius. ^ 
 
 Martin Perse, the elder, did not allow his interest 
 in the school to flag after he had finished the task of 
 establishing it and setting the machinery in motion. 
 Contemporary records show that he worked hard to 
 promote better relations between the Town and 
 University. He fully realised the valuable part the 
 school could play in bringing this about. As a 
 prominent citizen of Cambridge and as one who 
 had twice filled the office of mayor and had been 
 
 1 Martin Perse eventually became a Perse Fellow. He died in 
 1646 and by his will bequeathed a legacy to the Perse almswomen. 
 The last kinsman of the Founder to be connected with the school 
 was Thomas, son of Thomas Elwin, brother-in-law of Stephen Perse, 
 who was admitted as free scholar in 1641. 
 
38 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 sheriff of the county, he was in a position to interest 
 influential people in the school. It is evident that 
 Martin Perse performed his duties of trustee con- 
 scientiously. During part of each year he resided 
 at Prating to manage the trust estates. The 
 remainder of the year was spent at his house in 
 Cambridge, and his close interest in the school is 
 revealed in the care with which he nominated the 
 free scholars, and selected boys of real ability to fill 
 the vacancies on the Perse foundation at Caius. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor owed his nomination to a free 
 scholar's place to Martin Perse. The future Bishop 
 of Down and Connor was the son of a Cambridge 
 barber, and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 
 August 15, 1613. He appears to have been one of 
 the original free scholars, — in fact, he may have 
 come with Lovering to the Perse from King's 
 College School. He was, we are told, " ripe for 
 the University afore custom would allow of his 
 admittance." In 1626, when only thirteen years 
 old, he proceeded to Caius, where he was on the 
 nomination of Martin Perse elected a Perse Scholar. 
 At the age of twenty he became a Fellow on the same 
 foundation. As his biographer says, " he was a man 
 before he was of age and knew little more of the state 
 of childhood than its innocency and pleasantness." 
 
 Taylor's connection with his old school did not 
 
EARLY DAYS OF THE PERSE 39 
 
 end when he entered the University. After his 
 election to a fellowship, he took pupils in accordance 
 with the usual custom. Amongst these pupils were 
 three Perse boys. One of these was a medical 
 student named Edward Langsdale. There was a 
 great sympathy between Taylor and this pupil, who 
 was only six years his junior — a sympathy which 
 ripened into life-long friendship. When, in 1635, 
 Taylor was persuaded by Archbishop Laud to go 
 to Oxford, Langsdale went with him. Four years 
 later the tie between the two was made closer still 
 by Taylor's marriage to Phoebe Langsdale, his 
 pupil's sister. 
 
 In the case of another of his pupils, Taylor was 
 able to repay a debt to a family to whom he owed 
 much, for the boy in question was the younger 
 Martin Perse. In the care which he bestowed on 
 these three boys — and more especially the last 
 mentioned — we can most certainly trace Taylor's 
 gratitude for the early training which had laid in 
 him " the good humour of a gentleman, the 
 eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, and the 
 acuteness of a schoolman, the profoundness of a 
 philosopher, the wisdom of a councillor, the 
 sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and 
 the piety of a saint." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD. (1636-52) 
 
 The school remained under the care of Lovering 
 and Martin Perse for the first eighteen years of its 
 existence. Nothing better testifies to their con- 
 scientious attention to duty than the fact that in the 
 troublous times, which were to follow, the Perse 
 weathered storms in which shipwreck would have 
 been the fate of a school less securely established. 
 The connection between the school and both 
 Master and executor came to an end before the 
 Civil War. Death carried off Martin Perse in the 
 April of 1636, whilst he was serving the office of 
 Mayor.^ At midsummer in the same year Lovering left 
 Cambridge to become Master of Norwich Grammar 
 School. At Norwich Lovering fully maintained 
 the reputation which he had won at the Perse. He 
 
 ^ The Perse family continued to reside at Westwick ir Cambridge- 
 shire, where Martin Perse was lord of the manor. Valentine Perse sold 
 this property some time after 1652. The last known member of 
 the family was William Perse (formerly of Christ's), who died 
 rector of West Heslerton, Yorks, about 1723. 
 
 40 
 
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 41 
 
 earned golden opinions from his pupils. Under 
 his successor they looked back with regret on the 
 days when they were " wont to be made by Mr. 
 Loveringe Minerva's darlings," for their new 
 master, Mr. Mazey — a former Persean be it con- 
 fessed — suffered from the dread diseases known as 
 ** desidia, chiragra, and podagra," and had reduced 
 his pupils to the intellectual miseries of ** Vulcan's 
 servile bondslaves." * 
 
 On the death of the last survivor of the three 
 executors, the right of appointing the Master and 
 Usher was to devolve, in accordance with the terms 
 of the Founder's will, upon the Master and four 
 senior Fellows of Caius College. Both Cary (d. 1622) 
 and Spicer (d. 1629) had predeceased Martin Perse. 
 Caius College was, therefore, called upon to exercise 
 this right within three months of succession to the 
 trusteeship. It can hardly be said that their first 
 choice augured well for their conduct in the future. 
 Richard Watson (Master, 1636-41) was certainly 
 a distinguished scholar, but his appointment violated 
 the school ordinance prohibiting pluralism, for he 
 was a Fellow of Caius. The appointment afforded 
 a disastrous precedent for the future, and was not 
 
 1 Lovering remained headmaster of Norwich until his death in 
 1667. Amongst his pupils at Norwich was the future Archbishop 
 Tenison. 
 
42 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 justified in this particular instance by subsequent 
 success. " A good scholar, but vain and conceited," 
 was Antony a Wood's comment on Watson at a 
 later date. To judge from Watson's own writings. 
 Wood's criticism was sound. In his younger days 
 he was certainly too self-centred to devote much 
 energy to the management of the Perse. His 
 attention was distracted by college and university 
 matters. Besides holding a fellowship at Caius he 
 undertook the duties of tutor and dean. In 1639 
 he combined with these the office of college lecturer 
 in rhetoric. He was also much in request as a 
 preacher of a highly polemical order. In justice to 
 Watson, it should be recorded that he did take a 
 personal interest in some of his pupils at the Perse, 
 and acted as tutor to four of them when they entered 
 Caius. Against this must, however, be set several 
 very significant facts. At the time of his resignation 
 the steady stream of boys proceeding from the Perse 
 to the University had become reduced to a mere 
 trickle ; boys were no longer attracted to the school 
 from places beyond the immediate neighbourhood ; 
 and last, but not least, no less than one-third of the 
 free scholars' places were vacant when Watson left.^ 
 
 ^ Watson was ejected from his fellowship at Caius in 1644 for 
 preaching a sermon at Great St. Mary's Church " touching schism " 
 (printed in 1642). He subsequently fled to the Continent. At the 
 Restoration he was restored to his fellowship and became chaplain 
 
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 43 
 
 Learning wisdom from the result of their previous 
 transgression of the school ordinances, the Trustees 
 conformed to the ordinances in appointing Watson's 
 successor. At the same time they entered 
 thoroughly into the spirit of the Founder's will by 
 appointing a former Persean. Thomas Crabbe 
 (Master, 164.1-^1) was the son of a Cambridge 
 alderman, and had been a pupil of Lovering. He 
 was the first and most successful of the three Masters 
 who received their early education at the school. 
 Ralph Harison, another Persean, was appointed 
 Usher at the same time, and on his resignation three 
 years later another old boy was appointed in the 
 person of Robert Crayford. Thus a laudable 
 attempt was made to foster a healthy feeling of 
 esprit de corps, which, had it been permitted to 
 continue, might well have brought the Perse to the 
 forefront in the scholastic world. The experiment 
 immediately proved successful. Indeed but for the 
 patriotism of the masters the school might never 
 have weathered the stormy decade which was now 
 to begin. 
 
 to James, Duke of York. He died in 1685. Antony k Wood, in 
 his Athenae Oxonienses, says that he was ejected from his Mastership 
 at the Perse for his sermon " touching schism," and Cooper has 
 repeated this statement in his Annals of Cambridge. The Perse 
 Accounts, however, show that Watson had resigned from the Perse 
 before the sermon was preached. 
 
44 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 The coming of Crabbe was at once followed by 
 an increase in the number of boys. During the 
 first month of his Mastership no less than thirty- 
 three free scholars were admitted. From the sur- 
 viving sheets of a lost register we learn that between 
 April, 1 64 1, and July, 1649, there were no less than 
 one hundred and twenty-seven entries — and this in 
 spite of the fact that the country was filled with the 
 alarums and excursions of the Civil War and that 
 Cambridge suffered from recurring visitations of the 
 plague. As many as twenty-three of these boys are 
 known to have proceeded to the University, and of 
 these seven ultimately became fellows of their 
 colleges. Others, in later life, became prominent 
 members of the Corporation of Cambridge. The 
 boys were drawn from all classes. The great 
 majority were the sons of tradesmen and college 
 servants, and these figure largely amongst those who 
 obtained university honours. The professional 
 classes also sent their sons to the school. Two of 
 the boys were the sons of Dr. Love, Master of 
 Corpus, whose confidence in Crabbe is a notable 
 tribute to the latter's ability. For a time, indeed, 
 it looked as if the traditions of the Lovering regime 
 would be revived in full. This hope was, however, 
 not to be realised, but its non-fulfilment can in no 
 way be imputed to Crabbe. 
 
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 45 
 
 A few months after his appointment Crabbe 
 received an Irish boy, named John Sterne, into the 
 school. This boy had fled with his father from 
 Drogheda on the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion. ^ 
 As he received young Sterne into the school, Crabbe 
 could not but have been impressed with the gloomy 
 outlook in public affairs. The Irish Rebellion 
 was but the prelude to more widespread strife. In 
 the latter part of 1 642 differences between King and 
 Parliament came to a head, and bloodshed was 
 inevitable. Adherents of both parties began to 
 arm. Crabbe's old schoolfellow, John Pepys, 
 attempted to smuggle arms into Cambridge for the 
 use of the Royalists in the University. Only two 
 chests of arms reached their destination. The 
 remaining eight were seized owing to the vigilance 
 of the member for the borough, Oliver Cromxwell. 
 In fact, the member for Cambridge was quick to 
 secure East Anglia for Parliament. On an evening 
 in March 1643, Lovering may well have seen his 
 former Cambridge pupil, Tollemache Castell of 
 Raveningham, brought by Cromwell a prisoner of 
 war into Norwich after assisting his father in a vain 
 attempt to raise the King's standard in Norfolk. 
 
 So far as Cambridge was concerned, the contest 
 was soon decided. The town became the head- 
 
 ^ Entry in Sidney College Admission Register, October 3, 1645. 
 
46 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 quarters of the Eastern Counties Association, of 
 which Neville Butler, another of Crabbe's school- 
 fellows, was a prominent member. Though alarms 
 of threatened Royalist attacks were many, neither 
 Cambridge nor its immediate neighbourhood was 
 the scene of actual fighting. For a short time the 
 Royalist sympathies of the University caused Parlia- 
 ment some anxiety, but in 1644 the Manchester 
 Commissioners removed the most prominent 
 opponents of Parliament from office, and after that 
 year the Royalist element ceased to exist. 
 
 We know that Crabbe's sympathies were with the 
 Royal party. At the Restoration he was rewarded 
 by preferment in the Church and University. As 
 Master of the Perse, however, Crabbe eschewed the 
 political controversies of the time. The people of 
 Cambridge were heart and soul for the Parliament. 
 Amongst Crabbe's pupils were the sons of some of 
 the stalwarts of the Parliamentary party. It speaks 
 highly not only for Crabbe's political moderation but 
 also for his reputation as a schoolmaster that he had 
 the confidence of his fellow-townsmen, and that 
 during this difficult period not a single allegation 
 of " scandalousness " or '* insufficiency " was ever 
 made against him. 
 
 In spite of the Master's tact and moderation the 
 Civil War was destined to affect the fortunes of the 
 
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 47 
 
 Perse very seriously. The county of Essex suffered 
 severely from the heavy taxation imposed upon it. 
 The Prating tenants were considerable sufferers, and 
 professed themselves unable to pay their rents. 
 Owing to the distance and the unsettled state of the 
 country, the Trustees found it impossible to collect 
 all their rents, even supposing the money had been 
 forthcoming. At Christmas, 1643, the income of 
 the trust had almost vanished. Retrenchment alone 
 would save the situation. Accordingly it was agreed 
 to reduce the salaries of all officers connected with 
 the trust. The Master and Usher found their 
 stipends reduced temporarily by one-half, and had 
 to rest content with vague promises of receiving their 
 arrears in full when finances would permit of it. 
 
 Both Crabbe and his Usher, Robert Crayford, 
 stuck loyally to their posts during the next four 
 critical years. The year 1 644 perhaps saw matters 
 looking their blackest. Only four free scholars 
 were admitted. Owing to the disturbed state of 
 the country hardly a single boarder attended the 
 school, and the masters were thus deprived of one 
 possible means of recouping themselves for their 
 lost income. To add to these troubles, in the 
 autumn a storm damaged the roof and chimneys of 
 the school, and the cost of repairs absorbed a large 
 part of the remaining scanty income of the trust. 
 
48 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 In 1645, thanks to the energy of the masters, the 
 horizon began to look brighter. The entry rose to 
 eleven, to rise again to seventeen in the following 
 year. In 1647 the two masters received part of 
 their back pay. Twelve months later the remaining 
 arrears were paid off, and the Master and Usher 
 were once more allowed their full stipends. The 
 outlook brightened generally. The threatened 
 disaster had been averted, and the school saved by 
 the disinterested patriotism of two of its old boys. 
 
 With the crisis past, it might have been expected 
 that Crabbe would be allowed to govern the school 
 in peace. Unhappily for him this was not to be. 
 In 1649 the Manchester Commissioners appointed 
 William Dell to the mastership of Caius on the 
 ejection of Thomas Batchcroft, who was a Royalist. 
 As Master of Caius Dell became ex-officio chairman 
 of the Perse trustees. He had formerly been 
 chaplain to the New Model Army, and in religious 
 matters was a man of few sympathies and many 
 antipathies. His claim to celebrity does not, how- 
 ever, rest upon the eccentricity of his religious 
 views, but upon the very modern theories on educa- 
 tion propounded in his Right Reformation of Learning. 
 
 The greater part of Dell's book is devoted to an 
 attack on the monopoly of university teaching then 
 enjoyed by Cambridge and Oxford. For us, how- 
 
OLD SCHOOL IN FREE SCHOOL LANE (INTERIOR), AS USED FOR THE 
 MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1845 
 
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 49 
 
 ever, the main interest lies in the first portion of 
 this book, which advocates a complete reformation 
 of the grammar school system. Dell insists that 
 the education of youth is a matter for the State and 
 recommends the establishment of schools throughout 
 the country, not only in towns but also in villages. 
 In these schools he would have a more extended 
 range of subjects, as well as a greater discrimination 
 in their treatment. The instructors should first 
 teach their pupils " to read their native tongue, which 
 they know without understanding : and then 
 presently as they understand, bring them to read 
 the Holy Scriptures ; which though for the present 
 they understand not, yet they may through the 
 blessing of God, come to understand them after- 
 wards.*' In towns, the scholars should be taught 
 ** also the Latin and Greek tongues, and the Hebrew 
 also, which is the easiest of them all, and ought to 
 be in great account with us for the Old Testament's 
 sake." But a very careful selection is to be made of 
 the classical authors. 
 
 " My counsel is that they learn the Latin and Greek 
 tongues especially from Christians, and so without the hes, 
 fables, follies, vanities, lust, pride, revenge, etc. of the 
 heathens ; especially seeing that neither their words nor 
 their phrases are meet for Christians to take into their 
 mouths : and most necessary it is, that Christians should 
 forget the names of their gods and muses, which were but 
 
 P.S. D 
 
so HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 devils and damned creatures, and all their mythology and 
 fabulous inventions, and let them all go to Satan from 
 whence they came." 
 
 Ovid and Virgil are thus consigned to perdition, and 
 practically every vi^riter who has hitherto been 
 studied is to be excluded from the syllabus of the 
 reformed grammar school. 
 
 Dell had a good opportunity of putting his 
 reforms to a practical test at the Perse. He was, it 
 is true, frequently absent from Cambridge, and 
 cannot have very actively superintended the carrying 
 out of his theories. Nevertheless, we know that he 
 interested himself in other matters connected with 
 the school, and can hardly doubt that as a soi-disant 
 educationalist he availed himself of the opportunity 
 of experimenting along the lines of his theories. 
 Crabbe probably offered little opposition to some of 
 Dell's innovations, but he was thoroughly con- 
 servative at heart, and must have regarded with 
 misgiving the drastic changes proposed in the 
 teaching of classics. Dell's known eccentricity of 
 character and impracticability of temper made even 
 men of advanced views chary of endorsing the 
 sentiments of the Right Reformation of Learning. 
 
 Under the circumstances, it was to be expected 
 that differences would arise between Crabbe and Dell. 
 At Michaelmas, 1652, we jfind the post of Master of 
 
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 51 
 
 the Perse School vacant. Crabbe's departure was 
 obviously unexpected, for the Trustees were mo- 
 mentarily at a loss to find a successor. Further- 
 more the resignation cannot have been altogether 
 voluntary, for Crabbe held no other post in view 
 when he left.^ It is not unreasonable to suppose 
 that owing to friction with Dell he had found his 
 position insufferable, and had been induced or 
 compelled to resign. His past sacrifices for the 
 school had merited freedom from such molestation, 
 and our sympathies must be with him rather than 
 with Dell. Enlightened as many of Dell's views 
 were, it must not be forgotten that his own age 
 regarded him as an eccentric and a crank. It was 
 Crabbe's misfortune that such a man came across 
 his path. 
 
 Indirectly Crabbe's retirement was due to the 
 revolution in the world of politics. Other Perseans 
 were more directly victims of the troubles of the 
 Civil War and of the passing of the Act of Uni- 
 formity in 1662. They were to be found in both 
 camps, and included soldiers and clergy. Reference 
 has already been made to the parts played by John 
 Pepys, Tollemache Castell, and Neville Butler in 
 
 1 Crabbe held no ecclesiastical or scholastic appointment until 
 the Restoration. He was then elected a Fellow of Caius. He was 
 ordained in 1670 and became rector of Hardwick, Norfolk, where 
 he died in 1680. 
 
52 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 the early days of the Civil War. In the later stages 
 of the war we find others fighting on the Royalist 
 side. John, second Viscount Chaworth, garrisoned 
 his house at Wiverton, Notts, for the King, 
 and later shared in the defence of Newark, for 
 which acts his estates were sequestrated by Parlia- 
 ment. Edmund Thorold ^ was also one of the 
 defenders of Newark. Richard Naylor of God- 
 manchester was another active Royalist, and at the 
 Restoration was proposed as one of the knights of 
 the intended Order of the Royal Oak. Jeremy 
 Taylor was at one time a chaplain to the Royalist 
 Army, and suffered imprisonment for the part he 
 played. A similar fate befell Robert Dixon, who 
 in his own time had a considerable reputation as a 
 writer of theological treatises. ^ James Lukyn, 
 vicar of Puddletown, Dorset, was sequestrated from 
 his living, but " lived to be restored and died the 
 faithful pastor of his church." In a younger 
 generation, Thomas Wilson of Caius College allowed 
 his perfervid royalism to get him into trouble with 
 the Vice-chancellor, who in 1649 suspended him 
 from his degree " for drinking a health to the King 
 and confusion to Tom [sc. Fairfax]." 
 
 1 Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1634 ; Prebendary of 
 Lincoln, i66o. 
 
 ^ A full account of Dixon is given in the Dictionary of National 
 Biography. 
 
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD S3 
 
 The Act of Uniformity drove more than one 
 Persean out of his living. Amongst the Indepen- 
 dents can be mentioned John Yaxley,^ Andrew 
 Thomaton,^ and James Thelwall.^ Thomas ElHs 
 was deprived of the living of Lopham, Norfolk, for 
 holding Anabaptist tenets. Thomas Owen, rector 
 of Bramfield, Herts, signed the Solemn League and 
 Covenant, and for that reason was deprived in 1660 : 
 subsequently he conformed, and died vicar of Sund- 
 ridge in Kent. Richard Laurence, a man " humble 
 and inoffensive in his carriage, and generally well 
 spoken of," was ejected in 1662 from the rectory 
 of Trunch, Norfolk, and for a time was pastor to the 
 Independent congregation at Amsterdam. 
 
 1 Rector of Kibworth, Leicester. ^ Rector of Scrivelsby, Lines. 
 
 2 Vicar of Whiston, Yorks. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH AND RESTORATION PERIOD. 
 
 (1652-87) 
 
 When Dell and his colleagues got rid of Crabbe, 
 they had no nominee to put in his place. They 
 deferred making any new appointment for four 
 months. During the Michaelmas term the Usher, 
 Crayford, undertook the entire management of the 
 school, and was allowed fourteen pounds for his 
 pains. At Christmas, 1652, the Trustees appointed 
 George Griffith of Queens' to the vacant post. The 
 new Master was a native of London, and had 
 originally been a member of Emmanuel, Dell's 
 former college and a stronghold of Puritanism. In 
 the early days of 1645 ^^^ Manchester Com- 
 missioners put him into a fellowship at Queens'. 
 His previous record was therefore sufficient to enable 
 him to find favour with Dell and his co-trustees. 
 
 As can be gathered from subsequent events, 
 Robert Crayford was bitterly disappointed that the 
 
 Mastership was not conferred on him. It is not 
 
 54 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 5s 
 
 altogether clear why the Trustees did not promote 
 him in view of his past services to the school. At 
 a later date they declared that he was ineligible, 
 because in 1651 he had accepted the curacy of 
 Haslingfield, ** wherebye ye Ushers place was much 
 deserted." According to the school ordinances this 
 certainly was a bar to his promotion, but by the same 
 ordinances he was equally ineligible for the post of 
 Usher. The Trustees had no right to retain him 
 in one post and debar him from the other. Further- 
 more, if the ordinances were to be enforced against 
 Crayford, it was very unjust that they were not made 
 to operate against Griffith, who at the time of his 
 appointment still held a fellowship at Queens'. 
 
 Whatever sympathy may be felt for Crayford in 
 his disappointment is altogether alienated by his 
 subsequent conduct. The new Master's position 
 could not have been easy under any circumstances. 
 Crayford did his utmost to make it difficult. On 
 October 20th, 1653, in defiance of both Trustees 
 and Master he intruded seven boys into the school, 
 who were ineligible for free scholars' places. It 
 is hardly credible that such an act of defiance should 
 have been possible — still less credible that the 
 Trustees should have been unable to remove the 
 intruders at once — ^yet such was the case. These 
 seven boys frequented the school during the whole 
 
S6 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 of the Michaelmas term, and did not leave until 
 Crayford himself left.^ 
 
 On finding that he could defy the governors* 
 orders, Crayford went still further. Other acts of 
 unruliness followed, culminating in open insubordi- 
 nation. In the words of one of the scandalised 
 governors, 
 
 •' Before all y* Schollers he in a most violent manner 
 made an assault upon George Griffith, he the saide George 
 in the peace of God & the publicke peace then & there 
 beinge : and said also scandalous, opprobrious, & reproach- 
 full words following to Griffith, to witt, you are a strikinge 
 knave : you come to steale away my due : I will take you 
 a kicke on the britch & tred in your feete." 
 
 Insubordination was followed by acts of scandalous 
 barbarity towards the boys. Several instances of his 
 cruelty are recorded, and these leave behind them 
 the impression that the Usher was not altogether 
 sane. We read, for instance, of 
 
 " One Thomas Peters, whom y^ saide Robert Crayford 
 wrung by both his eares in y^' violent manner that one of 
 his eares was cruelly torne both skinn and grissle & almost 
 went from his head : y^ said Thomas Peters goeinge home 
 to his mother Katherine Peters house in Cambridge with 
 his eare soe torne & bleedinge to her great affrightment, 
 
 ^ The following information is given in the Sidney Admission 
 Register, under the date August 22, 1657, concerning John ChishuU. 
 who is mentioned as being one of the intruded scholars : " institutus 
 Uteris grammaticis primo quidem Cantabrigiae nostrae in schola 
 Perciana sed non amplius quatuor menses." 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 57 
 
 the blood runninge downe y^ body of the said Thomas 
 Peters from his head unto his feet. 
 
 '• And y^ saide Robt. Crayford did in such unmercifull 
 and cruell manner whip one John Spratford, one of y® 
 Schollers in y^ free grammer schoole of Cambridge aforesaide, 
 y*' his body was sor gashed and torne by his cruell stripes, 
 that he could scarce indure to lay himselfe downe in his 
 bed at night. And after complaint thereof made to the 
 said Robert Crayford by John Spratford, of the Towne of 
 Cambridge, father of the said John Spratford, y® said John 
 was still from tyme to tyme so harshly dealt with by the 
 said Robert Crayford, that the said John Spratford was 
 constrained att length to take his said sonne from y^ said 
 free schoole S- put to him to a private grammer schoole in 
 Cambridge. 
 
 " And y^ said Robt. Crayford did smite one Edward 
 Webb, being one of y^ Schollers in y^ free grammer schoole, 
 in a most violent manner upon his jawes & beat hym 
 downe with his head against a wooden forme. Webb 
 riseing upp again, Crayford smote him y^ second tyme in 
 like manner in soe much y"' his head and jawes were soe 
 bruised, y**' the saide Edward was in very great danger 
 of death, Edward Webbe, father of y® saide Edward, 
 being a Chirurgeon, besides his own skill in Chirurgerie, wh. 
 he used for his sonne his care, took the advise of one Doctor 
 Eade, a knowne & skilfull Physician, who gave y^ sonne 
 over fearinge y^' he was not curable : yet it pleased God 
 y^' after five weekes he did some what recover, but is 
 to this day by the cruell usage of Crayford soe much dis- 
 abled in his speech & also in his memorie, y^' his father 
 to his great greife was necessitated to divert him from y® 
 way of a scholler to a seruilar imploym'." 
 
 Obviously such acts as these did a great deal of harm 
 to the school. The time had come for the Trustees 
 
58 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 to dispense with the Usher's services. Accordingly 
 at Christmas, 1653, Crayford was dismissed, and 
 his place given to John Felton, Fellow of Caius. 
 
 But matters did not end here. Crayford was 
 occupying the Usher's house, and he refused to 
 surrender it. His dismissal aroused the indignation 
 of certain townspeople, " more," we are told, " in 
 opposition to the college [sc. Caius] than in friend- 
 ship to him." It is well-nigh inconceivable that 
 after his recent conduct Crayford could have found 
 many sympathisers in Cambridge : yet sympathisers 
 he undoubtedly had. Without their assistance he 
 could not have defied the Trustees for so long a 
 period as he did. They encouraged him to contest 
 the decision of the Trustees and to apply for a 
 mandamus for his restitution. A writ of mandamus 
 was in due course issued. With unconscious irony 
 it declared that ever since his appointment to the 
 post of Usher, Robert Crayford had " behaved 6-- 
 governed himselfe welle, quietly, soberly, & 
 honestly," and commanded the Trustees to restore 
 him to his post, unless good cause could be shown 
 to the contrary. 
 
 The Trustees at once entered a defence, and Dell 
 deposed to all Crayford's past offences. Crayford 
 was determined to vindicate himself at all costs and 
 to obtain full compensation for " the manifest 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 59 
 
 wearinge of his creditt Estate." The Trustees were 
 equally determined not to have him back again, and 
 went to considerable expense to fight the matter out. 
 The legal proceedings, therefore, had to take their 
 usual course. The writ had been issued on February 
 13th, 1653-4, but it was not until the Trinity term 
 of 1655 that the action came before the Court of the 
 Upper Bench, as the King's Bench was then styled. 
 At the hearing Crayford's counsel made a strong 
 appeal for an order of restitution, but the Lord Chief 
 Justice declined to intervene after learning that 
 Crayford had *' much abused himself." He recom- 
 mended the parties to refer their differences to the 
 justices of assize, one of whom, Oliver St. John, was 
 then Chancellor of Cambridge University. 
 
 All these proceedings had been costly, as is shown 
 by numerous items in the trust accounts for this 
 period. The trust funds were still in low water, 
 and a further prosecution of the quarrel would have 
 involved a heavy drain on an already impoverished 
 income. There were also considerations of an even 
 more pressing nature. Crayford had not been 
 evicted from the Usher's house. He still defied 
 the Trustees in the very precincts of the school, and 
 declined to surrender any of the school property, 
 which had come into his hands as Usher. He 
 endeavoured to be thoroughly offensive to Griffith. 
 
6o HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Apparently the unfortunate Master had on more 
 than one occasion to submit to insulting language of 
 a nature very similar to that already recorded. 
 Furthermore, Crayford's friends endeavoured to 
 establish a boycott of the school. 
 
 Obviously it was imperative to get the ex-Usher 
 out of the way at all costs. The fortunes of the 
 school were in jeopardy, and the situation was grow- 
 ing daily more intolerable for the unfortunate 
 Griffith. The Trustees decided to come to terms 
 rather than prosecute the quarrel to a costly victory. 
 Accordingly they abandoned the lawsuit, and effected 
 a compromise with Crayford. On April 17, 1656, 
 the parties entered into a composition. Crayford 
 renounced all claims to the post and emoluments of 
 Usher. In consideration therefor he was allowed 
 to occupy the Usher's house for one year on his 
 undertaking to " demean himselfe fairely, soberly, 
 S- inoffensively to the Master & Usher of the 
 schoole for the tyme beinge." Apparently Crayford 
 abided faithfully by the agreement, for there was no 
 more trouble. At the latter end of 1657 he left 
 Cambridge to take the living of East Grinstead in 
 Sussex, where he died in 1683. His was an ill- 
 balanced mind, and some of his acts savoured of 
 madness. His two years' defiance of the Trustees 
 and Master showed a dogged pertinacity in fighting 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 6i 
 
 a desperate cause, which calls forth a regret that it 
 was not put to a better use. Whilst we condemn his 
 scandalous barbarity and insubordination, we must 
 not forget his disinterested patriotism at a critical 
 moment in the school's history. Twenty years later 
 his son returned to Cambridge, and was received 
 into his father's old college at Caius. As a Perse 
 Scholar and Perse Fellow he cleared the name of 
 the obloquy brought upon it by his father's conduct. 
 Though Crayford was gone, Griffith was by no 
 means out of troubled waters. The dispute might 
 be settled, but the ill feeling aroused thereby did 
 not easily die down. A section of the townspeople 
 still bore a grudge against the school, and could still 
 boycott the Perse by sending boys to private schools 
 in the town. Fortunately, Griffith was not wanting 
 in tact, and in time all hostility disappeared. The 
 first step taken to allay ill feeling was the resignation 
 of the Usher. Felton's appointment had been the 
 bone of contention from the very outset. His 
 position was by no means enviable, and, as the salary 
 attached to his post was diminishing, there was little 
 inducement for him to remain. It was probably 
 with very little reluctance that he resigned at the 
 Michaelmas following Crayford's departure.^ 
 
 1 Felton apparently took an interest in his pupils at the Perse, 
 for he acted as tutor to two of them after their admission at Caius. 
 
62 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 We can trace the hand of the Master of Caius in 
 the appointment of Felton's successor. John Boult 
 supplied " the vacancies of prayers in chapel " at 
 Caius College during this period, and was regarded 
 as a Puritan in religion. He would, therefore, be 
 considered eminently fitted to assist in furtherance 
 of the projects set forth in the Right Reformation of 
 Learning. The new Usher did not, however, stay 
 longer at the school than twelve months.* His 
 immediate successors were William Henry Rixe 
 (Usher, 1657-67), William Peters (Usher, 1667-76), 
 and Edward Sparkes (Usher, 1676-87). All three 
 had originally been pupils of Griffith. In each case, 
 however, the appointment was made in violation of 
 the school ordinances, for each of them held either 
 a fellowship or ecclesiastical preferment simultane- 
 ously with the post of Usher. In the cases of Peters 
 and Rixe little harm was done thereby, for both were 
 able men. 2 Nevertheless, the bad precedent of 
 Watson's time was revived, and was to have a serious 
 effect on the fortunes of the school before the 
 century was out. 
 
 ^ Like Felton Boult seems to have taken an interest in his pupils 
 at the Perse, for he also acted as tutor to two Perseans on their 
 admission at Caius, one of them being John Spratford (of. p. 57). 
 
 - Rixe subsequently became Master of Saffron Walden. From 
 the Sidney Admission Register (May 5, 1669) we learn that he took 
 at least one of his pupils from the Perse to Saffron Walden. 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 63 
 
 So long as Dell remained Master of Caius, 
 Griffith's position could not have been altogether 
 easy. The theories of the Right Reformation of 
 Learning were still very dear to their author. The 
 general public, on the other hand, regarded both 
 author and theories with suspicion. Griffith, there- 
 fore, had a difficult course to steer, if he desired to 
 placate both parties. Fortunately, both for himself 
 and the Perse, he had both moderation and discern- 
 ment. Without alienating public opinion by radical 
 innovation, he at the same time managed to avoid 
 Crabbe's fate. At the Restoration this policy of 
 moderation was justified. Dell ceased to be Master 
 of Caius, and saw all his handiwork undone. 
 Griffith was left undisturbed. His views on poli- 
 tical and religious matters were not extreme, and 
 must have caused bitter disappointment to the 
 ** outed " Master of Caius. Amongst the collection 
 of verses composed by members of the University 
 to welcome Charles II. on his return from exile we 
 find a contribution by Griffith. With equally deep 
 regret Dell must have read two other contributions 
 from the ex-Ushers, Felton and Boult. 
 
 After 1660 religious and political controversies 
 ceased to play any part in the history of the school. 
 Griffith was left to rule the Perse undisturbed by 
 external events. The rest of his Mastership was 
 
64 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 comparatively peaceful. One event did, however, 
 for the moment, interrupt the even tenour of school 
 life. This was the plague. Throughout its history 
 Cambridge was a frequent sufferer from pestilence. 
 In 1630 the town suffered from an exceptionally 
 severe visitation, which for a time must have com- 
 pletely arrested the progress of the school. During 
 Crabbe's Mastership the plague recurred in Cam- 
 bridge almost annually. To judge, however, from 
 the admission register for that period these visitations 
 were regarded with comparative equanimity. Except 
 perhaps for a period between April, 1643, ^^^ April, 
 1 644, when no admissions are recorded, the regular 
 routine of school life was not interrupted. The visita- 
 tions of 1665 and the following year were far more 
 serious matters. At Cambridge the plague proved 
 most fatal in the autumn of 1666, when it claimed 
 victims amongst the families of several boys then 
 attending the school, and no doubt amongst the boys 
 themselves. Griffith, apparently, had no alternative 
 but to close the school for the time being. Some 
 Perse boys were sent to neighbouring towns until the 
 plague had abated. Edmund Ivory, for instance, 
 was sent to Bury St. Edmunds and attended the 
 school there, returning to the Perse when the 
 visitation was past. By the spring of 1667 
 the pestilence at Cambridge had run its course. 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 65 
 
 Thereafter the continuity of school life was never 
 again interrupted by plague. 
 
 Meanwhile, through all the vicissitudes of politics, 
 lawsuits, and pestilence, Griffith steadily increased 
 his reputation as a schoolmaster. Parents, including 
 persons of high social standing, sent their sons from 
 all parts of the country to the Perse. Sir Ralph 
 Hare of Stow Bardolph, Norfolk, sent his son 
 Thomas.^ Another pupil, Edward Russell of 
 Chippenham, came of a family closely allied by 
 marriage with that of Cromwell.^ But the best 
 evidence of Griffith's ability is revealed in the 
 remarkable number of boys sent up to the University. 
 We can trace sixty-seven entering six different 
 colleges in Cambridge, and of this number no less 
 than fifteen obtained fellowships. One, Christopher 
 Greene, became Regius Professor of Physic, and 
 proved his versatility by also holding the lectureships 
 in Greek and Ethics at Caius. 
 
 The most distinguished of all Griffith's pupils was 
 undoubtedly Sir Robert Tabor.^ After leaving 
 
 ^ Thomas Hare succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1671 whilst 
 still at the Perse. He was a patron of the engraver, David Loggan, 
 and represented Norfolk in Parliament 1685-88. 
 
 ' The father. Sir Francis Russell, was one of Cromwell's major- 
 generals and a member of his upper house. His eldest son married 
 the Protector's daughter. 
 
 ^ He was grandson of James Tabor, the well-known University 
 Registrary. The Tabor family had a close connection with the 
 
 P.S. E 
 
ee HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 school, Tabor was apprenticed to an apothecary in 
 Cambridge. During his apprenticeship he dis- 
 covered a satisfactory method of administering 
 quinine in cases of fever. The opportunity for 
 proving the value of his discovery came in 1678, 
 when he managed by his remedy to save the life of 
 Charles II., who in gratitude knighted him. His 
 reputation spread to the continent. Louis XIV. 
 sent for him to attend the Dauphin, and later he 
 became medical adviser to the Queen Consort of 
 Spain. 
 
 Later in life another of Griffith's pupils made his 
 mark as a commentator and as a pioneer of the 
 evangelical movement. This was William Burkitt, 
 concerning whose school career we have something 
 more than the usual information. Whilst a boy 
 ** he was endowed with a very Tenacious Memory, 
 which through the happiness of a good Education 
 was made a Cabinet for Jewels, a Repository of 
 Scripture and Catechism." Even at school he was 
 of a deeply serious turn of mind. It was at the 
 Perse that his vocation came to him. " While I 
 continued at School in Cambridge," he tells us, " it 
 
 Perse in its early days. Sir Robert's uncle, James, was a boy at 
 the school. Matthew Whynne, who married the Registrary's 
 daughter and succeeded his father-in-law in his office, was con- 
 temporary with this second James at the Perse. Sir Robert Tabor's 
 brother John was also a pupil of Griffith. 
 
PERSE SCHOOL CHRISTMAS ANNUAL, 1 874 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 67 
 
 pleased God to visit me with the Small-Pox, but 
 very favourably, and, as I hope, in great mercy, 
 laying the Foundation of my Spiritual Health in 
 that sickness, working, as I hope, a prevailing 
 thorough change in the very Frame and disposition 
 of my Soul." ^ 
 
 As the school was in financial straits during the 
 whole of his Mastership, Griffith's success is the 
 more creditable. The end of the Civil War did not 
 bring the hoped-for improvement of the Frating 
 property. Moreover, whilst the trust income 
 diminished, expenditure increased. Crayford's 
 action had been costly. There were other heavy 
 legal expenses incidental to the conveyance of the 
 trust property from Thomas Batchcroft, the last 
 surviving feofee under the Founder's will, to the 
 Master and four senior fellows of Caius. In addi- 
 tion to law costs, there were considerable outgoings 
 for the upkeep of the fabric of the school. The 
 trust accounts for 1668 record the payment of ten 
 pounds to " one Perse a relation of Dr. Perses by 
 the Colledgorder." It is indeed to be hoped that 
 the recipient was worthy of his family, for it was not 
 the time to throw away money in mistaken charity. 
 To meet all these outgoings retrenchment was 
 
 ^ A full account of Burkitt is given iij the Dictionary of National 
 Biography. 
 
68 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 practised at the expense of the unfortunate Master 
 and Usher, who only on rare occasions received their 
 full salaries. In 1678 Griffith's stipend was cut 
 down to ^{^32 and that of his Usher to £,16. 
 
 Griffith had a private income, and his heart was 
 in his work. He was not, therefore, to be deterred 
 by inadequate payment. He held the Mastership 
 for thirty-four years. The beginning had been 
 stormy : the end came amid peace. Nearly half a 
 century had passed since the day on which he first 
 came as a stranger to the University. Since then his 
 whole life had been centred in Cambridge. In his 
 early days he had been the subject of quarrels and 
 much bitterness. By his own effort he lived down 
 all antipathies, and gained the universal respect of 
 his fellow townsmen. In the parish of St. Edward's 
 he was till the end a leading figure — full of kindly 
 thought for his humbler neighbours. The autumn 
 of 1686 found him in faiUng health. On Michael- 
 mas day he was unable to go to Caius College to 
 receive his stipend, for the payment is recorded, but 
 the customary receipt is absent. He just outlived 
 the year. At length, on January 6th, 1687, his 
 long and useful life ended. 
 
 Griffith's will bears the date November 12th, 
 1686. He left legacies to the poor of St. Edward's 
 parish and the Perse almswomen, as well as one 
 
COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION 69 
 
 hundred pounds to Hobson's Charity " for the 
 setting the poore on work." But to us the most 
 interesting legacy is the sum of one hundred pounds 
 bequeathed to the Master and four Senior Fellows 
 of Caius " to be by them employed to the best 
 advantage for a supplement to the revenues of Dr. 
 Stephen Perses Free School in Cambridge." To 
 this benefaction his executrix adds certain of his 
 "goods and utensills of household stuff" to the 
 value of fifty pounds for the free use of his successors 
 in the Mastership. 
 
 In 1 841, when the school ordinances were re- 
 modelled, the revisers fittingly perpetuated this 
 bequest by making the following order : 
 
 " In the prayers to be used at the times that the Scholars 
 do break up school before the vacations and the times they 
 come together again after the said vacations, some mention 
 shall be made of Dr, Perse the founder, and Mr. George 
 Griffith and others the benefactors of the School, with 
 giving thanks for the same." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 DECLINE AND FALL (1687-1787) 
 
 In his diary Alderman Samuel Newton gives the 
 following record of certain events connected with 
 the Perse, which occurred in the early days of 1687 : 
 
 " 6th January being Thursday about 6 of the clock in the 
 afternoone dyed Mr George Griffith Schoolemaster of the 
 Freeschoole in Cambridge. Hee was laid in the ground in 
 St Edwards Chancel on Saturday night following between 
 8 and 9 of the clock. His funeral was on Tuesday in the 
 afternoone beinge the nth day of January. 
 
 " 9th January being Sunday after Evening Chappell at 
 Caius College was Mr Edward Sparkes admitted Master of 
 Dr Perses Free Schoole in Cambridge in the roome of Mr. 
 Griffith deceased." 
 
 The haste with which the Trustees made their 
 appointment might well be called indecent. 
 Griffith's obsequies had not yet been performed, 
 when his successor was appointed. A general 
 indifference to the duties of their trust — sympto- 
 matic of worse to come — could be the only reason 
 
 for their conduct. There was nothing in the 
 
 70 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 71 
 
 character or ability of the new Master to justify 
 the extraordinary haste with which the appointment 
 was made. As free scholar, Perse scholar at Caius, 
 Usher, and Master of the school, Edward Sparkes 
 was connected with the Perse foundation for sixty- 
 five years, and few have so ill repaid their alma 
 mater. As Usher during Griffith's declining years, 
 he had apparently been more or less in sole charge 
 of the school, and there had been a general falling 
 off in the number of the pupils. Furthermore, 
 in 1686 Sparkes had violated the school ordinances 
 by accepting the living of Shepreth and, notwith- 
 standing, had been allowed to remain at the Perse. 
 The financial difficulties confronting the school 
 at this time might well have discouraged an abler 
 man than Sparkes. After 1693 Griffith's bequest 
 brought in an annual sum of ^^ los., which was 
 employed to supplement the masters' stipends, but 
 the falling off in the remainder of the trust revenues 
 continued. In 1688 both Master and Usher found 
 their salaries reduced by one-half. The salaries 
 remained at these figures until 171 6, when they 
 were raised to £2^ and ^i ^ respectively. It was 
 not until 1735 that the full statutable incomes were 
 once more paid to the two masters. The self- 
 sacrifice of Crabbe was a tradition of the past of 
 which Sparkes was oblivious. Being utterly devoid 
 
72 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 of ambition, he was content to remain as he was, to 
 obtain what salary he could, and to do the least 
 possible required for the earning of it. 
 
 During the first ten years following Griffith's 
 death a fair sprinkling of boys proceeded from the 
 Perse to the University, but most of them were 
 unremarkable and none of them subsequently 
 distinguished themselves either in the academic or 
 other spheres of life. Such credit as may be due 
 for their success was perhaps as much due to the 
 Ushers as the Master. Robert Pate, Sparkes' first 
 Usher, was certainly a man of some ability, and 
 subsequently became Master of Norwich School.^ 
 His stay at the Perse, however, was limited to a 
 single term. At the end of that period we find him 
 keeping a private school in Cambridge. Several 
 boys, who were originally at the Perse, attended this 
 school — a circumstance which clearly indicates that 
 all was not well at the Perse. 
 
 On Pate's resignation the Trustees for once broke 
 with the old custom of appointing Caius men to the 
 post of Usher. Their choice fell on James Gill of 
 Pembroke Hall,^ but on his death in 1692 they 
 reverted to their former practice, appointing Thomas 
 Inyon, who was already a Fellow of Caius. There- 
 
 * Pate had been a boy at the Perse under Griffith. 
 
 ^ He was a native of Cambridge and perhaps educated at the Perse. 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 73 
 
 after, until the nineteenth century had begun, not a 
 single appointment was made from outside of Caius 
 College, and the majority of those appointed were 
 Fellows of the College. It is not surprising, there- 
 fore, to discover that at the opening of the eighteenth 
 century the Perse had ceased to be the leading 
 school in the town, having given place to King's 
 College School. 
 
 The year 1 703 saw the establishment of charity 
 schools in Cambridge.^ Their establishment had 
 a disastrous effect on the fortunes of the Perse. The 
 children were, it is true, drawn from the humblest 
 class and received the most elementary education. 
 Nevertheless, in bygone days some of the ablest 
 Perseans had been born of relatively poor parents. 
 The teaching Sparkes gave offered little prospect of 
 much advancement in life, and as the charity schools 
 provided a sound utilitarian training, the humbler 
 townspeople after 1703 ceased to send their boys 
 to the Perse. Thus the school practically lost an 
 important class, from which had sprung Jeremy 
 Taylor and others of the ablest and most dis- 
 tinguished of its past pupils. 2 
 
 ^ Now known as the Old Schools, 
 
 ^ A charity school was established at Trumpington in 1679 by a 
 certain William Austin. Between 1687 and 1836 not a single 
 record can be found of a Trumpington boy attending the Perse 
 school. 
 
74 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 With rivals in the field, the Perse required an 
 Usher of some ability and character to supplement 
 the mediocre talents of Sparkes. The least likely 
 appointment to check the decay now setting in was 
 that made in 1704 on Inyon's retirement. The 
 Trustees could think of no more suitable person 
 than the headmaster's own son. Brought up under 
 the uninspiring tutelage of his father, his whole life 
 confined within the narrow limits of his native town, 
 the younger Sparkes entirely lacked that originality 
 which alone could infuse new life into the school. 
 He was a mere replica of the headmaster. For 
 eighteen years the school was allowed to stagnate 
 under this family arrangement. The monotony of 
 perpetual deterioration was only broken when the 
 son violated the school ordinances by accepting a 
 living in Hertfordshire. His pluralism was 
 tolerated for two years. At length, on his appoint- 
 ment in 1722 to the living of Ugley in Essex, 
 either his conscience or that of the Trustees became 
 somewhat tardily reproachful, and the post of 
 Usher became vacant. 
 
 The elder Sparkes was now bordering on seventy 
 and required a competent assistant to manage the 
 school. Neither of his last two Ushers can be 
 described as competent. Joseph Brett (Usher, 
 1722-24) certainly was not without ability. He 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 75 
 
 subsequently became Master of Wymondham and 
 Scarning Schools. But his methods of enforcing 
 discipline were too brutal even for a generation not 
 over squeamish in such matters. He was dismissed 
 from Scarning for acts of gross cruelty to the 
 children of the parish. Brett's successor, Daniel 
 Munnings (Usher, 1724-27), had not even the 
 merits of Brett. As Cole informs us, he was a 
 spendthrift and " soon wasted his wife's fortune 
 and died insolvent." 
 
 In 1727, Sparkes died suddenly at Shepreth,^ at 
 the age of seventy-three. After his forty years' rule 
 the state of the Perse was indeed deplorable. Boys 
 no longer proceeded from the school to the 
 University. In fact, the numbers attending the 
 school were so few that the Trustees considered 
 the services of a second Master superfluous. For 
 the time being, Munnings was placed in sole charge 
 and allowed to draw the salaries of both Master and 
 Usher. 
 
 An effort was made to deal with the situation six 
 months later, when Munnings resigned. The 
 Trustees, however, again resorted to their old 
 practice of appointing Fellows of their own college, 
 choosing Nathaniel Saltier as Master and Henry 
 Goodall as Usher. There is little to be said 
 
 ^ St. Edward's Parish Register, May 24, 1727. 
 
76 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 concerning Saltier's Mastership (1728-32). The 
 school remained in the same state as in the latter 
 days of Sparkes. The Bishop of Ely found only 
 ten scholars in the school during a visitation of his 
 diocese in 1731.^ Even the confined premises in 
 Free School Lane provided more than ample 
 accommodation for this small number. Saltier 
 realised this, and decided to eke out his very in- 
 adequate salary by letting the school. The build- 
 ings had ceased to be used as a school before 1731, 
 for in that year the governors paid Mr. Jacob 
 Butler of Barnwell Abbey a fee of one guinea " for 
 pleading y* y^ Freeschool should not be assessed to 
 y^ rates," — an item which shows that the school was 
 then occupied as a dwelling house or workshop. As 
 a matter of fact, it is known who was Saltier's tenant. 
 He was a certain Bernard Turner, who, besides 
 being organist of St. John's, carried on the business 
 of organ builder in the town. He occupied one of 
 the two masters' houses, and used the school room 
 as his workshop. In a note on Turner, Cole tells 
 us that ** in the schole I saw several of his organs, 
 harpsichords, and spinets ; and I suppose he used 
 it as his workshop, the schole having been neglected 
 there many years : though when I first went to the 
 University there was a flourishing schole." 
 
 1 Add. MS. 7827. p. 89. 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 77 
 
 To judge from the practice of one of his suc- 
 cessors, Saltier probably retained the Master's 
 house for his own use. His few pupils must have 
 been taught there or else in his college rooms. 
 
 In 1732 Saltier resigned and was succeeded by 
 his Usher, Henry Goodall (Master, 1732-50). The 
 new Master has best been described by Cole : 
 
 " He was of a mould framed by Nature, education, and 
 constitution to be a bishop's chaplain : all humbleness, 
 obsequiousness, flattery, and distance. The bishop [sc. of 
 Ely] bred him up to the trade, in which he succeeded very 
 well, . . . tho' to do him justice . . ., a very honest, sober, 
 good-tempered man." 
 
 Goodall gained notoriety as a pluralist in an age 
 
 of pluralism. He attached himself to the person of 
 
 Sir Thomas Gooch, Master of Caius and Bishop of 
 
 Bristol, Norwich, and Ely successively. There is 
 
 no doubt that he succeeded very well at the trade. 
 
 When Gooch, as ex-officio chairman of the Trustees, 
 
 secured the Mastership of the Perse for his chaplain, 
 
 Goodall was already a Fellow of Caius. In 1742 
 
 his patron obtained the living of Mattishall in 
 
 Norfolk for him by an act of gross jobbery.^ Five 
 
 ^ The Master and Fellows of Caius were the patrons of the living, 
 but the Fellows did not want to present Goodall. Being fully 
 aware of this fact, Gooch as Master of Caius declined to convene 
 a college meeting. The appointment therefore lapsed to the Bishop 
 of the diocese, who was none other than Gooch himself. Goodall 
 was then appointed forthwith. 
 
78 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 years later he was given the two livings of Bixley 
 and Framlingham Earl in the same county, and 
 twelve months later became Archdeacon of Suffolk. 
 During the whole of this period he remained 
 Master of the Perse. 
 
 As Goodall spent most of his time in attendance 
 on his patron, the school was left to the care of his 
 Ushers,^ who, fortunately, were not so neglectful of 
 their duties as the Master. Almost for the first 
 time since the days of Griffith boys came to the 
 school from places beyond the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, and once more a few Perseans proceeded 
 to the University. Of the three Ushers responsible 
 for this recovery Charles Davy (Usher, 1747-51) 
 deserves more than passing reference. Later in 
 life he published Letters addressed chiefly to a Young 
 Gentleman (1787) and several other treatises on 
 education, which have obtained a place for him in 
 the Dictionary of National Biography. In his Letters 
 he advocates the introduction of more mathematical 
 and scientific training into school teaching, and 
 attacks the old grammar school system with some 
 vigour. 
 
 1 James Willson (Usher 1732-40), Robert Goodrich (Usher 1740-47), 
 and Charles Davy (Usher 1747-51). Of these Goodrich is remembered 
 as the dean who quarrelled with and earned the life-long respect 
 of the future Lord Chancellor Thurlow at the time when the latter 
 was a turbulent Perse Scholar of Caius. 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 79 
 
 " I have ever been of opinion," he writes, " that giving up 
 ten or twelve years of human life to two dead languages are 
 more than we can afford. In the number of young gentlemen 
 of fortune, who are educated at our best pubhc schools, 
 scarce one in five hundred, perhaps, proves a very considerable 
 classic scholar, and what with the neglect of science amongst 
 those few, and that small attention which is paid to their 
 religious principles, a greater part of them turn mere classic 
 writers only." 
 
 The foregoing opinions were apparently the 
 result of reflection in the retirement of the Norfolk 
 rectory in which Davy ended his days. There is 
 nothing to show that he put his theories into practice 
 at the Perse. Indeed, from what little is known of 
 his career as a schoolmaster, it would appear that 
 he did not rise superior to his own times. Like so 
 many of his predecessors, he violated the school 
 ordinances by combining his duties at the Perse with 
 that of serving the curacy of Stow in Norfolk. For 
 us the interest of Davy's Letters lies in the fact that 
 the Young Gentleman to whom they were addressed 
 was his own son, who forty years later had the 
 opportunity as Master of the Perse of putting his 
 father's theories into practice. 
 
 Throughout Goodall's time the numbers attend- 
 ing the school must have been very small. The 
 organ-builder was still permitted to occupy the 
 schoolhouse and one of the masters' houses. An 
 
8o HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 incident, which is recorded in the life of Christopher 
 Smart, shows the insignificance to which the Perse 
 had sunk. At this date. Smart, who was afterwards 
 to be known to fame for his Song to David, was a 
 Fellow of Pembroke and was scandalizing the whole 
 University by his levity and numerous escapades. 
 In April, 1747, he shocked the whole academic 
 world by proposing to stage a play of his own 
 composition, entitled A Trip to Cambridge. 
 Dramatic performances had gone out of vogue at 
 Cambridge long before this date, and Smart had 
 difficulty in finding a place wherein to stage his play. 
 Seeing the schoolhouse deserted by its masters and 
 Scholars he applied for the use of the premises. His 
 request was, however, refused, and eventually the 
 performance took place in the hall of Pembroke. 
 
 After holding the Mastership for eighteen years, 
 Goodall resigned, and his place was taken by Roger 
 Sturgeon (Master, 1750-59). The new Master 
 appears to have been the last to have resided in 
 Free School Lane for many years to come. He 
 held two livings — Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire 
 and Hardmead in Buckinghamshire — but neither 
 of these were rich. Although a scholar of some 
 ability, academic preferment never came his way. 
 He had a wife and family to maintain on a very 
 inadequate income, and in the end, as Cole informs 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 8i 
 
 us, ** died very poor." Nevertheless, for his times 
 Sturgeon was extremely conscientious. His 
 parishioners at Hardmead no doubt learnt the evils 
 of absenteeism, but he was scrupulous in the per- 
 formance of his duties at Waterbeach and at the 
 Perse. At the school he evidently made a struggle 
 to remedy the neglect of the past. A few more 
 boys were sent to the University, the most con- 
 spicuous being Henry Turner, who was the son of 
 Sturgeon's tenant and subsequently became a Fellow 
 of St. John's. 
 
 Sturgeon died at his house in Free School Lane in 
 1 759. His pathetic struggle against poverty showed 
 how impossible it was at this date to expect a master 
 to devote his entire energies to his school when paid 
 the utterly inadequate salary of forty pounds. It 
 is not surprising, therefore, to find that in the next 
 eight years four Masters were appointed in rapid 
 succession.^ The meagre stipends of the Master 
 and Usher had to be augmented by work outside 
 the school, which prevented them from devoting 
 their full time to their pupils. Finally the Masters 
 endeavoured to supplement their incomes by letting 
 
 1 Samuel Story (Master, 1759-64), James Coery (Master, 1764-66), 
 Samuel Reeve (Master, 1766-67), and John Franklin Squire (Master, 
 Oct.-Dec. 1767.) In 1789 Reeve, when Senior Proctor, hung 
 himself in Caius College. His body was not found for several 
 months and the matter afforded scandal-mongers much speculation, 
 p.s. F 
 
82 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 their house in Free School Lane. Such few pupils 
 as they had came to them in their college rooms. 
 Even then the lessons given were infrequent and 
 irregular, being scamped by masters and boys alike. 
 
 Fortunately, some of the Masters, who were 
 appointed during this period of decline, did make 
 slight efforts to avert impending ruin. William 
 White (Master, 1767-74), for instance, appears to 
 have devoted a little attention to his scholars, for 
 he has the credit of having produced one pupil who 
 achieved a record in the annals of the Perse. The 
 boy in question was Robert Towerson Cory, who 
 subsequently entered Emmanuel.^ After gradu- 
 ating as fifth wrangler, Cory became Fellow and 
 subsequently Master of his college — the only 
 Persean who has so filled such a post at either 
 University. From 1809 to 18 13 he was also 
 Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy. 
 
 If the mere names of masters were a true indica- 
 tion of a school's prosperity, the Perse at this time 
 should have been a flourishing school indeed. ^ 
 White, for instance, had been Senior Wrangler ; 
 Richard Fisher (afterwards Belward) became Master 
 of Caius ; and John Jelliand Brundish obtained the 
 
 1 Bowtell MSS. vii. 2724. 
 
 * The Masters at this period were William Bond (1774-75), Richard 
 Fisher (1775-81), John Jelliand Brundish (1781-82), Wilham Walford 
 (Oct. -Dec. 1782), and Thomas Cooke Burroughes (1782-86). 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 83 
 
 almost unique distinction of being Senior Wrangler, 
 
 Senior Chancellor's Medallist, and Smith's Prizeman 
 
 in one and the same year. The twelve months, 
 
 however, during which the last-mentioned was 
 
 Master of the Perse are a complete blank. Mr. 
 
 Brundish received his stipend with the utmost 
 
 regularity, but it is to be feared that he did nothing 
 
 to earn it. By 1785, even the fiction of keeping 
 
 the school open was abandoned. The Trustees 
 
 still appointed masters, and the masters still received 
 
 their stipends, but they had no pupils. It came to 
 
 be almost the recognised custom for the Junior 
 
 Fellows of Caius to hold the posts of Master and 
 
 Usher in succession. 
 
 By this date the Master's house had fallen into 
 
 far worse hands than the school itself. In or about 
 
 1780 it was occupied by Jemmy Gordon, a solicitor, 
 
 who subsequently became a notorious character in 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
 " At the expiration of his articles," as readers of Gunning's 
 Reminiscences will recall, " he commenced to practise in 
 Free School Lane, in the house which ought to have been 
 occupied by the Master of the Perse School, but which was 
 at that time (through the neglect of the Trustees) let to the 
 highest bidder : here he led an expensive and profligate 
 life, and placed at the head of his table a young woman of 
 considerable beauty, who went by the soubriquet of the 
 Duchess of Gordon. But Gordon's extravagance knew no 
 bounds and he was compelled to go into cheaper and more 
 
84 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 obscure lodgings. He was then at the service of any man 
 who thought proper to send him an invitation to entertain 
 his friends and to get very drunk by way of recompense. 
 Dressed in a huge cocked hat and the tarnished uniform of a 
 general or admiral (for Jemmy was not too proud to accept 
 any article of apparel that occasionally was given him from 
 an old clothes shop) . , . this extraordinary character infested 
 the streets swearing and blaspheming in a most horrible 
 manner." 
 
 With the masters mere pensioners of Caius 
 College, the scholars gone, and the school premises 
 put to other and worse uses, it is not surprising to 
 learn that the inhabitants of Cambridge were hardly 
 aware of the existence of the benefaction of Stephen 
 Perse. A strong and healthy public opinion would 
 undoubtedly have made such ignorance impossible, 
 and would not have tolerated such gross neglect of 
 duty on the part of Masters and Trustees. Un- 
 fortunately, this was an age of municipal mis- 
 government and corruption, and in Cambridge, in 
 particular, a proper sense of civic responsibility was 
 entirely wanting. It almost appeared as if the Perse 
 benefaction was destined to come to a dismal end. 
 Fortunately, however, at an hour when the future 
 prospects of the school seemed blackest, a single 
 townsman started an agitation which saved the 
 Perse from the oblivion threatening it. This 
 agitator is known to us only by his pseudonym of 
 
DECLINE AND FALL 85 
 
 ** An Inhabitant of Cambridge." He started his 
 campaign .in the Cambridge Chronicle on October 
 20th, 1787, when he made the following enquiries : 
 
 '* I should esteem it a favour if some of your correspondents 
 would inform me, whether our Free Grammar School has 
 an endowment, and to what amount ? who is the Master, and 
 by whom appointed ? whose children are entitled to ad- 
 mission at the School, and to whom should application be 
 made for such admission ? " 
 
 In the following issue of the paper an answer is 
 given, quoting from Carter's History of Cambridge 
 and the Founder's will. But the matter did not 
 rest here. An Inhabitant's enquiries appear to have 
 caused the Trustees considerable uneasinesss, and 
 it was probably they who inspired the reply 
 which appeared in the Chronicle of November 
 1 7th following. 
 
 " If your correspondent who signs himself ' An Inhabitant 
 of Cambridge ' in your paper of the iQth of October had 
 applied to the Master or Fellows of Caius College, he would 
 have received a satisfactory answer to all his queries respect- 
 ing the Free School founded by Dr. Perse. Though I am not 
 a member of that society, yet I can assure your readers, from 
 the best authority, that the School was kept open as long as 
 any boys were sent for education ; that the masters now are 
 and always have been ready to admit scholars agreeable to 
 the Will of the Founder ; and that the parents of children 
 properly qualified have only themselves to blame if they 
 do not reap the advantages of that beneficent foundation. 
 
 A Gownsman." 
 
86 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 " A Gownsman's " intrusion gave the matter the 
 prominence it deserved, for it induced an old 
 Persean to take up the cudgels on behalf of the 
 parents, and he spoke out very plainly in a letter to 
 the Chronicle a fortnight later. He undoubtedly 
 gave the real cause for the closing of the Perse, and 
 his genuine indignation at the treatment meted out 
 to his old school may excuse faultiness in his English : 
 
 " Had your correspondent (who signs himself ' A Gowns- 
 man ') been as well acquainted as I am with the cause of 
 the decHne of the Free School, he would never have asserted 
 that the parents of children were to blame for neglect, not 
 the Masters of the School. I have only to observe, when 
 Dr. Perse founded the Free School in Cambridge, it is clear 
 he intended that the Master and his Assistants should attend 
 the whole of the usual school hours ; but boys attending 
 hours before the Master came, and when he did come 
 staying so short a time, reduced the School to so small a 
 number, that the Master totally gave up attendance at 
 School, and ordered the boys to his room in college. If 
 but one boy, should not the Masters being paid their salaries 
 fulfil the will of the donor ? ' The labourer is worthy of his 
 
 *^"^^- One educated in the School." 
 
 From a note appended to this letter we learn that 
 the agitation thus started by " An Inhabitant " bore 
 good fruit. The governors authorised the printer 
 of the Chronicle to inform his readers that the school 
 would be re-opened immediately after the Christmas 
 holidays. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 - THE LAST DAYS OF THE ORIGINAL SCHEME 
 (1787-1841) 
 
 The Master to whom was entrusted the task of 
 setting the affairs of the Perse in order was the 
 namesake and son of the Charles Davy who had 
 been Usher between 1747 and 1751. The younger 
 Davy had been appointed to his father's old post in 
 1785, and promoted to the Mastership a year later. 
 For two years he had been content to follow the 
 example of his predecessors and made no attempt 
 to re-open the school. Nevertheless, when public 
 opinion roused the Trustees to a proper sense of 
 their responsibilities, he showed himself perfectly 
 ready to carry out the duties attached to his post. 
 
 The same cannot be said of his Usher, Robert 
 Forby, who resigned ten days after the first disturb- 
 ing enquiries were made in the Cambridge Chronicle. 
 Forby was famous in his day as a botanist and the 
 philologist of the East Anglian dialect. He also 
 
 made a reputation for himself as a private tutor. 
 
 87 
 
88 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Throughout his Hfe he suffered from a slender 
 purse and short temper. At a later period he once 
 indulged in high words with the parent of one of his 
 pupils, because that parent failed to understand that 
 the obligation as between himself and his son's 
 instructor " was perfectly mutual," and that tuition 
 fees were not charitable doles. When Forby 
 accepted a salaried post at the Perse School, there 
 was created an obligation which was perfectly 
 mutual. The acceptance of the salary without 
 rendering any work in return made him the recipient 
 of a charitable dole. Unfortunately for himself and 
 for the school, Forby never realised this fact whilst 
 he was Usher. 
 
 The difficulty of finding an Usher ready to 
 undertake the actual duty of teaching was, it would 
 seem, by no means easily solved. George Leonard 
 Jenyns held the post and received the emoluments 
 during the period between October and December, 
 1787. When the Trustees at length decided to 
 re-open the school, he resigned. Fortunately, John 
 Brinkley, his successor, proved more satisfactory. 
 Brinkley was a distinguished mathematician, having 
 only recently been Senior Wrangler and Smith's 
 Prizeman. At the Perse he appears to have been 
 conscientious in attending to his duties, but it was 
 not to be expected that a man of his ability would be 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 89 
 
 content to hold for long a poorly paid subordinate 
 post in a small grammar school. In 1791 he left 
 Cambridge to become Professor of Astronomy at 
 Dublin University and Astronomer Royal of 
 Ireland. In 1826, he was consecrated Bishop of 
 Clogher. 
 
 When he re-opened the school, the younger Davy 
 had one great advantage. He was in a position to 
 strike out along new lines in education. His 
 father's Letters to a Young Gentleman^ published 
 in 1787, might almost have been a teacher's 
 manual specially designed for use at the Perse, the 
 " Young Gentleman " being the new Master him- 
 self. As will be remembered, the Letters vigorously 
 attacked the antiquated grammar school curriculum 
 and advocated that greater attention should be paid 
 in schools to the teaching of mathematics and 
 science. The younger Davy was by inclination a 
 scientist,^ and his Usher was an able mathematician. 
 Nothing, therefore, could have been more gratifying 
 to the two Masters than to introduce the teaching of 
 new subjects. 
 
 No reform, however, could be attended by any 
 permanent success unless encouragement was 
 received from the Trustees. Above all, financial 
 
 ^ Although in orders Davy took a degree in medicine. He took 
 the Uving of Greeting, Suffolk, and died in 1836. 
 
90 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 support was very necessary. Unfortunately, no 
 support — financial or otherwise — was forthcoming. 
 Nothing in fact better showed the entire lack of 
 interest on the part of the Trustees than the action 
 taken by them at the very time the school was 
 re-opened. The revenue of the Perse Trust had 
 by this date fully recovered, and was, in fact, more 
 than doubled. Consequently it had become neces- 
 sary to revise the apportionment of this income. 
 The most equitable division which the Trustees 
 could have made would, of course, have been to 
 make a proportionate increase to each of the special 
 objects of the Founder's benefaction. This course, 
 however, was not adopted by the Trustees. They 
 took full advantage of the clause in the Founder's 
 will which empowered them to bestow any surplus 
 income on such charitable objects as they in their 
 discretion thought fit. The object which com- 
 mended itself to their charity was their own 
 college. The members of Caius College (includ- 
 ing officers to whom Perse had left nothing in 
 his will) were the only persons to benefit under 
 the re-distribution. In spite of the fact that 
 nearly one quarter of the original income of the 
 Trust had been allotted to the school, not one 
 penny was added to the stipends of the Master or 
 Usher. 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 91 
 
 As they received no encouragement of any 
 descriptionj it is not surprising to learn that both 
 Davy and Brinkley resigned at the end of three 
 years. The school they left behind was poorly 
 attended and insignificant. Nevertheless, the value 
 of their work must not be gauged by the numbers 
 or successes of their pupils. Had it not been for 
 their care in these early days the school might once 
 more have succumbed to neglect, for the Trustees' 
 apathy was to continue for many years to come. 
 
 Davy's successor, John Drew Borton, held office 
 for two years only and was succeeded by his Usher, 
 John Spencer Cobbold (Master, 1793-94). This 
 latter had graduated as a high wrangler, and had 
 also been Norrisian Prizeman. During the twelve 
 months he was at the Perse, he proved himself 
 a capable teacher. One of his pupils showed 
 sufficient ability to obtain a scholarship at Caius — 
 the first Persean to proceed there for over one 
 hundred years. Unfortunately, in the case of 
 Cobbold the Perse suffered the fate which so often 
 befalls a poorly endowed school. It served an able 
 man as the stepping stone to further advancement. 
 In 1794 he was appointed to the more lucrative 
 headmastership of Nuneaton School, and left to 
 take up his duties there. 
 
 After Cobbold's departure masters followed each 
 
92 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 other in quick succession.^ The Trustees reverted 
 to the old practice of appointing junior fellows of 
 their college. The inevitable result followed. The 
 school dwindled almost to vanishing point, and no 
 more boys proceeded to the University. In the 
 greater w^orld beyond Cambridge the Napoleonic 
 wars were being waged. As an indication of how 
 inadequately the school was fulfilling its functions 
 in national life, it must regretfully be placed on 
 record that the Perse cannot claim as its own a 
 single member of the British forces then in the field.^ 
 In 1804 an improved rent roll once more enabled 
 the Trustees to make a fresh distribution of the 
 funds in their hands. It is satisfactory to note that 
 on this occasion the claims of the school were not 
 wholly overlooked. The Master's stipend was 
 raised to ;f 53 los., and that of the Usher to ^^31 los. 
 Yet in view of the greatly increased cost of living this 
 further remuneration was quite inadequate. It was 
 not as if the Trustees were unable to make a more 
 
 1 The following were Masters of the Perse between 1794 and 181 2 : 
 St. John Smith (1794-95), Benedict Chapman (1795-99), George 
 Grigby (1799- 1802), William Gimingham (1802-04), William Wilkins 
 (1804-05), Daniel Gwilt (1805-10), and John White (1810-12). They 
 were all Fellows of Caius. 
 
 * George Grigby, who had been Master from 1799 to 1802, served 
 in the First Dragoons and Eleventh Foot, rising to the rank of 
 Captain. He was drowned off Falmouth in 181 1 when proceeding 
 in a troopship to the Peninsula. 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 93 
 
 substantial increase, for the other beneficiaries under 
 the Founder's will obtained proportionately far 
 larger sums under this second redistribution. If 
 the Trustees really expected the school's fortunes to 
 revive after this additional grant, they were dis- 
 appointed. Even with this increase in their salaries, 
 the Masters did not receive a living wage. Con- 
 sequently, it was impossible for them to devote their 
 full time to the school. Writing in his Cantabrigia 
 Depicta Harraden gives a melancholy account of the 
 state of the school in 1 809 : 
 
 " The school-house exists almost without scholars : the 
 insufficiency of the salaries prevents a constant attendance 
 of the masters, and therefore few boys attend — and those 
 receive their lessons very frequently at their master's 
 lodgings." 
 
 The New Cambridge Guide (published in the same 
 year) provides further details and accounts for the 
 decline of the Perse in very plain language : 
 
 " By some mismanagement the original intention of this 
 excellent institution is perverted : as two or three scholars 
 is generally the largest number at present educated, and 
 these receive their lessons at the lodgings of the master. 
 This abuse is the more to be regretted, as the children, 
 generally speaking, of the poor inhabitants of Cambridge 
 are rude and uninformed." 
 
 Three years after these words were penned, the 
 Trustees came to the conclusion that the state of 
 
94 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 affairs described in these two books hardly reflected 
 credit upon themselves. They saw that the curri- 
 culum provided was out of date, and empowered the 
 Master to revise it. They also realised that fifty 
 odd pounds was not an adequate salary for the Master 
 and raised it to ^iio. To provide money for this 
 increased stipend they abolished the post of Usher. 
 At the same time they reduced the number of places 
 on the foundation to sixteen — a reduction which 
 inflicted hardship on nobody, if three was generally 
 the largest number of boys attending the school. 
 The governors also empowered the headmaster to 
 take non-foundationers into the school and charge 
 an entrance fee of one guinea, and also a guinea a 
 quarter for instructing them, " to say nothing," in 
 the words of a hostile critic of these changes, " of 
 a miserable exaction of 2s. 6d. per annum for candle 
 and firing." As earnest of their changed attitude 
 towards the school, they took advantage of the 
 resignation of John White, then Master, to break 
 away from the harmful tradition of the past, and 
 appoint a man who was not a member of Caius. 
 Their choice fell on John Wilson, formerly chaplain 
 of Trinity. They insisted on his residing in the 
 school premises, and assigned both masters' houses 
 to him. 
 
 The townspeople of Cambridge received a printed 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 95 
 
 circular informing them of these changes, and the 
 resulting benefits which it was hoped the school 
 would derive therefrom. Unfortunately — but at 
 the same time perhaps inevitably — the inhabitants 
 of Cambridge received the information with marked 
 coldness. To them the chief recommendation of the 
 Perse had been the gratuitous education which it 
 provided for an almost unlimited number of boys. 
 If payment was now to be demanded they could 
 point to several private schools in and near Cam- 
 bridge which could provide a much better education 
 at the same cost. Furthermore, they saw that in 
 the absence of an Usher, the Master would be 
 hampered if he had to manage many more boys than 
 sixteen. Local hostility was so pronounced that 
 the scheme appeared to be almost foredoomed to 
 complete failure. Very shortly afterwards the Trus- 
 tees wisely rescinded the most obnoxious of all the 
 new regulations — that empowering the Master to 
 charge non-foundationers. 
 
 It would have required a man of considerable 
 character to surmount the difficulties which impeded 
 the growth of the school. Unfortunately Wilson's 
 talents were distinctly mediocre. During the thirteen 
 years in which he was Master, only one boy is known 
 to have proceeded from the Perse to the Univer- 
 sity. The number of boys attending the school 
 
96 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 remained practically stationary at sixteen. The 
 Trustees themselves were keenly disappointed with 
 the results achieved by their reforms. What with the 
 cold water poured by the townspeople on their well- 
 meant scheme and the inefficiency of the Master, 
 it seemed hopeless to restore the bygone prestige 
 of the Perse. Instead of setting to work to try to 
 popularise the new scheme or to find a more satis- 
 factory Master, the governors once more became 
 apathetic. At the time the Trust enjoyed a very 
 large surplus income, which might well have been 
 devoted to the improvement of the school. Such 
 an idea never suggested itself to the governors. 
 Strewed up and down the accounts we find such 
 items as, " A sufferer by fire at Chesterton, /^i," 
 and " to Mrs. Wilson's sister, Iji " — excellent 
 objects of charity, no doubt, but not those which 
 the Founder intended to benefit. Certainly the ten 
 pounds bestowed in 1 8 1 7 as a " Donation to Charity 
 Schools," could have been more profitably and 
 properly spent nearer home. 
 
 As the number of boys attending the Perse never 
 reached a score, the very limited premises in Free 
 School Lane were more than adequate for Wilson's 
 requirements. In 1 8 1 6 this fact came to the notice 
 of the University, which, at the beginning of that 
 year, had under the will of Viscount Fitzwilliam 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 97 
 
 received a handsome bequest of pictures as well as 
 a sum of ^lOOjOOO to build a museum to house the 
 collection. Until the museum could be built the 
 pictures required a resting place, and a syndicate 
 was appointed to consider the question of temporary 
 accommodation. On April 27th, 18 16, three 
 members of this syndicate came to inspect the 
 school buildings. They were received by Wilson, 
 who showed them over the premises, including the 
 schoolroom. He informed the gentlemen that he 
 did ** not make much use of this room except during 
 the hot weather.'* Having made a careful inspec- 
 tion the members of the syndicate came to the 
 conclusion that after certain structural alterations 
 had been made, the room would be well adapted for 
 housing the Fitzwilliam collection. The Trustees 
 made no difficulty about acceding to their applica- 
 tion, and even agreed to allow the University the 
 use of the northern wing of the buildings when 
 they asked for it. All they stipulated was that the 
 syndics should provide at their own expense a new 
 room and offices for the Master, and should also 
 bear the cost of restoring the building to its former 
 state on the expiration of their tenancy. Accord- 
 ingly by the end of June, 1 8 1 6, Master and boys 
 migrated from the schoolhouse to the premises in 
 the south wing. The school was destined never to 
 
 P.S. 
 
98 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 return to its original home. When the Fitzwilliam 
 syndicate surrendered the premises in 1842, the 
 building was pulled down and a new one erected in 
 its place. 
 
 A contemporary print shows the interior of the 
 old school as it was when it housed the Fitzwilliam 
 collection. As this is the only view of the interior 
 we have, and as the Fitzwilliam syndics made con- 
 siderable structural alterations, a few words of 
 description will not be out of place. The room as 
 depicted is serving the twofold purpose of a picture 
 gallery and a museum. The original windows were 
 concealed behind the wainscot bookcases lining the 
 walls, and in their place skylights were contrived 
 in the open roof. The room itself was lengthened 
 by the syndics by taking in a portion of the Usher's 
 house on the north side. To obtain a better effect 
 the syndics removed the upper floor and partitions 
 of this portion of the buildings. The architect 
 responsible for these alterations was William 
 Wilkins, who had been Master from 1 804 to 1 806 — 
 an absolutely blank period in the school's history. 
 In 1816 he was called upon to complete the wreck 
 of that which, with a little effort, he might ten years 
 before have piloted to safety. 
 
 There is nothing to record of the last nine years 
 of Wilson's rule. The school remained in exile 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 99 
 
 and obscurity until his resignation in 1825. Al- 
 though this first experiment of appointing a Master 
 from another college than Caius failed, the Trustees 
 fortunately did not consider that failure afforded an 
 excuse for reverting to their old custom. As in 
 18 12, they went to Trinity for their Master. On 
 this occasion their choice fell on James Bailey. 
 Their new Master was one of the most brilliant 
 of all the classical scholars who have had charge of 
 the Perse. In his undergraduate days Bailey won the 
 Browne Medals for Greek Ode and Greek Epigram, 
 as well as the Members' Latin Essay Prize. His 
 work at that period brought him to the notice of 
 Sir Walter Scott, who not only endeavoured to 
 obtain a librarianship in Edinburgh for him, but 
 also gave the struggling student financial assistance.* 
 Throughout his life, Bailey was a frequent writer for 
 the Classical Journal. Perhaps his best known con- 
 tribution to classical study is his edition of Fac- 
 ciolati's Latin Dictionary, which he published whilst 
 he was at the Perse. Another work produced by 
 him during this period of headmastership was an 
 annotated edition of Dalzel's Analecta Graeca 
 Minora. He was, moreover, something more than 
 a scholar. He could inspire in others a warm 
 
 1 Letters from Scott to Bailey ar§ ROW tO be seen in the Fitzwilliam 
 
 Museum. 
 
loo HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 enthusiasm for his favourite studies. His pupils 
 always spoke of him with affection and esteem. 
 Into many he inculcated a deep love of classical 
 learning and a true spirit of poetry. Some of his 
 boys did their Master infinite credit in later life. 
 Considering the smallness of the school the number 
 of boys he sent to the University was quite remark- 
 able, five of them becoming Fellows of their respec- 
 tive colleges. 
 
 One of the first steps taken by Bailey was to 
 remove the impression that the school was intended 
 exclusively for the benefit of the sixteen founda- 
 tioners. For this purpose he caused a notice to 
 be circulated to the following effect : 
 
 " The stipends specified in the will of Dr. Perse appearing 
 to the Trustees to be an inadequate remuneration for the 
 education of one hundred scholars, it has been agreed by 
 them to reduce the number of free scholars to sixteen. The 
 School has of late been considerably improved : it having 
 been deemed advisable by the present headmaster, that, exclu- 
 sively of a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and 
 of Greek, Latin, and English composition (for which only the 
 original institution provided), the scholars should likewise be 
 instructed in the ordinary branches of education, together 
 with the elements of mathematics." 
 
 Though, not unnaturally, there was considerable 
 feeling locally over the continued reduction in the 
 number of free places, the prospect of obtaining a 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME loi 
 
 sound education along modern lines restored con- 
 fidence in the Perse. Bailey's undoubted ability 
 proved that this confidence was not mistaken, and 
 the numbers attending the school rose rapidly. 
 From sixteen they quickly mounted to thirty : 
 before Bailey left they were over fifty. The dis- 
 tinctions gained by many of his pupils mark Bailey's 
 Mastership as one of the most successful epochs in 
 the history of the school. The class list for mid- 
 summer 1837 is interesting reading. There were 
 twelve boys in the top class, and of these no less than 
 eight proceeded to the University, seven graduating 
 in honours. 
 
 In addition to day boys, the headmaster took in a 
 few boarders from outside Cambridge. In 1827 
 he had to obtain assistance. He called in a member 
 of his own college, Francis Reveley. The Trustees' 
 account books contain no record of the payment of 
 a regular stipend to Reveley or to any other assistant. 
 Bailey must therefore have provided the Usher's 
 salary out of his own pocket. Unfortunately, this 
 outgoing tended rather to hamper the school's 
 progress. Although he was treated by the Trustees 
 with far greater liberality than Wilson, Bailey was 
 never free from financial embarrassment. Constant 
 illness and general inability to understand monetary 
 matters kept him in continual straits. Although 
 
I02 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 his salary rose gradually from ^12^ to ^^450, he )yas 
 
 frequently in debt, and on one occasion had to 
 
 obtain a loan from the Trustees, which he never 
 
 succeeded in repaying. In the end he was obliged 
 
 to compound with his creditors. His financial 
 
 troubles were, however, by no means so dire as 
 
 those of Reveley. The unfortunate Usher had to 
 
 subsist on the pittance Bailey could afford to pay 
 
 him. He, too, got into debt, and his creditors 
 
 were far more insistent in their demands. He 
 
 had the debtor's jail constantly before his eyes, 
 
 and on one occasion only escaped incarceration 
 
 through the timely intervention of the Master 
 
 of Caius. 
 
 Some interesting reminiscences of the Perse as it 
 
 was in the thirties were recorded in the school 
 
 magazine of April, 1905. They are those of the 
 
 late Mr. D. V. Mordecai, who was at the school 
 
 from 1834 to 1840. 
 
 " Mr. Mordecai was a Foundation Scholar, as indeed 
 were all the boys. The way in which he was elected compares 
 curiously with the present system. Being then about nine 
 years old, he went with his father to see Mr. Bailey (then 
 Headmaster) at his house next the School, and was told to 
 read a chapter in the Bible. After reading about half-a- 
 dozen verses, Mr. Bailey said, ' That's quite sufficient, I'll 
 pass you,' and his father was forthwith instructed to get 
 him a Latin Grammar of Mr. Hall (the grandfather of the 
 present bookseller). His formal appointment as scholar 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 103 
 
 was made by Dr. Davy (then Master of Caius College, in 
 whose hands the government of the School was at that 
 time), and it was Mr. Turnbull, a Fellow of Caius, who gave 
 him his recommendation. The Foundation Scholarship 
 carried with it the right to free rooms and lectures, if the 
 boy reached the top of the School and entered Caius College, 
 and the estimated cost of the College education was not 
 more than £90 for the three years. . . . 
 
 " After mastering a certain amount of Latin Grammar, 
 learning much of it by heart, Mr. Mordecai went on to 
 the Electa, a book of short Latin pieces. Then came the 
 Delectus, Eutropius, Cornelius Nepos and Ovid in the order 
 named. At this point he began Greek, having then learned 
 little but the alphabet. When he had done some Elementary 
 Grammar, he started the Gospel of S. John in Greek. The 
 next classical author was Virgil, and at this point the Classical 
 studies of those who were not going to the first class stopped. 
 There were six classes (Class I. being the head), and Mr. 
 Mordecai was top of the second class when he left. Boys 
 were allowed one month after leaving, during which they 
 might return to the School if they or their parents altered 
 their minds. Mr. Mordecai's month was extended to two, 
 because (as we may safely conjecture) they were unwilling 
 to lose so promising a pupil. 
 
 " In Mathematics the boys were taught Arithmetic, 
 Algebra, Euclid, Trigonometry, and Conic Sections. They 
 learnt practically no English Grammar, and very little 
 Geography. One afternoon in each week was devoted to 
 English History and one to Roman History. Once a week 
 they read from the Bible and learnt the Creed, the Ten 
 Commandments, and so on, and sometimes read (say) 
 some of the poems of Cowper or Cottle (for further information 
 as to whom I refer my readers to the Dictionary of National 
 Biography). For home work they never had more than 
 
I04 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 twenty lines of (say) Ovid or Virgil, and about half-a-dozen 
 verses in the Greek Testament, 
 
 " The School hours were from 9 to 12 and 2 to 4, with 
 half-holidays on Wednesdays and Saturdays and a whole 
 day's holiday on the more important Church Festivals. 
 For holidays they had a fortnight at Easter, five weeks at 
 Midsummer, a fortnight at Stourbridge Fair time and five 
 weeks at Christmas. 
 
 " The masters did not wear gowns during school hours. 
 The boys sat at long desks, which were furnished with 
 inkwells, and lockers covered by flaps." 
 
 Bailey appears to have taken charge of part of 
 
 the mathematical as well as the classical teaching. 
 
 He did not find himself interfered with by intruding 
 
 governors, but was left to manage the school very 
 
 much as he liked. The first governor to take any 
 
 active interest in the school was Dr. Benedict 
 
 Chapman, who had been Master from 1796 to 1799. 
 
 Shortly after his election to the Mastership of Caius 
 
 in 1839, Chapman paid a visit to the school. Mr. 
 
 Mordecai remembered 
 
 " his going round the School in his black knee breeches and 
 gaiters, and Mr. Barber's suggesting that a bolt should be 
 put on the gate and that a boy should be appointed to lock 
 it at 9 o'clock in order that the evil habits of the unpunctual 
 might be more patently advertised. Mr. Barber suggested 
 Mr. Mordecai, and Dr. Chapman appointed him." 
 
 Even to the schoolboy mind this reform would 
 appear but trivial. But what was it that brought 
 so important a personage as the Master of Caius to 
 
LAST DAYS OF ORIGINAL SCHEME 105 
 
 see the school, whose existence so many of his pre- 
 decessors had ignored ? His presence was due to 
 an agitation for reforms of far greater magnitude — 
 reforms which when achieved were to confer great 
 benefits on the Perse. But the events leading up to 
 and resulting from this agitation require a whole 
 chapter to themselves. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FROM ONE REFORM MOVEMENT TO ANOTHER 
 (1833-73) 
 
 It must not be supposed that during all the years of 
 
 neglect the word " reform " was never mentioned in 
 
 connection with the Perse Trust. Other objects of 
 
 the Founder's benefaction had suffered in the same 
 
 manner as the school. Whereas the Master and four 
 
 senior Fellows of Caius had between 18 12 and 1830 
 
 raised their own stipends from the original ;^9 
 
 per annum ordained by the Founder to £^^0 per 
 
 annum, the Perse Fellows at the same college had 
 
 still to subsist on the pittances given to them under 
 
 the Founder's will. This, however, could not go 
 
 long without comment. In 1830 two of the Perse 
 
 Fellows, H. O. Martin and Daniel Maude, made a 
 
 strong remonstrance against the prevailing practice 
 
 and demanded that the Perse scholars and Fellows 
 
 should also receive an augmentation of their salaries. 
 
 This remonstrance led to an examination into the 
 
 history and administration of the trust. 
 
 106 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 107 
 
 In consequence of the resulting disclosures, 
 Henry Bickersteth (better known at a later date as 
 Lord Langdale and Master of the Rolls), who was 
 then one of the four senior Fellows, ** felt so con- 
 vinced that he had improperly (but unwittingly, for 
 he did not reside here) received sums intended for 
 other uses, that he voluntarily refunded a sum of 
 nearly £800, and he then, or soon afterwards, gave 
 up his fellowship." An interesting commentary to 
 this very honourable action of Mr. Bickersteth is to 
 be found in the conduct of the recipients of this 
 /^8oo. ** The sum returned," we are told, " was 
 carried regularly to account merely as ' Received of 
 Mr. Bickersteth ' 1 ! ! ! and though, in consequence 
 of the increase in the stipends of the Perse Fellows, 
 the Master and four Seniors were obliged to reduce 
 their salaries in the course of that year, yet no other 
 effect seems to have been produced by Mr, Bicker- 
 steth's honourable and manly conduct." 
 
 Beyond the precincts of Caius there was an 
 increasing feeling of dissatisfaction as to the way in 
 which the Trust was being administered. As has 
 been seen, the voice of dissatisfaction was first 
 heard amongst the townspeople in 18 12, when it 
 was suggested to impose a quarterly tuition fee. 
 But in those days, with a corrupt and inefficient 
 Corporation governing the borough, there was no 
 
io8 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 organisation in the town which could reasonably 
 hope to conduct a successful agitation for reforma- 
 tion in the management of the Perse School. By 
 1833, however, all this was changed. The old 
 municipal Corporation was on its last legs, and reform 
 in every walk of civic life was the political battle-cry 
 of the hour. By now the agitators for reform in the 
 school were an organised body, and spoke with no 
 uncertain voice. 
 
 The reform party seem to have made representa- 
 tions to the governors, and to have requested them 
 to draw up a plan for a more equitable distribution 
 of the trust funds, the appointment of a regular 
 Usher, and the increase in the number of free places 
 to one hundred. Apparently the reply received did 
 not give satisfaction. A public meeting was called 
 to protest against the manner in which the school 
 was being managed. As a result of this meeting, it 
 was decided to proceed by way of information 
 against the Trustees. Accordingly, in 1833, an 
 information was filed against them at the relation of 
 Jeremiah Thring, William Reeves, and William 
 Metcalfe. The relators prayed for an account of 
 the property applicable for the purposes of the 
 charity as declared in the Wills of the Founder and 
 Griffith, and more particularly for an account of that 
 property applicable for the purposes of the school. 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 109 
 
 After asking for a declaration that the rents of the 
 Free School Lane property belonged exclusively to 
 the school, the relators went on to demand that the 
 Master and four senior Fellows and Bailey (who 
 was also made a defendant) should be made per- 
 sonally answerable for any part of the income which 
 the Court should find to have been misapplied by 
 them. In particular, it was asked that the Master 
 of Caius (Dr. Davy) and Dr. Woodhouse (the 
 senior Fellow),^ should be ordered to refund all the 
 monies they had wrongly received under the various 
 schemes of redistribution since 1804. Finally, the 
 relators prayed that the Master and four senior 
 Fellows might be deprived of all control of the 
 school. 
 
 Soon after the proceedings were instituted a 
 pamphlet was printed, which gives much interesting 
 information as to the evidence upon which the 
 relators relied. The pamphlet takes the form of an 
 open letter from a pseudonymous Lancelot Probe to 
 a pseudonymous Gamaliel Thorn. It is rather sur- 
 prising to find statements of this character appearing 
 in print at a time when the suit was still pending, but 
 it is still more surprising to learn of the methods 
 employed to obtain the evidence for which the 
 writer sought : 
 
 1 He was Usher of the Perse from 1806 to 1812. 
 
no HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 " My dear Thorn," writes Probe, " I no sooner received 
 your note respecting Perse's Free School, than I sent for 
 our worthy Httle friend Simpkins, and by his interference 
 I succeeded, though with some difficulty, in procuring the 
 loan for a short time of the papers, from which I have 
 extracted the following information ; upon the accuracy of 
 which, I assure you his lordship [sc, the judge] may implicitly 
 rely." 
 
 Comment is almost superfluous. It was only a most 
 extraordinary method of eliciting information from 
 an opponent in a lawsuit. 
 
 Howbeit, at this date we have no need to discuss 
 the ethics of the transaction. What we have to 
 consider is the evidence, which Probe, with the co- 
 operation of Simpkins, was able to obtain. They 
 certainly made a very exhaustive search of the 
 documents they were thus able to borrow, and some 
 of the facts published to the world in the open letter 
 are of very material interest. Some of these facts 
 have already been referred to in this book, but for 
 the purpose of making clear the exact manner in 
 which the trust funds had been dealt with, I think 
 it will not be amiss to repeat them here and to add 
 certain additional facts, which Lancelot Probe 
 brought to light. 
 
 The bulk of the letter deals with the application 
 of the income of the Trust. Probe points out that 
 this income had risen from ^^250 per annum at the 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 1 1 1 
 
 time of Perse's death to roughly £2000 per annum 
 in 1829. 
 
 " You are of course aware," he goes on to say, " that on 
 general principles the objects of the charitable trusts ought 
 to receive any benefit which may arise from the increase, or 
 suffer any loss from the decrease, of the trust proportionably. 
 In order to show how proportion has been violated in this 
 case, I beg your attention to the following account of the 
 expenditure for the year 1829, which it will be curious to 
 compare with the statement before given from Dr. Perse's 
 will." 
 
 For clearness and convenience' sake the two 
 statements referred to are subjoined in tabular 
 form : 
 
 Free School 
 Master 
 Usher 
 
 Almshouses - 
 
 Caius College — 
 Master 
 
 Four Senior Fel- 
 lows 
 Perse and Frank-" 
 land Fellows , 
 Perse Scholars - 
 College Chest and 
 other College 
 Officers - 
 
 Town of Cambridge 
 New River and 
 Barnwell Cause- 
 way - 
 
 Anniversary - 
 
 Poor of Massing-^ 
 ham, Marpley, 1- 
 and Barley J 
 
 Under the Founder's Will. In 1829. 
 
 I s. d. 
 
 40 o o 150 
 
 20 o o 60 o o o 
 
 300 
 
 600 
 78 o o 
 24 o o 
 
 17 II 4 
 
 Total 
 
 i 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 
 128 
 
 II 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 243 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 560 
 390 
 144 
 
 298 
 
 s. d. 
 
 I s 
 
 . d. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 
 120 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1672 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 9 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 1967 
 
 9 
 
112 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 From the above statistics Probe made the 
 following deductions : 
 
 " Taking the increase to be one-eighth of the original 
 endowment, the following will be a statement of the profit 
 and loss of a few of the principal objects of the charity in 
 the year referred to (in other words, the sums which some 
 were overpaid and the others underpaid). 
 
 Profit. Loss. 
 
 I s. d. i s. d. 
 
 Master of Caius Coll. 256 o o Free School - - 330 o o 
 
 Four senior Fellows - 512 o o Perse and Frankland 
 
 College Chest, etc. - 91 9 4 Fellows - - 230 o o 
 
 859 9 4 560 o o 
 
 " The coolness with which the Master and four seniors 
 (themselves the trustees) raised their own stipends from £9 
 to £840 per annum, must excite in the breasts of the old 
 Corporators [sc. of Cambridge] a conscious sense of their 
 inferiority in the practice of that charity which begins 
 at home. . . . 
 
 " Dr. Perse in his will gave nothing whatever to the Deans, 
 the Steward, the Conduct, the College Registrar, or the 
 Gardener ; but his faithful trustees have no scruple in 
 extending to these meritorious personages the benefit of his 
 munificence, and in 1799 the sum of £800 was paid out of 
 the trust fund towards the sum expended by the college in 
 repairs and new buildings, and in a contribution to govern- 
 ment for the internal defence of the country 1 ! ! " 
 
 The most serious of all Probe's allegations are 
 those made with reference to the manner in 
 which the accounts were kept. They are repeated 
 here for what they are worth, although without 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 113 
 
 impeaching his veracity a search in the trust 
 account books has not confirmed the first charge 
 brought against the bursar. After referring to 
 the Founder's directions as to the auditing of the 
 accounts, the letter goes on to say that these audits 
 have 
 
 " never been done within memory, and the accounts (kept 
 infinitely worse than churchwardens' or constables' accounts 
 are usually kept in country villages), are audited by the 
 Trustees themselves : — with what care will appear from 
 these facts. In one year the Bursar made a mistake {of 
 course in his own favour) of £iOO in adding up the account, 
 and this mistake, palpable as it is, has never yet been rectified, 
 and in more modern times a mistake of more than £iOO in 
 the Bursar's favour was not discovered until the second 
 audit afterwards. On another occasion, a tax of about £25 
 was suffered to creep into the account, although it was 
 imposed on property with which the Trust had nothing 
 whatever to do." 
 
 Reverting to the school itself Probe complains of 
 the reduction of the number of the free scholars, the 
 abolition of the post of Usher, the handing over of 
 the school premises to the Fitzwilliam Museum, and 
 the imposition of school fees.^ 
 
 Although this open letter did not constitute the 
 
 1 The pamphlet from which the above statements are taken is 
 entitled A Letter to the Burgesses of Cambridge on the approaching 
 municipal elections. By Gamaliel Thorn, Esq. With an appendix 
 relative to the Perse Free School, Cambridge : printed at Cambridge, 
 1835- 
 
 P.S. H 
 
114 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 pleadings of the relators,^ it gives in greater detail 
 the substance of their charges. The defendants' 
 pleadings have not been traced by me, but they 
 appear to have consisted in a more or less categorical 
 denial of the charges brought against them, and a 
 strong rebuttal of the imputation of bad faith in 
 their dealings with the trust funds. 
 
 The law is proverbially slow, and the case in 
 question proved no exception to the rule. The 
 defendants petitioned to have the action dismissed 
 as vexatious, but failed in their attempt. Finally, 
 the action came on for trial in the Rolls Court in 
 April, 1837. It is interesting to note that the 
 presiding judge was Henry Bickersteth, then Lord 
 Langdale. The hearing before him occupied three 
 days. No very determined defence was offered. 
 The Master and Fellows at the Bar admitted that 
 there had been irregularities in the administration 
 of the trust funds. In extenuation they pleaded 
 that their attention had never been seriously drawn 
 to the subject until about 1830, and that then they 
 had done their best to remedy past errors. They 
 now were prepared to offer every facility for 
 reorganising the trust. As a defence against the 
 
 ^ The pleadings in this case have not yet been discovered. They 
 have been wrongly filed at the Record Office. It is to be hoped 
 that some subsequent historian of the School will be more successful 
 in his search for them. 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 115 
 
 charge of misapplication of the trust funds they relied 
 on their own particular interpretation of the clause 
 in Perse's will directing the surplus income of the 
 charity to be " from time to time bestowed as my 
 Executors for their times, and after my Supervisors, 
 shall think fit." 
 
 Lord Langdale delivered judgment on July 31st, 
 1837. He pointed out that the difficulty as to the 
 true construction of the Founder's will arose from 
 the fact that Perse conceived of his charity only as 
 receiving a permanently fixed annual income, 
 whereas that income had proved to be a very varying 
 sum of money. With regard to the clause dealing 
 with surplus income, he held that no beneficial 
 gift was thereby made to Caius College, but that 
 the clause was a specific direction to bestow such 
 money upon charitable uses. Lord Langdale went 
 on to declare that the principal object of Dr. Perse's 
 benefaction was without doubt the school, and that 
 it was clearly to the school that the greater portion 
 of the trust income should be devoted. He had 
 been asked to remove the Master and Fellows of 
 Caius from their trusteeship : that, he felt, he could 
 not possibly do. " When I see how anxiously the 
 Founder in this case had connected his foundation 
 with the college and the utter impossibility of 
 separating the one from the other without defeating 
 
ii6 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 his plain and manifest intention, I conceive it to be 
 perfectly clear that the college cannot be removed 
 from the office of trustees." Neither could he see 
 his way to order the Master and Dr. Woodhouse 
 to refund the moneys they had received, as they had 
 participated in the division of the trust moneys with 
 persons, who were equally culpable, but who were 
 then dead, and therefore not before the Court. 
 
 Lord Langdale further declared that the sum of 
 /^loo was subject to the trusts of the will of George 
 Griffith, and that the school buildings and the adjoin- 
 ing house in Free School Lane belonged exclusively 
 to the school. He referred it to a Master in 
 Chancery to approve of a scheme for the general 
 administration of the property and to settle a scheme 
 for the future conduct and management of the 
 school. In settling such scheme the Master was to 
 be at liberty to approve of a plan for adding instruc- 
 tion in writing and arithmetic to the curriculum 
 prescribed by the Founder. 
 
 Another four years passed before the new pro- 
 posals for administering the trust received judicial 
 sanction. On July 31st, 1841, Sir Giffin Wilson, 
 the Master to whom the cause had been referred, 
 gave his approval to a revised scheme. In the first 
 place, the Master assented to a proposal for rebuild- 
 ing the school premises, and directed that a sum of 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 117 
 
 £2600 should be set aside out of the trust funds for 
 that purpose. The minimum salary attached to 
 the headmastership was fixed at ;^300, and that 
 attached to the post of Usher at ;£i 50. 
 
 The rules prescribed for the conduct and manage- 
 ment of the school kept as nearly as possible both to 
 the letter and the spirit of the Founder's will and the 
 ordinances made by his Executors in 162 1. It is 
 pleasing to see the old regulation which ordered a 
 decent oaken board to be hung up in the school with 
 the scholars' names inscribed thereon, repeated word 
 for word. The Usher was still required to keep a 
 register of admissions, and produce it to the Perse 
 Registrar for transcription. Preference was still to 
 be accorded to boys educated at the school in appoint- 
 ment to scholarships and fellowships on the Perse 
 foundation at Caius, and to the posts of Master and 
 Usher of the school. 
 
 Here and there, however, alterations had to be 
 made to adapt the school to modern requirements. 
 The number of free scholars remained at one 
 hundred — to be drawn from Cambridge and the 
 three adjacent villages, but the new rules went into 
 more detail with regard to the mode of choosing 
 them. Elections to vacancies were to be held four 
 times a year. The Perse Registrar was to give at 
 least seven days* warning of the meetings to be held 
 
ii8 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 to make such elections, by inserting a notice to that 
 effect in one or more of the local newspapers and by 
 posting a similar notice outside the school door. 
 Scholars were to be between ten and fourteen years 
 old at the time of their election, and were not to 
 remain longer than the midsummer vacation after 
 they should attain the age of eighteen. Morning 
 school was to begin at nine and last till twelve ; 
 afternoon school was to begin at two and last till 
 five. The new scheme also ordained early morning 
 school in summer time, which was to begin at seven 
 and last for an hour, but this rule very speedily fell 
 into abeyance. Saturday was to be a half-holiday, 
 and the Master was empowered to grant at his 
 discretion eight whole holidays and twelve other 
 half-holidays during the year. December 14th, 
 being the day now fixed for celebrating the Founder's 
 obit, was to be a whole holiday. 
 
 The Master was permitted to take in paying 
 scholars provided he took " such further sufficient 
 help " besides his regular staff as the Trustees 
 should think fit. These non-foundationers paid an 
 entrance fee of ;^5 and a half-yearly fee of ;^i, which 
 fees were to be divided between the headmaster and 
 Usher. To provide for an additional master, who 
 was to be called the Assistant Usher, the governors 
 were empowered to charge free scholars an entrance 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 119 
 
 fee of thirty shillings and a half-yearly fee of ten 
 shillings. 
 
 The vacations were to be five weeks at Christmas 
 commencing on December 19th, ten days at Easter 
 commencing the day before Good Friday, and five 
 weeks at Midsummer commencing on June i8th. 
 Within one week of the Midsummer holidays the 
 free scholars were to be examined ** as to their 
 proficiency in classical and mathematical learning " 
 by two persons of the standing of M.A., appointed 
 by the Trustees. The examiners were to class the 
 boys according to merit and award prizes on the 
 examination. 
 
 Before dealing with the history of the school 
 under this new scheme, it will be necessary to go 
 back a few years and give an account of the events 
 happening in the school whilst the suit in Chancery 
 was pending. After the information was filed, the 
 Trustees endeavoured to set the school's affairs in 
 better order. In 1833 they appointed a regular 
 Usher and made him an allowance in lieu of a house, 
 his proper residence being still in the hands of the 
 Fitzwilliam syndics. At Lady Day in the same 
 year Bailey resigned. His health had not been good 
 for some time past, and he had been absent from 
 school most of the previous autumn. He appears 
 to have been worried amongst other things by the 
 
I20 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Chancery suit, in which it will be remembered he 
 was a defendant, and his medical advisers strongly 
 recommended him to give up his work. The 
 Trustees recognised his services to the school in a 
 very generous manner by granting him a pension. 
 It is gratifying to note that the Court of Chancery 
 subsequently confirmed this grant, and at the same 
 time refused to make any order as to costs against 
 Bailey. The work he did for the Perse merited 
 better treatment than proceedings in Chancery, and 
 it was well that he was compensated for the worries 
 and anxieties of the lawsuit by appreciation in such 
 a tangible form. Bailey left Cambridge for London, 
 where he appears to have supplemented his pension 
 by writing for the Classical and other journals, but 
 his latter days were not entirely free from financial 
 trouble. However, a Civil List Pension, awarded 
 in recognition of his services to classical study, helped 
 to alleviate the anxieties of his declining years. 
 
 The governors did not at once appoint a suc- 
 cessor to Bailey. They placed a newly elected 
 Fellow of Caius in temporary charge of the school. 
 This was Charles Clayton, who had formerly been 
 one of Bailey's most successful pupils. Whilst at 
 the University he was a Browne's Medallist on two 
 occasions. Later in life he became well known as 
 a popular college tutor, but perhaps he is best 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 121 
 
 remembered in Cambridge as vicar of Holy Trinity, 
 where he proved an able successor to Charles Simeon. 
 He had charge of the Perse for a single year only, 
 but subsequently as an examiner and a member of 
 the governing body he took a warm interest in his 
 old school. Not a few Perseans owed much of 
 their success in after life to the kindly advice and 
 encouragement he offered them whilst they were 
 still schoolboys. 
 
 In April, 1837, the governors chose Peter Mason 
 of St. John's College as headmaster. He was a 
 distinguished mathematician, having graduated third 
 wrangler in the year in which Sir George Airy was 
 senior. To Mason was entrusted the task of 
 carrying the revised scheme into effect. For the 
 first five years he taught in the southern wing of the 
 school buildings, where Bailey had taught before 
 him. In 1 842 the Fitzwilliam collection was moved 
 out of the schoolhouse proper, and in pursuance of 
 the order of the Court the whole of the buildings 
 were rebuilt and enlarged. Mason and his Usher, 
 the Rev. George Barber, were driven out of their 
 houses for the time being, but the governors made 
 them an allowance in lieu of residence. By 1 844 a 
 new range of buildings was ready for the reception 
 of Masters and boys. The architect, Mr. John 
 Smith, retained the old quadrangle formation of the 
 
122 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 original buildings, and the old schoolroom with its 
 fine Jacobean roof was preserved almost intact. 
 The lighting of this room was improved by the 
 insertion of large three-light windows with diamond 
 shaped panes. An honours board was hung up on 
 one of the walls of the room, but it was chiefly 
 remarkable for its lacunae, for Jeremy Taylor's 
 successes were immediately followed by those of 
 the late locum tenens, Charles Clayton. Another 
 embellishment was " a splendid globe three feet in 
 diameter, and weighing three stone, suspended for 
 convenience from the roof," which evoked the 
 admiration of a contemporary guidebook. The two 
 masters' houses, lying on either side of the school- 
 room, were rebuilt on a more commodious scale. 
 
 The number of pupils had to be strictly Hmited 
 until these buildings were ready for the full hundred 
 boys. At the end of 1844 Mason had hardly as 
 many as twenty boys to teach, but as soon as the new 
 premises were opened the numbers rose instan- 
 taneously to one hundred. At the same time an 
 Assistant Usher, the Rev. E. W. Gilbert, appeared on 
 the scene. The school was divided into six classes, 
 of which the first was the highest. Every boy was 
 placed in the sixth or lowest class on joining the 
 school. The Master took this class and the first, 
 and was thus able to make the acquaintance and 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 123 
 
 gauge the calibre of each newcomer. Mr. Barber 
 took the second and third classes, and Mr. Gilbert 
 the fourth and fifth. Greek, Latin, and Arithmetic 
 were the subjects taught in the lower classes. 
 Homer, Xenophon, Anacreon and Virgil were read 
 in the first class : the second learnt Ovid and the 
 Greek Testament : in the fourth the boys used the 
 Eton Grammar, Valpy's Syntax and Prosody and a 
 book entitled Propria qu<£ maribus. None of the 
 Masters were classical scholars and so the educa- 
 tion in this subject was not so efficient as perhaps 
 it ought to have been. At this period the Perse 
 might almost be called an exclusively mathematical 
 school. Not only did classics fall far behind the 
 standard attained in many other schools of the same 
 size, but general English subjects were almost 
 totally neglected. The second class was supposed 
 to read Goldsmith's Geography, but a scholar of this 
 period informs us : 
 
 " Of English the utmost search of calls of memory reveals 
 only some Geography with Mr. Gilbert in some lower class, 
 and some Shakespeare read round boy by boy without 
 pause for comment or explanation in the first form. Of 
 modern languages or science, music or drawing, there was 
 nothing whatever in connection with the school." 
 
 The books in use for religious instruction were 
 Watts' Scripture History and Pinnock's Catechism. 
 
124 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Peter Mason was more fortunate than his pre- 
 decessors in that he succeeded in interesting several 
 members of the governing body in the school. 
 Amongst these the name of Charles Clayton has 
 already been mentioned. Another was the future 
 Sir George Paget, who was appointed Perse Regis- 
 trar in 1836. He started a school admission 
 register which is still to be seen in the Caius College 
 Treasury, many of its pages being written in his 
 beautifully clear handwriting. He was also in the 
 habit of being present at the Midsummer examina- 
 tions, and in many other ways showing an interest 
 in the boys. It is with no surprise, therefore, that 
 we read of a whole holiday being given on December 
 12, 1851, "on account of Dr. Paget's Marriage 
 yesterday." The connection of his family with the 
 school did not end then. Some half a century later 
 a grandson of Sir George Paget entered the Perse, 
 and to-day his name can be seen inscribed on one of 
 the Honours Shields and Fellowship Board adorning 
 the School Hall. 
 
 The Master has left behind an interesting record 
 of the holidays given by him. General Fasts and 
 Days of Humiliation during the Crimean War and 
 Indian Mutiny are whole holidays. The capture of 
 Sebastopol and the signing of the Peace in 1856 are 
 events to be celebrated by a whole day off school. 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 125 
 
 Equally interesting are the holidays given on De- 
 cember 4, 1 857, " in order to give us an opportunity 
 of hearing Dr. Livingstone," and on March 15, 
 1858, " to enable the boys and masters to see the 
 great eclipse of the sun." But the headmaster must 
 have felt proudest of all on April 4, 1 854, when there 
 was " a Whole Holiday By order of the Trustees, 
 P. H. Mason, late a student of this school [and his 
 own son] being elected a Fellow of St. John's 
 College." The son's success was but one of many. 
 Four other pupils of Mason obtained fellowships at 
 different colleges. Their success was in a very 
 large measure due to the headmaster's inspiration. 
 
 " Every boy felt and knew," says one of his pupils, " that 
 as soon as he developed the slightest spark of Mathematical 
 taste he found in his head master a firm friend, a teacher, and 
 more, a worker with him, absolutely untiring in his efforts 
 to clear away difficulties and encourage him to make big 
 his aims." 
 
 One of Mason's pupils stands out pre-eminently 
 above ail his schoolfellows, not only as a great 
 scholar, but as a great patriot. Edward Henry 
 Palmer, an orphan, was admitted at Lady Day, 1 851, 
 being then just ten years old. Few biographies are 
 more interesting than that of Palmer, written by his 
 friend, Walter Besant, but a few fresh facts con- 
 cerning Palmer's school days have come to light 
 since Besant wrote his book, and they will be of 
 
126 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 interest to all Perseans who are proud of their 
 departed worthies. Palmer was three years at the 
 Perse, and then left on account of ill health. But 
 in that brief period he revealed some of that talent 
 which afterwards brought him into such prominence. 
 He was little over fourteen when he left, and it was 
 still, in Besant's words, ** the days of small begin- 
 nings." Placed at first like any other new-comer in 
 the bottom class, he quickly worked his way up to 
 the top but one, where he arrived before he was 
 thirteen. At the end of his first year his name 
 appeared in the prize list as the winner of a divinity 
 prize open to the whole school. Had his constitu- 
 tion been more robust at this period in his life, he 
 would probably have won a scholarship at the 
 University, and thus have been spared those years 
 of struggle which preceded his admission to St. 
 John's. He left when he was too young to have 
 attracted the attention of his masters. 
 
 " He was not," says Besant, " a bookworm, nor was he 
 precocious. . . . He always disliked mathematics. . . . Those 
 who remember him at that time, and were his schoolfellows, 
 say that he was always small, and apparently weak of frame, 
 yet that he could do things which proved great muscular 
 strength and endurance ; thus he was admirable on the 
 trapeze and gymnastic bars, and he was a bold and fearless 
 swimmer. He took no part in the cricket field or at football, 
 but he was clever with his fingers and he was constantly 
 making or devising things ; he read a great deal, especially 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 127 
 
 poetry ; and he was greatly caressed and petted by every- 
 body, partly on account of a general belief that he would die 
 early, partly on account of the singular personal charm which 
 was always his most striking characteristic. 
 
 " He began to feel his way in languages while still a boy at 
 school, independently of his Latin and Greek. He learned 
 Romany. This is not a language with a grammar, save at 
 those heights of pure Romany to which few of the People 
 attain. It is a vocabulary. The boy learned it by paying 
 travelling tinkers sixpence for a lesson, by haunting the 
 tents, talking to the men, and crossing the women's palms 
 with his pocket money in exchange for a few more words 
 to add to his vocabulary. In this way he gradually made for 
 himself a gipsy dictionary. No one of all those who have 
 been attracted by these picturesque wanderers knew them 
 better, or could more readily enter into their minds than 
 Palmer — not even his brother in Romany lore, Charles 
 Leland. This acquisition of Romany is the only achievement 
 of his school days in which one can find promise of the later 
 days. There are not, it may be owned, many schoolboys 
 who save up their pocket-money in order to take lessons 
 of tramps and vagabonds in the gipsy tongue." 
 
 The rest of his life — his distinguished University 
 career, his great ride through the desert to his death 
 amongst the Arabs, and his honoured grave in St. 
 Paul's — belongs to the whole English nation, and 
 the story has been told by Besant in a biography in 
 words which every Persean of spirit will be the 
 better for reading. 
 
 Besant is probably right in suggesting that the 
 Perse did not give Palmer everything which a 
 
128 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 school ought to give. It is to be feared that the 
 Perse in his days was altogether lacking in any sort 
 or form of school life or patriotism outside the school 
 walls. As a contemporary says : 
 
 " There was no organization of games, no school eleven, 
 no school anything. Once outside the door of that big 
 school the units fell to pieces for want of social cement, 
 each going his own way to his house or to companions of 
 his own choosing, doing exactly what was right in his 
 own eyes. A shy self-conscious boy gained nothing but 
 intellectual advantages — only part of what a school can 
 give." 
 
 To this lack of a proper esprit de corps must in a 
 large measure be attributed the woeful decline in the 
 discipline of the school in the sixties. So long as 
 Mason was young and active, and so long as he could 
 depend on the loyal assistance of his colleagues, 
 discipline was good. But the day came when the 
 Master grew past his work, and as often as not 
 illness prevented him from coming to the school. 
 Unfortunately, one of his assistants, a fiery Irishman, 
 proved not only incapable of maintaining order but 
 also openly disloyal to his chief. This Irishman 
 succeeded Mr. Barber as Usher in 1861, and was 
 soon afterwards left virtually in charge of the 
 school. Under him the lack of discipline became 
 so appalling that several prominent inhabitants of 
 Cambridge made a public protest to the Trustees. 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 129 
 
 The reply did not prove conciliatory, and the 
 memorialists then enlisted the sympathy of the Town 
 Council, which appointed a committee to enquire 
 into the alleged defects of the school and to consider 
 the most satisfactory means of placing the Perse 
 more under popular control. Unfortunately this 
 committee made very little progress. Its efforts 
 were hampered by the extremely injudicious conduct 
 of some of its supporters. The Usher saw fit to 
 make a scurrilous attack on the chairman of the 
 committee in the local press, the pseudonym under 
 which he wrote being no less arrogant a title than 
 " Rex Persarum 1 " Some of the chairman's more 
 ill-advised friends retaliated by attacking the Usher 
 in a similar strain. Then followed a long anony- 
 mous correspondence, full of virulent abuse and 
 mutual recrimination, which did neither side any 
 good and the Perse a vast deal of harm. Both 
 inside and outside the school things soon became 
 intolerable. The climax was reached one memor- 
 able day when the Usher and another Master fell 
 out over some trivial dispute, and 
 
 " came not only to bitter words, but to actual hldws in the 
 middle of the school-room, aided and abetted by the shouts 
 and jeers of all the boys. All this sounds incredible and, of 
 course, is quite impossible nowadays : but it actually 
 happened some fifty years ago." ^ 
 
 1 Pelican, December, igog, p. 78. 
 
I30 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 After this the governors had to intervene, and both 
 the combatants beat an ignominious retreat. The 
 governors decided that it was time that a younger 
 man had charge of the Perse, and so Peter Mason 
 retired. For his past services he was awarded a well- 
 merited pension. He did not live long to enjoy it, 
 dying in 1868. He did good work for the school, 
 when he was in his prime, and gratitude demands 
 that this good work, and none of the evils which 
 befell the Perse in his latter days, should live after 
 him. It was his misfortune that his retirement was 
 rendered necessary owing to circumstances over 
 which ill-health prevented him from having any 
 control. 
 
 Towards the end of Mason's Mastership strong 
 representations had been made to the Trustees about 
 the neglect of classical teaching. In 1864 this 
 defect was remedied. A Johnian, like his pre- 
 decessor, Frederic Heppenstal was more of an all- 
 round man. Not only was he a ninth Classic but 
 also a senior Optime. During the eleven years he 
 was at the Perse the school underwent a complete 
 change. Discipline, which had been so deplorably 
 lax in the late fifties and early sixties, went altogether 
 to pieces during the interregnum which preceded 
 his appointment. Even optimists prophesied that 
 it would take many years to infuse a right spirit 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 131 
 
 into the school, but such was Heppenstal's per- 
 sonality that not only did disorder soon become a 
 thing of the past, but there grew up a healthy 
 patriotism which has been of lasting benefit to the 
 school. Although his manner was somewhat 
 austere, and constant ill health occasionally inclined 
 him to be irritable, those of his pupils who got 
 to know him well found he was endowed with 
 genuine kindheartedness and unbounded liberality. 
 A strict disciplinarian, he earned the respect and 
 affection of all his pupils, and indeed of all people 
 who can admire a good man endeavouring to do his 
 duty in the face of an incurable disease. 
 
 Heppenstal at once set to work to make school 
 life more real outside as well as inside the classroom. 
 He threw himself heart and soul into the boys* 
 games and frequently took part in them himself. 
 Athletics were by no means a novelty at the Perse. 
 As early as 1856 cricket had obtained official 
 recognition, for in September of that year the 
 governors gave a whole holiday on the occasion of 
 a match against Lynn School. Even before this 
 the Perse had produced prominent local players ; 
 A. J. D. Diver (adm. 1836) was the principal bowler 
 for Cambridge Town in the days when the 
 University had no easy task to beat that club, 
 and C. J. Hutt (adm, 1B35) used to play for the 
 
132 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 University in the forties. But games, such as they 
 were, formed no part of the school life until Hep- 
 penstal's time. Until then the cricket and football 
 teams were merely voluntary organisations got up 
 amongst the boys themselves. Strictly speaking, 
 Heppenstal did not introduce compulsory games, 
 but he made games so popular an institution that it 
 came to be a point of honour with the boys that 
 membership of the school should entail membership 
 of the Games Club. 
 
 The reformer's hand was no less active inside 
 the school than out. Classical teaching made such 
 rapid progress that only two years after Heppen- 
 stal's arrival the Endowed Schools Commissioners 
 could report that the results were most encouraging. 
 In time Heppenstal gathered round him a band of 
 earnest students, whom he imbued with his love of 
 classical learning and accuracy. Many of his boys 
 afterwards figured high in the scholarship lists at 
 Cambridge University. Five became fellows of 
 their colleges, and of these one, T. J. Lawrence, 
 obtained the unique distinction of being senior in 
 two triposes. Law and Moral Science. At the 
 same time mathematics were not neglected. This 
 branch of the school was placed in the charge of 
 Rev. John Wisken, himself an old Persean and a 
 high wrangler. 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 133 
 
 In providing for instruction in other subjects 
 Heppenstal was severely hampered by the smallness 
 of his staff. At one time a proposal was mooted 
 that paying scholars should be charged special fees, 
 and that these fees should go towards the main- 
 tenance of a fourth Master, but the number of paying 
 scholars was so small that nothing came of the plan. 
 In 1866 there were only five non-foundationers, each 
 paying ^^lo a year in addition to the payments 
 directed by decree of 1841, ** and it has been found 
 impossible hitherto to maintain an additional master 
 for so small a number ; but the trustees have resolved 
 that so soon as there should be six paying scholars 
 another master should be engaged."^ In 1867 a 
 French Master and Drawing Master were engaged. 
 In the same year the two lowest classes were incor- 
 porated in an English Department intended for those 
 who were too young to receive or did not require 
 instruction in Greek. In 1868 the advent of a sixth 
 non-foundationer enabled the Trustees to appoint a 
 fourth regular Master. During the next seven 
 years further additions were made to the staff. 
 Before he left, Heppenstal had seven assistants, 
 including a Science Master appointed in 1873. 
 
 These later additions to the staff were rendered 
 possible as the result of a general re-arrangement of 
 
 ^ Report of Endowed Schools Commission, 1864-8. 
 
134 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 the Perse Trust under a scheme sanctioned by Her 
 Majesty in Council on August 9th, 1873. In 
 Cambridge there had prevailed for some time past 
 a feeling that the school ought to be placed under 
 the control of a body less independent of municipal 
 influence.^ The committee appointed by the Town 
 Council in 1861 was not altogether inactive, and had 
 agitated for a new constitution for the Perse with a 
 governing body on which the municipality should 
 be adequately represented. The injudicious news- 
 paper warfare, to which reference has already been 
 made, for a time retarded progress in this direction. 
 The Inspector of Endowed Schools, who visited the 
 Perse in 1866, gave the movement very little 
 encouragement. 
 
 "There can be no doubt," he said, "that the existing 
 body of trustees is well qualified to deal with all educational 
 questions arising in connection with the school, and being on 
 the spot, their advice and assistance is readily obtainable. 
 The establishment of an English department too shows that 
 they have no wish to make the course of instruction in any 
 way exclusive or to restrict it to those for whom a high class 
 or ' liberal ' education is desired. Probably the only dis- 
 advantage attending the present institution consists in the 
 
 * The first movement in favour of municipal control dates back 
 to 1842. In that year it was proposed to converge a meeting to 
 protest against the refusal of Caius College to award a Perse Scholar- 
 ship to an old Persean, who had done well in his May examination. 
 As, however, the conveners discovered that they were mistaken as 
 to facts, the meeting was never held. 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 135 
 
 check that may be given to the growth of that feeHng of 
 common interest which should bind a town to its principal 
 place of education." 
 
 Nevertheless, the disadvantage which the Inspector 
 thus airily passed over, was not wholly to be dis- 
 regarded and was, in fact, appreciated by the 
 Trustees themselves. 
 
 The Endowed Schools Commissioners fully 
 realised the necessity for giving the town a voice in 
 the management of the school when in 1873 they 
 approved of the new scheme drawn up under the 
 Endowed Schools Act of 1869. Although 
 numerous alterations have since been made as to 
 details, the salient features of this scheme still exist. 
 The greatest change was that made in the com- 
 position of the governing body. The Master 
 and four senior Fellows of Caius College were 
 replaced by fifteen governors. The connection with 
 Caius was, however, perpetuated by conferring on 
 the College the right to nominate three of the 
 members of the new governing body. Of the 
 remaining governors, three were appointed by the 
 University, six were appointed by the Town Council, 
 and the remainder were co-opted. The co-opted 
 members were appointed for six years and the others 
 for three. 
 
 The old titles of Master, Usher, and Assistant 
 
136 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Usher were exchanged for those of Headmaster 
 and Assistant Masters. The Headmaster was in 
 future to be paid partly by a fixed salary and partly 
 by capitation fees. The school was divided into 
 two departments — a junior and a senior. The 
 former was the same as the English Department 
 estabHshed in 1866 and subsequently acquired the 
 appellation of the Commercial Side, by which name 
 it was known until Sides were abolished in 1902. 
 The Junior Department was intended for boys 
 between the ages of eight and sixteen, who were 
 required to pay only half the fees payable in the 
 other Department. For the Senior Department 
 Greek was compulsory, and the boys were permitted 
 to remain until they were nineteen. At the same 
 time the number of free places was reduced to 
 twenty-five, but these were still restricted to natives 
 of Cambridge, Barnwell, Chesterton, and Trumping- 
 ton. The Perse Scholarships and Fellowships at 
 Caius had already come to an end, having been 
 merged in the common scholarship fund of that 
 college by the University Commissioners in i860. 
 After that date boys from the Perse ceased to have 
 any preference in election to scholarships at Caius, 
 but no compensation was made to the school for 
 this loss. 
 
 The greatest change of all effected by the new 
 
FROM ONE REFORM TO ANOTHER 137 
 
 scheme was the estabUshment of a school for girls. 
 This was placed under the charge of ten managers, 
 six being appointed by the governing body of the 
 boys' school and four being co-opted. 
 
 At the same time, steps were taken for the parti- 
 tion of the trust property and the assignment of a 
 portion thereof to the new governors for the sole 
 use of the school. The Order in Council directed 
 that land and securities should be handed over to 
 the governors representing roughly two-sevenths of 
 the whole trust income. The scheme for partition 
 was not actually sanctioned until February 3rd, 
 1880, when the governors received the Manor of 
 Frating (subject to certain rights thereover reserved 
 to the Perse Trustees), two farms comprising about 
 four hundred and fifty acres, and woodlands com- 
 prising about one hundred acres in the parish of 
 Frating, and a sum of ;^6,22 8 2s. id. in Consols. 
 Out of the rents and dividends accruing therefrom 
 an annual sum of ;£i50, or in lieu thereof one 
 quarter of the total income, was to be paid to the 
 managers of the girls' school. The Frating 
 property was held until 191 3, when it was sold to 
 provide the purchase money for a site adjoining the 
 boys* school. At the time of the partition it was 
 valued at ^^20,000, but during the agricultural 
 depression in the last century the property 
 
138 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 depreciated considerably. For a long time it was 
 found impossible to pay the full contribution to the 
 girls' school. 
 
 Heppenstal remained at the Perse for two years 
 after the introduction of the new scheme. In 1875 
 he left to take up the Headmastership of Sedbergh 
 School, where his work enhanced the reputation he 
 had already won at the Perse. Unhappily a career 
 full of promise was cut short by sudden death . 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 
 
 The last fifty years cover approximately the Head- 
 masterships of J. B. Allen (1875-84), H. C. Barnes- 
 Laurence (i 884-1902), and W. H. D. Rouse 
 (since 1902), For reasons, which are easily 
 apparent, it is not possible to do adequate justice 
 in the present chapter to all that has happened in 
 the history of the Perse during that period. Never 
 theless, so many important developments, deeply 
 affecting the fortunes of the Perse, have occurred 
 that a history of the school would be incomplete 
 without some mention of them. 
 
 One of the greatest changes of all during the 
 period under review was undoubtedly the trans- 
 plantation of the school from Free School Lane to 
 Hills Road. For some years prior to 1888 Cam- 
 bridge University had been buying up the site of 
 what had once been the close of the Augustinian 
 Friars. By the beginning of that year all the land 
 except that occupied by the school and the Perse 
 
 139 
 
I40 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 Almshouses had been acquired, and negotiations were 
 begun for the purchase of the remaining strip of land. 
 The school premises were too confined for the in- 
 creased number of boys then attending the Perse, and 
 the University's previous purchases had rendered 
 expansion on the Free School Lane site impossible. 
 Except on grounds of sentiment, no objection could 
 be raised to the acquisition of the site by the 
 University. Caius College offered for sale another 
 site on Hills Road, which the governors purchased 
 for /^45oo. The old premises were sold for 
 ;^ 1 2,000, and others erected on the new site from 
 the designs of W. M. Fawcett, at a cost of ;£ 14, 500. 
 In 1890 the new school was ready for the reception 
 of masters and boys, and the migration took place. 
 The buildings were formally opened at a public 
 banquet at which the Rt. Hon. H. C. Raikes (then 
 Postmaster-General) and the late Sir Richard Jebb 
 were the principal speakers. Some of the interest- 
 ing rooms of the old school were incorporated in 
 the Engineering Laboratory which took its place, and 
 the fine old Jacobean roof was preserved. Exter- 
 nally, however, not a trace of the old school is now 
 left. The Headmaster's house stood until 1912, 
 but was pulled down in that year to make room for 
 an extension of the Laboratory. 
 
 To the new school buildings was added in 1892 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 141 
 
 (with the assistance of a grant from the Cambridge 
 Borough Council) a chemical laboratory. Other 
 additions (including an armoury for the Officers' 
 Training Corps) have been made in more recent 
 years. The site was enlarged in 19 14 by the 
 acquisition of the house adjoining it on the south 
 side. 
 
 A playing field off Luard Road was acquired in 
 1906 from Trinity College. Until that date the 
 Games Club had never owned a field, but had had 
 to be content with the very unsatisfactory expedient 
 of sharing Parker's Piece with other clubs. A 
 miniature rifle range was constructed on the playing 
 field entirely by members of the school. When the 
 Perse was removed to Hills Road, neither Head- 
 master nor Second Master was provided with a 
 house on the new site. For a long time the masters 
 had to find what quarters they could in the town. 
 These premises were generally ill-adapted for the 
 reception of boarders. Want of funds unfor- 
 tunately prevented the governors from erecting 
 boarding houses, and the matter of accommodation 
 was left in a more or less unsatisfactory state until 
 191 1. In that year the present Headmaster and 
 Mr. I. H. Hersch each built a suitable house on land 
 near to the playing field. The Perse owes a debt 
 of gratitude to both of them, for these buildings 
 
142 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 were erected at their own expense. The arrival 
 of boarders recalls the former days of the school's 
 prosperity in the seventeenth century. In Septem- 
 ber 1 910 the Preparatory Department was removed 
 from the school buildings to Bateman House, thus 
 releasing two class-rooms urgently needed for the 
 increasing numbers. 
 
 Perhaps the most far-reaching change, which has 
 occurred during the period under review, is that 
 which took place in 1902. It will be remembered 
 that in 1 866 an English Department was established, 
 which subsequently came to be known as the Com- 
 mercial Side. From that date until 1 900 the Perse 
 was conducted as a dual school with Classical and 
 Commercial Sides. In 1899 there were approxi- 
 mately 210 boys in the school. Of these, some 
 thirty were in the preparatory department, and the 
 remainder roughly divided as to two-thirds in the 
 Commercial and as to one-third on the Classical Side. 
 Boys on the latter side paid a higher fee, and the two 
 sides were kept separate and distinct not only as 
 regards educational work but also to a very consider- 
 able degree as regards recreation and general school 
 life. Such an organisation required an unusually 
 large staff, and suffered from many obvious dis- 
 advantages. In the autumn of 1 900 the Cambridge- 
 shire Education Committee established in 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 143 
 
 Cambridge a County School for Boys, where courses 
 in technical and commercial subjects could be 
 obtained at a very cheap cost. The Perse was at 
 this time in serious financial straits, and it became 
 apparent that with a competitor in the field the dual 
 organisation must be abandoned. It was therefore 
 decided that the school should be developed as a 
 single school on the lines of the Classical Side, and 
 that provision for the teaching required on the 
 Commercial Side should be left in other hands. 
 
 Of the actual work of the school in the earlier 
 part of the period covered by this chapter, little need 
 be said. When Mr. Barnes-Laurence was appointed 
 Headmaster in 1884 there were less than 100 boys : 
 in a few years he not only doubled the numbers, but 
 immensely improved the efficiency of the school in 
 all directions, and raised its tone and the standard 
 of discipline. The record of scholarships and other 
 successes at the Universities bear testimony to the 
 good teaching of the school, while his influence on 
 character, and encouragement of athletics and other 
 sides of school life were no less marked. A keen 
 cricketer himself, he set an example of interest in 
 games, and introduced sound methods of adminis- 
 tration and the " conduct of business " which have 
 been of service to his pupils in after-life. The 
 period of his Headmastership saw the establishment 
 
144 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 or revival of the Annual Athletic Sports (in 1887), 
 of the School Debating Society, and of the school 
 magazine, The Pelican. 
 
 By a sad coincidence, he passed away within a 
 few weeks of these lines being penned. 
 
 The important change in the constitution of the 
 school to which allusion has been made virtually 
 coincided with the appointment as his successor in 
 1 902 of Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, late Fellow of Christ's 
 College. Perhaps no other Headmaster in the long 
 history of English public school education has been 
 surrounded by so able, so generous, and so devoted 
 a body of workers and colleagues as Dr. Rouse. 
 All in their persons and respective departments have 
 contributed to a scheme of reform which is both 
 comprehensive and unique. The time has not yet 
 come to make public so intimate a record of unselfish 
 labour and self-sacrifice. Suffice it to say that in 
 time to come their names will be familiar to all who 
 care to study one of the most remarkable and most 
 successful experiments ever made in the history of 
 English education. The curriculum of the Perse 
 can now justly claim to be an "all subjects" cur- 
 riculum. It has been built up by the united efforts 
 of Dr. Rouse and his staff, working on broad 
 principles which govern not only its plan as a whole 
 but also the methods applied to its special or 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 145 
 
 component parts. The object of the instructors is to 
 unite throughout in a greater or lesser degree both 
 mental and bodily activities. Premature specialisa- 
 tion is avoided, and the pupil's mind is not overloaded 
 with more new work than it can undertake at any 
 one moment. By gradual process the master takes 
 his pupil from what is known and what is concrete 
 or easy to what is difficult, abstract, and unknown, 
 and in the process the boy retains his vivacity and 
 his interest in the acquiring of knowledge. 
 
 It was on account of his teaching of Languages, 
 and especially the Classics, that Dr. Rouse first 
 attracted the attention of educationalists to the 
 Perse School. He has applied not only to French 
 and German, but also to Greek and Latin the 
 natural or direct method, wherein experience is 
 associated with expression and the idea with the 
 spoken word. Chiefly owing to the success which 
 has attended the experiments at the Perse this 
 method has in recent years been adopted for the 
 teaching of Modern Languages in other pro- 
 gressive schools. Dr. Rouse has shown that 
 the same method meets with conspicuous success 
 when applied to Classical teaching. After all, 
 as he says, ** the Romans used Latin and the Greeks 
 used Greek to express their daily thoughts to one 
 another," and there is no reason why life should 
 
146 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 not be breathed into what too often in the past 
 has been the dry bones of Classics. 
 
 The direct method has produced remarkable 
 results in the teaching of French, in great measure 
 due to the skill and devotion of Mr. L. C. de Glehn. 
 Perhaps the most noticeable thing is the excellence 
 of the pupils' French pronunciation. It is often 
 hard to believe that some of the boys who have 
 learnt French at the Perse have not acquired their 
 accents in France. There have been some very 
 successful productions of French plays, including 
 de Banville's Gringoire^ performed in 1919. 
 
 Experience has shown that the average boy can 
 with little difficulty take four languages during the 
 course of his school career and learn them thoroughly. 
 At the Perse a boy's early years are devoted to a 
 thorough grounding in English. At the age of 
 ten he will begin to learn French by the direct 
 method. Other languages are taken up at intervals 
 of approximately two years. At the age of twelve 
 a boy will have learnt to express himself easily in 
 French, and will begin to study Latin. Two years 
 later Latin will be followed by Greek, and at sixteen 
 he will tackle German. When the fourth language 
 is begun, French is dropped except for occasional 
 reading to keep it fresh. In the teaching of each 
 of these languages special attention is paid to 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 147 
 
 pronunciation, and the speaking of the language 
 precedes the writing of it. When the boy has by 
 speaking learnt also to express himself in writing he 
 turns to composition. He is not surfeited with the 
 endless string of meaningless sentences for trans- 
 lation and set pieces of prose which have driven the 
 love of languages out of so many schoolboys in the 
 past. In Latin composition, for instance, he will 
 in the first instance be told a story in Latin and then 
 be required to paraphrase it from memory. At a 
 further stage he will be given the resume of a 
 story and be expected to enlarge thereon. Later 
 still he will be given a theme. 
 
 Equal care is bestowed throughout the boy's 
 school career on the teaching of English. In this 
 subject the Perse has been fortunate in having the 
 services of Mr. Caldwell Cook, the author of the 
 " Play Way." He has proved what a vast deal can 
 be done to instil into boys a genuine love for all that 
 is highest and best in English literature. Boys are 
 encouraged to write ballads and plays. They also 
 give lectures to their forms on a variety of subjects. 
 After the lecture has been delivered, the criticism of 
 the form is invited and freely given. All these 
 proceedings are taken by the boys as a matter of 
 course, and by this system the boy-lecturer is saved 
 from the tendency to priggishness which might be 
 
148 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 expected. He retains his natural boyishness, and 
 with the co-operation not only of his Master but 
 also of his schoolfellows learns to put pleasurable 
 pursuits to real and valuable use. With a longing 
 to create he acquires the abihty to justify his ambition. 
 
 Great scope for giving practical expression to this 
 creative enthusiasm is found in the dramatic per- 
 formances which are staged by the boys each term. 
 It is the Headmaster's ambition that handicraft, 
 embroidery and kindred crafts should be Hnked up 
 with literature and other intellectual studies. Thus, 
 when it has been decided to act a certain play, the 
 actors would make the furniture for the stage in their 
 carpenter's shop, would design, cut out, and make 
 their own costumes and embroider them themselves. 
 It is a great idea, and has already in part been carried 
 out. 
 
 Outside the class-room the inauguration of 
 numerous societies and institutions has done much 
 to stimulate school life and school patriotism. Boys 
 are thus brought together after lessons, and the 
 corporate feeling is fostered. Among these institu- 
 tions the Perse Players is one of the most important. 
 Their productions have included plays of Shake- 
 speare and classical drama. The Players have also 
 staged pieces written by members of the society, 
 some of which have been reviewed not unfavourably 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 149 
 
 in the London press, and have appeared in print in 
 the Perse Playbooks. A perusal of the printed 
 plays shows the reader how true and deep a love of 
 all that is best in the English language has been 
 instilled into the boys at the Perse School. In the 
 plays and poems which are to be found in the play- 
 books there is none of the juvenile precocity which 
 repels the reader as being forced and unnatural, but 
 all the boyish naturalness which has so often in the 
 past been stifled by the process of forcing. 
 
 The numbers at the Perse School have increased 
 remarkably during Dr. Rouse's Headmastership : 
 in 1902 there were 139 boys (the numbers having 
 fallen considerably owing to the establishment in 
 1900 of the County School for Boys, referred to 
 above, pp. 142, 143) ; there are now over 360. 
 
 The Perse Union Society is a debating society 
 which can with justification claim to stand in a 
 marked position amongst school debating societies. 
 Visitors' debates are held at frequent intervals, 
 and maintain a high level. The principal officers 
 of the Cambridge University Union Society have 
 regularly accepted invitations to the School Society's 
 meetings, when speakers from amongst the boys 
 have taken leading parts in the debates. 
 
 Mention must be made of the School magazine, 
 which has taken its title of The Pelican from the 
 
150 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 School crest. It is by no means the earUest school 
 magazine. In Mr. Heppenstal's time there came 
 out every year a magazine called the Perse School 
 Christmas Annual — subsequently abbreviated to the 
 Ferse School Annual. It never seems to have 
 obtained official recognition. Fiction filled most of 
 the pages, and the chronicling of school events was 
 not considered to be one of its necessary functions. 
 The earliest number now known to be extant is that 
 of 1 874, edited by H. T. O. and A. G. O. Pain under 
 the pseudonym of "The Siamese Twins." ^ In the 
 next year's Annual are some verses by the Editor's 
 brother, Barry Pain — the first composition, it is 
 believed, of that writer to appear in print. No 
 terminal magazine was published until the Pelican 
 came into being in 1889. This magazine is now 
 well past its majority and leads a flourishing 
 existence. 
 
 Sport has not been neglected. The games 
 were re-organised in 1905 and the school divided 
 into houses. Association football gave way to 
 Rugby in 1907, and the Perse is now able to put a 
 powerful fifteen in the field. Hockey was intro- 
 duced at the same time. As evidence that this 
 branch of school life has received attention, it may 
 be mentioned that in inter-university contests old 
 
 ^ See illustration, facing p. 66. 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 151 
 
 Perseans have figured in the cricket, athletic, 
 association football and hockey teams of the rival 
 universities. 
 
 Another branch of school activity, a cadet corps, 
 was established soon after the close of the Second 
 Boer War, and obtained official recognition in 
 1905. Under Lord Haldane's scheme it was 
 converted into an Officers' Training Corps, and, 
 as such, prior to the recent war gained a higher 
 percentage of certificates of efficiency than any 
 other school in the country. The valuable work 
 done in this branch of school life soon came to be 
 realised. During the European War several hun- 
 dreds of its past members gained commissions and 
 served with distinction. 
 
 Undoubtedly the most important and most 
 valuable of all the school institutions which have 
 sprung up during the last twenty-five years has 
 been the Old Persean Society. It was founded at a 
 meeting which was held in the school in December, 
 1 90 1. Ever since that date its members have 
 followed the fortunes of the school with close 
 interest, and, whenever it lay in their power, have 
 given evidence of their loyalty by practical support. 
 In 1906 the Society came boldly into the field to 
 champion the cause of the Perse. The financial 
 condition of the school was at the time very critical 
 
152 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 indeed. The Society convened a public meeting on 
 July 1 1 th of that year for the purpose of enlisting out- 
 side support. Amongst the speakers who urged the 
 claims and needs of the school upon pubHc attention 
 were Lord Lytton, Sir George Fordham, Sir 
 Walter Durnford, and the late Professor S. H. 
 Butcher. A subscription list was opened im- 
 mediately, and amongst the subscribers were Mr. 
 Arthur Balfour and the late Duke of Devonshire. 
 The sum of money then raised not only provided a 
 reserve at a grave financial crisis, but also helped 
 towards the purchase of the school playing ground. 
 At a later date financial assistance was also offered 
 towards the building of the boarding houses. In 
 1 9 14 the Society undertook the raising of a Ter- 
 centenary Fund for the furthering of the many 
 necessary projects which must be set on foot if the 
 school is to prosper in the future. Just before 
 this a movement with similar objects had been 
 started by friends of the school, and the two 
 schemes were combined, but owing to the war 
 action was suspended for some time. By 1919 a 
 considerable sum had been raised, under the title 
 of the Tercentenary and War Memorial Fund, 
 which in that year provided the means for 
 buying Gonville House, standing next the school 
 on the North. The purchase, towards which 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 153 
 
 Caius College contributed ^i^Oy has added greatly 
 to the size and to the value of the present school 
 site. 
 
 Negotiations are now in progress for the acquisi- 
 tion of additional land, greatly needed for games, 
 adjoining the present playing-field. It is hoped 
 that the Fund will in time be sufficiently augmented 
 not only to provide for this, but also to enable a 
 new school to be erected on this site capable of 
 meeting the growing needs of the school, and in 
 every way worthy of the place which it holds in 
 education, for which the present buildings are quite 
 inadequate. The Governors have decided on this 
 policy, but are unable to carry it out until financial 
 conditions permit. 
 
 In November 1919 the Old Persean Society held 
 a Tercentenary Dinner in the School Hall. The 
 number of distinguished guests made the occasion 
 memorable. Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince 
 Albert and Prince Henry, then in residence at the 
 University, were present, the former replying to the 
 toast of " The Royal Family." The Marquis of 
 Crewe proposed the toast of " The School," and 
 the Bishop of Woolwich, an Old Persean, was in 
 the chair. 
 
 Mr. H. P. Cooke, who has been a secretary of 
 the Society since its foundation, has spared neither 
 
154 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 time nor energy in directing its various activities, 
 and particularly in organising the Tercentenary 
 Fund. During the same period the post of 
 treasurer has been conscientiously filled by Mr. 
 Roger Smart ; Mr. P. J. Spalding for several years 
 did invaluable work as secretary, while, as chairman 
 of the Executive Committee and of the Tercentenary 
 and War Memorial Committee, Mr. E. Saville Peck 
 has rendered devoted service. 
 
 Benefactions and financial assistance have also 
 been forthcoming in the past from other sources. 
 Trinity College has of recent years given the school 
 generous support. In 1884, when certain alms- 
 houses attached to the College were closed, the 
 endowments were diverted to the foundation of 
 scholarships at the Perse. In 1 909 the same College 
 also established three leaving exhibitions tenable at 
 the University. The Cambridge Town and County 
 Councils both make generous grants in aid of the 
 school. The County Council is now granting 
 £1100 annually; the Town Council, though the 
 Borough contributes its proportional share of this 
 ;^i2oo, gives ;/^400 in addition. The Board of 
 Education has bestowed on the Perse (which shares 
 that distinction with four other secondary schools) 
 a special annual grant " so that the experimental 
 work there being done in the teaching of Classics 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 155 
 
 can be carried out more thoroughly." Acknowledg- 
 ment must also be made of the valuable help given 
 in many forms by Lady Frazer, whose advice and 
 assistance have always been at the disposal of the 
 Modern Language department. 
 
 Mention may be made of the last four Chairmen 
 of the Governors. Mr. J. Hamblin Smith, of 
 Gonville and Caius College, was chairman from 
 1897 to 1 90 1. He had a very intimate knowledge 
 of the history of the school and was known not only 
 to the Governors, but, by his frequent and welcome 
 visits, to the masters and boys. The Rev. J. B. 
 Lock, Bursar of Caius College, was chairman from 
 1 90 1 to 1904, a period covering the critical days 
 already mentioned when it was decided to abolish 
 the Commercial Side. Mr. A. L Tillyard of St. 
 John's College showed an active devotion to the 
 school's interests during his long term of the chair- 
 manship (i 904-1 920). Particular attention may be 
 called to the way in which he brought the financial 
 needs of the school to the notice of the various 
 public bodies that now help it, and of his activities 
 in negotiating the purchase of the playing-field. 
 The school may have every confidence that it will 
 be well served by Mr. G. Brimley Bowes of Em- 
 manuel College, who, as an old boy, an active 
 member of the Old Persean Society, and for the 
 
156 HISTORY OF PERSE SCHOOL 
 
 last few years a devoted member of the Board of 
 Governors, is admirably suited to holding the chair- 
 manship to which he has recently been elected. 
 
 A school's prosperity and usefulness is often 
 judged by the numbers and successes of its pupils, 
 and the Perse could well afford to be judged by 
 these standards. But Perseans would fain have 
 their school judged not by its scholarship successes 
 and honours list, but by the measure in which it has 
 contributed to the good of the State. The European 
 War has given the opportunity of putting the school 
 to this test. Not only were refugees from Belgium 
 and Serbia received in the school during their exile 
 from their own country, but in the field Perseans 
 of all generations played an honourable part. 
 During the war, as far as can be ascertained from 
 available records, over 530 ** old boys " were on 
 military service, and the decorations won include 
 seven D.S.O.'s, one D.S.C., four M.C.'s and Bar, 
 twenty-nine M.C.'s, seventeen of the various grades 
 of the Order of the British Empire, and a number 
 of other British and Foreign decorations. Of the 
 number who served eighty-six did not return, and 
 in their honour a Memorial Tablet^ is placed in the 
 School Hall: it was unveiled on 21st May, 1921, 
 by General Lord Home, G.O.C. in Chief, Eastern 
 
 ^ Provided from the Fund described above, p. 152. 
 
THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 157 
 
 Command. The design was a labour of love on 
 the part of an Old Persean, Mr. Cyrus Johnson. 
 The Roll of the Fallen is too grievously long for 
 mention to be here made of every Persean who 
 has made the great sacrifice, but it is a proud 
 record of the spirit which has pervaded the school 
 through many generations. The greatness to which 
 the Perse has attained has been purchased by those 
 who were " not wanting to the city with their virtue, 
 but made unto it an honourable contribution." 
 The memory of this sacrifice will inspire in those 
 who remain and those who follow after a sure hope 
 that their school will rise to even further greatness 
 in the years to come. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accounts, 26, 35, III. 
 Admission of Free Scholars, 28. 
 Admission Register, 34, 35. 
 Airy, Sir G. B., 121. 
 Albert, Prince, 153. 
 Allen, J. B., 139. 
 Amsterdam, 53. 
 "An Inhabitant of Cambridge," 
 
 85- 
 Annual Athletic Sports, 144. 
 Athletics, 131. 
 Augustinian Friars, 10, 15, 24, 
 
 139- 
 
 Bailey, Jos., 99, 109, 119. 
 Balfour, A. J., 152. 
 Barber, Rev. George, 104, 121. 
 Barnes-Laurence, H. C, 139, 
 
 143- 
 Barrow, Isaac, physician, 8, 13. 
 ,, Isaac, Bishop of St. 
 Asaph's, 8. 
 Batchcroft, Thomas, 48, 67. 
 Becke, Kath. (Perse), 24. 
 
 ,, Martin, father and son, 
 
 37- 
 ,, Perse, 37. 
 ,, Valentine, 37. 
 ,, William, 5, 9, 37. 
 Becke arms, 24. 
 Beecher, Sir William, 36. 
 
 ,, William, 36. 
 Belgian refugees, 156. 
 (Belward), Richard Fisher, 82. 
 Besant, Sir Walter, 125. 
 Bickersteth, Henry (Lord Lang- 
 dale), 107, 114. 
 Board of Education, 154. 
 Boarders, 142. 
 
 158 
 
 Bond, William, 82. 
 Borton, John Drew, 91. 
 Boult, John, 62, 63. 
 Bowes, G. Brimley, 155. 
 Brady, Dr. Robert, 29. 
 Brett, Joseph, 74. 
 Bridon, William, 2, 16, 23. 
 Brinkley, John, 88. 
 Brundish, John Jelliand, 82. 
 Burgess, Peter, 35. 
 Burkitt, William, 66. 
 Burroughes, Thomas Cooke, 82. 
 Bury Corporation, 17. 
 Butcher, Prof. S. H., 152. 
 Butler, Jacob, 76. 
 
 ,, Neville, 46, 51. 
 
 ,, William, 7. 
 
 Cadet Corps, 151. 
 
 Caius, Dr. John, 6. 
 
 Caius College, Master and Fel- 
 lows of, 41. 
 
 Cambridge Borough Council, 
 141. 
 
 Cambridge Chronicle, 85. 
 
 Cambridge Corporation Com- 
 mittee, 2. 
 
 Cambridge County Council, 154. 
 
 Cambridge Town Council, 154. 
 
 Cambridge Town Council Com- 
 mittee, 134. 
 
 Carey, Valentine, 14, 22, 27, 41. 
 
 Castell, Tollemache, 45, 51. 
 
 Chancery Suit, 119. 
 
 Chapman, Dr. Benedict, 92, 104. 
 
 Charity Schools, 73, 96. 
 
 Chaworth, Lord, 36. 
 
 ,, John, second Vis- 
 
 count, 52. 
 
INDEX 
 
 159 
 
 Chemical Laboratory, 141. 
 Chishull, John, 56. 
 Church, Bartholomew, 10. 
 Classical Side, 142, 143. 
 Clayton, Charles, 120, 124. 
 Cobbold, John Spencer, 91. 
 Coery, James, 81. 
 Commercial Side, 136, 142, 143. 
 Cook, Caldwell, 147. 
 Cooke, H. P., 153. 
 Cory, Robert Towerson, 82. 
 County School for Boys, 143, 
 
 149. 
 Crabbe, Thomas, 43, 50, 54, 71. 
 Crayford, Robert, 43, 47, 54, 58, 
 
 67. 
 Crewe, Marquis of, 153. 
 Cricket, 131. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 45. 
 Cropley, Thomas, 3, 16, 24. 
 
 Davy, Charles, 7S. 
 
 ,, " Charles, yr., 87. 
 
 ,, Dr., M. of Caius College, 
 103, 109. 
 Debating Society, 144. 
 Dell, William, M. of Caius Col- 
 lege.^ 48, 55, 58, 63. 
 Devonshire, Duke of, 
 Diver, A. J., 131. 
 Dixon, Robert, 52. 
 Dramatic performances, 148. 
 Drawing, 133. 
 Durnford, Sir Walter, 152. 
 
 Eade, Dr., 57. 
 
 Eastern Counties Association, 
 
 46. 
 Ellis, Thomas, 53. 
 Ellvin, Simon, g. 
 
 ,, Thomas, g, 27, 37. 
 Ely, (Gooch) Bishop of, 76, 77. 
 Endowed School Commissioners, 
 
 .134. .135- 
 Engineering Laboratory, 140. 
 English department, 133, 136, 
 
 142. 
 
 Fawcett, W. M., 140. 
 Felton, John, 58, 63. 
 Ferrar, Nicholas, 8. 
 Fisher (Behvard), Richard, 82. 
 
 Fitzwilliam collection, 97, 113, 
 
 121. 
 Football, 132, 150. 
 Forby, Robert, 87. 
 Fordham, Sir George, 152. 
 Frating manor, 23, 47, 137. 
 Frazer, Lady, 154. 
 Free School Lane, 24. 
 French, 133. 
 
 " Gamaliel Thorn " Letter, 109, 
 
 113- 
 Games, 132, 141, 150, 152. 
 Gilbert, Rev. E. W., 122. 
 Gill, James, 72. 
 Gimingham, William, 92. 
 Girls' School, 137. 
 Glehn, L. C. de, 146. 
 Gonville House, 152. 
 Gooch, Sir Thomas, 76, 77. 
 Goodall, Henry, 75, 77, 80. 
 Goodrich, Robert, 78. 
 Goose, Jeremy, 33. 
 Gordon, Jemmy, 83. 
 Greene, Christopher, 65. 
 Griffith, George, 29, 54, 63, 68, 
 
 70, 108, 116. 
 Grigby, George, 92. 
 Gwilt, Daniel, 92. 
 
 Hall, Mr., bookseller, 102. 
 Handicraft, 148. 
 Hare, Sir Ralph, 65. 
 
 ,, Thomas, 65. 
 Harison, Ralph, 43. 
 Harrison's Cantabrigia Depicta, 
 
 93- 
 Henry, Prince, 153. 
 Heppenstal, Fred., 130, 138, 150. 
 Hersch, L H., 141. 
 Hills Road Scliool, 139. 
 Hobson's Charity, 69. 
 Hockey, 150. 
 Hodson, Anne, 3. 
 " Horn " in St. Sepulchre's 
 
 parish, 16, 23. 
 Home, General Lord, 156. 
 Hough, Bishop of Woolwich, 
 
 153- 
 
 Inyon, Thomas, 72, 74. 
 Ivory, Edmund, 64. 
 
i6o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Jebb, Sir R. C, 140. 
 Jenyns, George Leonard, 88. 
 Johnson, Cyrus, 156. 
 
 King's College Choristers 
 
 School, I, 27, 38, 73. 
 King's Ditch, 24. 
 
 " Lancelot Probe " Letter, 109. 
 Langdale, Lord, 107, 114. 
 Langsdale, Edward, 39. 
 ,, Phoebe, 39. 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, 39. 
 Laurence, Richard, 53, 
 Lawrence, T. J., 132. 
 Legge, Dr., 6. 
 Leland, Charles, 127. 
 Livingstone, David, 125. 
 Lock, Rev. J. B., 155. 
 Loggan, David, 65. 
 Louis XIV., 66. 
 Love, Dr., 44. 
 Lovering, Thomas, 26, 32, 35, 
 
 36, 38, 40, 43, 45. 
 Lukin, James, 37. 
 
 ,, Alderman Robert, 37. 
 Lukyn, James, 52. 
 Luthburne Lane, 24. 
 Lynn Corporation, 17. 
 Lytton, Lord, 152. 
 
 Manchester Commissioners, 46, 
 
 48, 54- 
 Martin, H. O., 106. 
 Mason, Peter, 121, 130. 
 
 ,, P. H., 125. 
 Maude, Daniel, 106. 
 Mazey, Mr., 41. 
 Metcalfe, William, 108. 
 " Minerva's darlings," 41. 
 Modern Languages teaching, 
 
 145- 
 Mordecai, D. V., 102. 
 Munnings, Daniel, 75. 
 
 Naylor, Richard, 52. 
 
 New Cambridge Guide, i8og, 
 
 93- 
 Newton, John, 29, 30, 32. 
 
 ,, Alderman Samuel, 29, 
 70. 
 Norwich, 45. 
 
 Norwich Corporation, 17. 
 Norwich School, 5, 40, 72. 
 
 O.T.C., 141, 151. 
 Old Perseans Society, 151, 153. 
 Order of the Royal Oak, 52. 
 Owen, Thomas, 53. 
 
 Paget, Sir G. E., 124. 
 Pain, Barry, 150. 
 
 „ H. T. O. and A. G. O., 
 
 150. 
 Palmer, E. H., 125. 
 Paske, John, 15. 
 Pate, Robert, 72. 
 Peck, E. Saville, 154. 
 Pelican, 144, 149. 
 Pepys, John, 36, 45, 51. 
 ,, Roger, 36. 
 ,, Samuel, 36. 
 ,, Talbot, 36. 
 Perse, John, 4, 9. 
 
 ,, Katherine Becke, 9 ; wife 
 
 of Martin, 24. 
 ,, Martin, 9, 14, 22, 24, 37, 
 
 40. 
 ,, Stephen, 4, 12, 21 ; will, 
 
 21 ; monument, 5. 
 ,, Stephen, of Trinity Col- 
 
 lege,_ 9. 
 ,, Valentine, 40. 
 ,, William, 40. 
 Perse arms, 4, 24, 25. 
 Parse's of Northwold, Norfolk, 
 
 4- 
 
 Perse Almshouses, 24. 
 
 Perse fellowships at Caius Col- 
 lege, 16. 
 
 Perse Play Books, 149. 
 
 Perse Players, 148. 
 
 Perse Scholarships, 16. 
 
 Perse School Annual, 150. 
 
 Perse School Christmas Annual, 
 150. 
 
 Perse Union Society, 149. 
 
 Peters, Thomas, 56. 
 ,, William, 62. 
 
 Plague, 64. 
 
 Playing field, 141, 152. 
 
 Population of Cambridge in 
 1587, I- 
 
 Preparatory department, 142. 
 
INDEX 
 
 i6i 
 
 Prime, Benjamin, 15. 
 Prist, Henry, barber, 11. 
 
 Raikes, H. C, 140. 
 Reeve, Samuel, 81. 
 Reeves, William, 108. 
 Registrar, 34. 
 Reveley, Francis, loi. 
 " Rex Persarum.," 129. 
 Rifle range, 141. 
 Rixe, William Henry, 62. 
 Rouse, Dr. W. H. D., 139, 144. 
 Rugby, 150. 
 Rules, 27. 
 
 Russell, Edward, 65. 
 ,, Sir Francis, 65. 
 
 Saffron Walden Grammar 
 
 School, 35. 
 St. John, Oliver, chancellor, 59. 
 Saltier, Nathaniel, 75. 
 Science master, 133. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 99. 
 Serbian refugees, 156. 
 Simeon, Charles, 121. 
 Smart, Christopher, 80. 
 
 ,, Roger, 153. 
 Smith, J. Hamblin, 155. 
 
 ,, John, 121. 
 
 ,, St. John, 92. 
 Smithson, William, 15. 
 Spalding, P. J., 153. 
 Sparkes, Edward, 62, 70. 
 Sparkes, junr., 74. 
 Spicer, Robert, 14, 22, 27, 61, 
 Spratford, John, 57, 62. 
 Squire, John Franklin, 81. 
 Sterne, John, 45. 
 Story, Samuel, 81. 
 Stourbridge Fair, 104. 
 Sturgeon, Robert, 80. 
 
 Tabor, James, 65, 66. 
 ,, John, 66. 
 
 Tabor, Sir Robert, 65. 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 38, 52, 73, 122. 
 Tenison, Archbishop, 41. 
 Tercentenary Fund, 152. 
 
 ,, Dinner, 153. 
 
 Thelwall, James, 53. 
 Thomaton, Andrew, 53. 
 Thorold, Edmund, 52. 
 Thring, Jeremiah, 108. 
 Tillyard, A. I., 155. 
 Trinity College, 154. 
 Trinity College Choristers 
 
 School, I. 
 TurnbuU, Mr., 103. 
 Turner, Bernard, organ builder, 
 76. 
 ,, Henry, 81. 
 
 University Commissioners, i860, 
 
 136. 
 Usher, 26, 29, 33, 34, 41, 62, 92. 
 
 "Vulcan's servile bondslaves," 
 41. 
 
 Walford, William, 82. 
 
 War Memorial, 152, 154, 156. 
 
 War Record, 156. 
 
 Ward, Mr., 15. 
 
 Watson, Richard, 41. 
 
 Webb, Edward, 57. 
 
 White, John, 92, 94. 
 
 ,, William, 82. 
 Whynne, Matthew, 66. 
 Wilkins, William, 92, 98. 
 Willson, James, 78. 
 Wilson, Sir Giffin, 116. 
 
 ,, John, 94. 
 
 ,, Thomas, 52. 
 Wiskin, Rev. John, 132. 
 Woodhouse, Dr., log, 116. 
 
 Yaxley, John, 53. 
 
 Glasgow: printed at the university press by Robert maclehose and go. ltd.