who are candidates for admission into Winchester College. The general age of superannuation is eighteen, except where the boy's name has been placed on the roll of the preceding year, in which case he is allowed to remain until he is nineteen; but founder's kin are not superannuated until they are twenty-five. There are certain funds out of which exhibitions of £50 and £30 each are given to superannuates of the fonudation, proceeding from the College to Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin. The actual number of recipients of these exhibitions varies, partly owing to the variable produce of the funds, and partly owing to the varying number of students on the foundation eligible to them. Of late years the total number of persons enjoying these exhibitions at one time has been about twelve or thirteen, of whom there are generally eight exhibitioners at £50, and they may hold their exhibitions for four years. RINGWOOD. THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL. FOUNDED 1587, A.D. THIS school was founded by Richard Lyne, Esq. who bequeathed property for the endowment of it. 1621. Thomas Lyne, Esq. of Bradford Bryant, in the parish of Wimborne Minster, by his will gave £6 per annum for ever, arising out of the tythes of his farm at Bradford, and his lands at Burley in Ringwood, towards the bringing up of a poor scholar at Oxford or Cambridge, to be taken out of the free-school of Ringwood every third or fourth year; and for want of a scholar there, then from the school of Wimborne Minster, or Sherborne. By a decree of the commissioners for charitable uses in the year 1624, it was ordered that the said tythes and land should for ever stand charged with the payment of £6 yearly to the constables and churchwardens of the places above mentioned, as the gift of the said Thomas Lyne, Esq. It was also ordered that the vicar, constables, and churchwardens of Ringwood, should meet and elect one poor scholar of the school there, and send him to Oxford or Cambridge to study for four years, with the exhibition of £6 per annum : but in case there should be no poor scholar in Ringwood School fit and capable to study at Oxford or Cambridge, then they should elect a poor scholar from the school of Wimborne Minster: and if no one be capable in that school, then they should elect a poor scholar out of the grammar-school of Sherborne for the same purpose. BASINGSTOKE. THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL. In the early part of the reign of Henry VIII. Sir William Sandes, Knt. (afterwards Lord Sandes) and Bishop Fox obtained his majesty's licence to found a free chapel at Basingstoke, and to establish a guild or brotherhood. A priest was appointed to perform divine offices, and to instruct the young men and boys of the town in literature. The original endowment consisted of an estate situate on Basingstoke Down, and some tenements and gardens in the parish of Basingstoke, the whole being about 105 acres. 1607. John Brown, B.D. vicar of Basingstoke, gave the annual sum of £2. 12s. as a rent-charge out of certain lands in Hampshire for an exhibitioner from Basingstoke. In 1852 a new scheme was confirmed by the Court of Chancery for the management of the school. An exhibition of £30 a year is now offered for competition to the students of this school, tenable at any college at Oxford or Cambridge. HEREFORDSHIRE. THE CATHEDRAL SCHOOL. THE earliest notice known to be on record of a school at Hereford, is contained in a document* entitled "Concessio pro Schola Grammatica in Hereford," and bearing the date of 1385. It is evident * Johannes permissione Divina Heref. Ep. dilecto nobis in Christo filio Magistro Ricardo de Cornwaille Salutem, Gratiam, &c. Benedictum Cancellarium Ecclesiæ nostræ Cath. Heref. et ejusdem Cancellarii procuratorem ad quos de consuetudine concessio et dispositio Magistri Scholarum Grammaticarum Civitatis Heref. pertinet ad providendum de idoneo magistro pro hujus Scholæ regendo et gubernando sæpius requisivimus omnia offerendo: qui requisitionibus nostris hujus parere expresse recusarunt in præjudicium Sanctæ Ecclesiæ et Scholarium addiscere volentum dampnum non modicum et gravamen: unde nos idoneam ætatem personæ tuæ considerantes et per diligentem examinationem te habilem et idoneum moribus et scientia invenientes ad regendum et gubernandum Scholas Grammaticas prædictas cum virga et ferula, ut est moris in defectu Cancellarii prædicti et ejus procuratoris, te amicitia nostra episcopali præfecimus et ordinamus præsentibus per annum. tantummodo duraturum. In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum præsentibus est appensum. Datum in Manerio nostro de Whytbourne xxvI. die mensis Decembris, A.D. 1385, et nostræ translationis A. XI." DD that a school must have existed there, previous to the year 1384 a.D., a sufficient time to have been the ground of a custom. It may have been coeval, and probably was, with the foundation of the cathedral itself. The amount of the original endowment, if any, is unknown, and it does not appear how long the means appropriated from the cathedral funds were found adequate to the purpose intended. The school probably languished until the reign of King Edward VI. who issued an injunction :—“ That in every Cathedral Church where no free grammarschool is founded already within the close, nor hath any such near unto it adjoining, founded already by any person, the King's majesty willeth, that of the common lands and revenues of that church shall be ordained, kept, and maintained perpetually, a Free Grammar-school. The master to have twenty marks, and his house rent free, and the usher yearly £6. 14s. 6d. and his chamber free." Notwithstanding this injunction, Queen Elizabeth deemed it necessary, about thirty years afterwards, to recall the attention of the dean and chapter to this and other topics, as appears from the statutes, which are dated the 6th March, 1583. In consequence of one or both of these royal ordinances, a building was erected upon the site of the decayed cloisters, at the west end of the cathedral, and was applied to the purposes of a school. The next statutes for the government of the Cathedral Church of Hereford and its appendages, were issued by Charles I. in 1637. They confirmed many of the previous regulations, abrogated others, and introduced such corrections and additions as the lapse of time and the change of circumstances render occasionally necessary, to insure the permanence and the purity of every human system. The sixth chapter of these statutes refers to the school. The appointment of the master and under master, and the management of the school, is vested in the dean and chapter. The charter of Charles I. also increased the master's salary to £20 per annum, with a house; and the under master's to £10 and a share in certain fines. The building erected in the time of Queen Elizabeth having become dilapidated, about the year 1760 it was taken down, and a more commodious school-house was erected by means of a general subscription. The house for the residence of the master was rebuilt a few years afterwards. ין There are fourteen free scholars admitted, the rest pay for their tuition. 1682. The Right Honourable Sarah, Duchess Dowager of Somerset, by an indenture, gave lands for the establishment of scholarships in Brazennose College, Oxford, and in St John's College, Cambridge. At the present time there are at St John's College, 1. Six scholarships, each of the value of £40 a year, the scholars to be chosen every third turn from the school of Hereford. 2. Five scholarships of more than £20 each per annum, exclusively for students educated at Hereford school, with a preference to such as are natives of Somersetshire, Wiltshire, or Herefordshire. 3. Fourteen scholarships of more than £20 each per annum, for scholars who are to be chosen every third turn from the school of Hereford. (See p. 321.) Besides these scholarships, there are twenty-two scholarships at Brazennose College, Oxford, appropriated under the same conditions, to students from Hereford school, and two fellowships appropriated to natives of the county of Hereford. LUCTON. THE FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. FOUNDED 1708, A.D. THIS school was founded by Mr John Pierrepont, Vintner, and citizen of London. In the latter end of May, 1709, the founder gave a code of rules, statutes, and ordinances for the government of the school, which he afterwards altered and enlarged by his will. The founder directed that an exhibition of £20 a year should be granted to a student from the school once in two years, without restriction as to college, so that it were in Oxford or Cambridge. The school is designed "for the instruction of children in religion, grammar-learning, writing, arithmetic, and mensuration, of such poor parents as are not able to bear the charge of training up; their children so as to be fit for the university, or to be put out apprentices, services, or other employments, whereby they may get an honest and competent livelihood." There is at present given annually one exhibition of 50 guineas a year, for four years, if there be a qualified candidate. Candidates for this exhibition may be of any county, and must enter the school before the age of sixteen years, and must remain there for two full years at least before they are eligible. HERTFORDSHIRE. ALDENHAM. THE FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL. FOUNDED 1597, A.D. THIS free-school was founded under the authority of letters patent from Queen Elizabeth, by Richard Platt, Esq. alderman and brewer of London, who by his will directed, that in the election to the mastership, the fellows of St John's College, Cambridge, should nominate three masters of arts, of whom the Court of Assistants of the Brewers' Company, the trustees of the estates, should elect one. There are forty scholars on the foundation of the school, who are required to be the sons of persons who do, or shall, possess the freedom of the Brewers' Company. This school is also endowed with eight Exhibitions, each of the yearly value of £40, for four years, for pupils proceeding to the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, who have been admitted at the school for three years, and are not more than nineteen years of age at the Midsummer examination, when the exhibitions are granted. BUNTINGFORD. THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL. ELIZABETH FREEMAN, relict of William Freeman, Esq. of Aspeden Hall, in the county of Hertford, by her will, declared that, if in her lifetime she did not convey the house and land purchased of Mr William Watson, of Buckland, in the county of Hertford, then her executors should, immediately after her death, convey the same for the sole benefit of the school and schoolmaster of Buntingford for ever. It is probable that this school was founded by Mr William Freeman before his death, which took place in 1623. It must have been founded before 1633, the year of Mrs Freeman's decease, for Seth Ward received the rudiments of his education at the school; and he was born in 1617. 1681. Seth Ward, D.D. Bishop of Salisbury, a native of the town of Buntingford, who was himself educated at this school, gave £1000, with which was purchased an estate at Wimbish, in Essex, and settled by him upon the master, fellows, and scholars of Christ's |