The Ancient Grammar School of Glossop.

The Ancient Grammar School of Glossop.

This is a transcript of an article which was printed in the Glossop Chronicle on 31 August 1951.

The photos are of two buildings reputed to have been used by the Ancient Grammar School. Both are now private dwellings, the building on the right being part of a larger house.

At the recent jubilee reunion of Glossop Grammar School, grammar education in the borough was dealt with by three allied statements. To Alderman J. D. Doyle was allotted the task of speaking briefly on what the headmaster (Mr. C. Lord. B.A.) described as “The school's pre-history.” Mr. C. H. Chambers, B.Sc. (Eng.), second headmaster of the school, dealt with affairs of the school from its opening in 1901 until his retirement in the 'thirties, and the school, from that time to the present, was the subject matter of an address by Mr. Lord, the present, and successful, headmaster. Alderman Doyle gave a tabloid version of the history of the ancient “Free Schoole of Glossoppe,’' and now tells the full story as far as it is at present known.

The chief interest in the ancient Free Grammar school of Glossop is not in its conduct but in its foundation, and perhaps we should take a brief glimpse at the conditions prevailing at the time it commenced. We are told that when the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII and their lands and buildings seized, many grammar schools also were closed; that the continuing policy of two of the succeeding Tudors resulted in the destruction of the chantry schools and the dispersal of the chantry priests who were the schoolmasters: they sang masses for departed souls, and used other of their time teaching school in their chantries. An endowment from a Derbyshire church illustrates the point; money or lands were left “to the use and profit of the chantry priest of St. Katherine's in St. Michael's Church, which chantry priest shall uphold a Free school for ever, taking of each scholar one penny by the quarter, and sing daily, the mass of the Trinity”.
The destruction of these schools left a serious gap. William Harrison in his “Description of Britaine” (1577- 87) tells us that there were “a great number of grammar schools throughout the Realm, liberally endowed for the better relief of poor scholars; that there were not many Corporate towns that had not at least one grammar school.” and that there were schools attached to Collegiate churches where “poor scholars were dally maintained with meat, books, and apparel, from whence they have been well entered in the knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues. A resemblance to Chetham's Hospital in Manchester will here be noticed.

The change in the educational and social structure following the destruction of the monasteries, chantries and grammar schools is dealt with caustically by Harrison; the clergy were despised, but the professions of the law and the rising profession of medicine received a great fillip. The Inns of Court became great law schools, the profession of barrister was raised in prestige. Of the change to outlook Harrison comments: “For after the coming of the Normans, the nobility had the start and after them the clergy, so now all the wealth of the land doth flow to our common lawyers; they wax rich apace and will be richer if their clients become not the more wary and wiser hereafter.”
Outside the towns Corporate whose schools escaped destruction because they did not belong in the church—Derby and Chesterfield Grammar Schools have functioned continuously since their foundation—the foundation of new schools became a necessity; Just as our grammar schools of today have to act as feeders to our universities, so the medieval grammar schools were the only sources to provide results for the professions of Law, Medicine and the Church and such schools were usually La tin schools. When Bishop Pursglove founded the Schools of Jesus at Tideswell he laid down in the Statutes of government that the scholars of certain forms should speak in school nothing save Latin.

Glossop did not lose a Grammar school because of the seizure of Church property; it would be improper to convey such an impression, for the real monastic occupation of Glossop had practically ceased before Henry VIII instituted his policy. But it is not improper to reason that because of this necessary national policy following the religious and social structure, Glossop achieved a Grammar school; it would become a fashion favoured by the Queen to found such schools. Thus there were schools like Ashbourne, founded by families some of whom had received grants of church lands, schools which, like this, received Letters Patent from the Queen: schools founded out of piety, like Bishop Pursglove's School of Jesus at Tideswell: schools founded by bequest like Lady Manners at Bakewell and Hayfield and Mellor Grammar schools The monks and secular clergy had previously been the scholars, teachers and writers, to whose ability and diligence we owe many of our records; in the new schools, endowments were frequently to pay the salary of the Incumbent or other, as master for teaching “petties” (little boys).

Glossop had an ancient Grammar school, but its foundation did not fall within any of these categories, nor was it part of a Charter of Incorporation, for Glossop was then only a small village. The ancient “Free schoole of Glossoppe” was founded by the simple expedient of the Lord of the Manor making the salary of the master a charge upon the rents and revenues of the Manor of Glossop. So long as the school continued, the salary of the master appears in the annual accounts of the Bailiff of the Manor, and the master handed in his acknowledgements in the form of personal receipts. The salary was the then customary one of Ł10 per annum, payable in two instalments falling due at the Feast of our Lady, and the feast of St. Michael. Salary in two instalments! No dipping Into the cash box! Walt until after the Rent Dinner at Court Baron! There would, in addition, be school pence and, no doubt, gifts in kind from both parents and the Estate Office. The ancient Grammar school of Glossop was founded by Thomas Howard, second Earl of Arundel and Surrey. The Manor of Glossop was not a possession of the Howards; it was part of the dowry of Alatheia, joint heiress of Gilbert, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury of Sheffield Castle, whom the Earl of Arundel married in the year 1606. The Shrewsburys were confirmed in their holding of the Manor and Rectory of Glossop by Henry VIII and the Earl of Arundel thus became Lord of the Manor of the Manor of Glossop.
Let us look for a moment at the founder of the ancient Grammar school of Glossop. His family, the Howards, were suspect; his grandfather, Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk, was tried for high treason, and in 1572 beheaded for his share in the Ridolfi plot against Queen Elizabeth. His father, Phillip Howard (a name familiar to Glossop), an unsuccessful courtier who failed to find favour with Elizabeth, was also placed under arrest and died in the Tower in 1595. Although titular head of the Howard family, the Lord of the Manor of Glossop, the Earl of Arundel never became Duke of Norfolk; the Dukedom was in abeyance through the attainder of his grandfather.
He was reputed to be an arrogant man with a fiery temper: but he was liberal minded. He collected the Arundel Marbles, was a patron of the Arts, and, according to Walpole was “the first professedly to collect in this country”. He was appointed to many commissions in 1621 he was made Earl Marshal: was appointed General in Command of the forces sent to deal with the Scots Covenanters: was High Steward at the trial of Earl Stratford for high treason. At the commencement of the war with Parliament, he had to take the Queen Mother to Amsterdam, being accompanied by John Evelyn the Diarist. Evelyn makes frequent reference to the Earl and his family, and claims to have persuaded the Earl’s grandson to present to the newly-formed Royal Society the library containing many valuable manuscripts the Earl had amassed and which were being squandered. A disappointed man, having failed to secure the return of the Dukedom of Norfolk, he retired to Italy where he died in 1646. This then was the founder of Glossop's ancient Grammar school.

Of the school itself It is probable that it was a Latin school. Several vicars of Glossop were Glossop men and it is not unreasonable to suppose that they would receive their pre- matriculation training at the Free Grammar School of Glossop. Two of them were sons of John Wagstaffe. Bailiff. of the Manor, one of whom graduated at Oxford, the other at Cambridge. Another Vicar of Glossop was a Goddard of Charlesworth.
Where was the school conducted? There was only one public place of meeting in the whole of Glossop—the Parish Church. The population is estimated to have been about 1,000 souls the largest group of people would be in the cluster of houses round the old church—real “Old Glossop”! The local government was the Vestry; public meetings were held in the nave, the chairman, by right, the Vicar the wardens were men of real power locally. The church was in fact the only place of public meeting to which all parishioners had access but must, by law, attend. Glossop as we know it did not exist; the greater part was unenclosed commons, the roads mere tracks. The pupils of the school would be the sons of freeholders and tenant farmers, and, of course, the sons of the more important officials—the yeomen of England. They would ride horseback to school at the Parish Church, probably from all parts of the extensive Parish.

Central heating was, of course, unknown: the fuels then known in Glossop were coal from Simmondley and Ludworth, peat and wood. It is unlikely that there was any heating system in the church, but the floor would be strewn with a carpet of rushes. The pews would have footrails like gate-leg tables, though in the case of the pews their purpose was to keep the feet from the floor draughts. Judging from later entries in the wardens' accounts the church would be a cold, draughty, cheerless hole in winter. But it was a grammar school. In passing, girls do not appear in educational matters in the 17th century at least not girls who were daughters of farmers and freeholders; their lot was not to be academically educated, but to be domesticated; to prepare for marriage by devoting their spare time to filling a dower chest with fine linen!

There is no documentary evidence to show when the school actually started, but it is safe to place its commencement between the years 1610 and 1629. There is no evidence to show that there ever was a manor house in Glossop fit to accommodate an earl and his countess in the early 17th century, and for such a man of affairs some time must have elapsed before he would make acquaintance with Glossop, his new manor. The first official mention of the school known to the writer appears in the register of the Parish Church of Glossop during the vicariate of the Rev. Robert Onion (1625-40). The entry is in Latin, and a free translation reads—“William Atkinson, a stranger from the north, after being schoolmaster for six months, caught the plague (or fever) on the Feast of St. Thomas. He died on the Feast of the Circumcision and was burled on the second of January1630”.
Taken ill of some highly infectious disease he was buried the day after his death, a stranger in a strange village amongst strange folk.
Who succeeded the schoolmaster who died suddenly and was hurriedly buried, we do not know; our next record, after a considerable interval — which goes to show that the school had continued — is also to be found in the parish register, it states that Thomas Grindley, schoolmaster of Glossop school, died on the 27th. and was buried on the 29th of December, 1646.

Affairs at the Grammar School must by now have become difficult; as the year 1647 opened, the schoolmaster had just been burled; the founder of the school had died at Padua, there would be legal difficulties about the payment of the head's salary from the estate. The Civil War was petering out, and King Charles was on the point of surrender. The vicar (the Rev. Robert Cryer, M.A.) might conduct the school but his reputation was that he was more interested in the parochial duties of a parish priest than anything else. The continuance of the school, however, was officially Interrupted by the intervention of the Council of State. After the death of the Earl of Arundel, and as the Parliamentary forces got the upper hand, the estate of the widowed Countess of Arundel was placed under sequestration; her husband had been a “malignant Royalist”; the salary paid to the headmaster from the estate was stopped.
The exact date of this act is not known to the writer, but it is recorded that when the Parliamentary Commissioners visited Glossop in 1650 they reported that there was “no minister for the present”.

It is clear that not only was the school closed but from action taken by the inhabitants, its closure was considered a serious void in the amenities of the parish of Glossop. Dated December 26th, 1651 a petition was addressed to the Commissioners, praying for the continuance of a salary of Ł10 a year paid by the late Earl of Arundel for a schoolmaster to teach grammar school at Glossop. It was signed by William Bagshawe, the vicar (later known as “Apostle of the Peak”) Thomas Hadfield, William Garlick, John Wagstaffe, and 24 prominent inhabitants. From the date, it may be Inferred that the move was decided upon after the Christmas services at the Parish Church. There is more than a passing interest in this petition; Thomas Hadfield was one of the Hadfields of Hadfield and both he and Garlick were captains in the Parliamentary Army and served under Randal Ashtonhurst, a Justice of the Peace of New Mills, who held the rank of Colonel in the Parliamentary Forces. Garlick left moneys for the poor of Glossop, a charity which is distributed on St Thomas's day and which is always described in the church wardens’ accounts as “Captain's money.” John Wagstaffe was bailiff to the Countess of Arundel. The petition was referred to the County Committee for compounding, who made enquiries as to the source of the salary, So Glossop was not wholly Royalist in the war.
During the sequestration of the estate of the Countess the commissioners had allowed her for her maintenance, one third of the revenues of the Manor. It followed therefore, that if they were to allow, the payment of the headmaster's salary, it would not come out of the Countess's revenues, but out of those collected for the State. They therefore rejected the petition, and the school remained closed.
From this point the history of the school is somewhat confused; there is no continuity in the documents available, but it is certain that efforts were made to keep the school going. The Dukedom of Norfolk was restored to the grandson of the founder of the Glossop Grammar School in 1660; after petition from 90 Peers; ten years later, we have receipts from one Daniel Leech as headmaster of Glossop school. That the school was carrying on and accepted by the inhabitants in proven by a legacy in 1677 from one Nicholas Dearnaley, a successful cloth merchant, of Manchester, who left to the Free Schools of Glossop and Mottram the sum of Ł30 each; at a “public meeting” held in the Parish Church almost exactly 12 months later, under the chairmanship of the vicar (Rev. William Wagstaffe) it was decided that the “money be put forth and continual use as intended.” A hint that there was some local feeling about the bequest. Its actual expenditure was left to William Morten and Charles Garlick, churchwardens.
Although the school was continuing under the mastership of Daniel Leech, there was clearly some local feeling against those who controlled it. The late Mr. Robert Hamnett records that in 1702 a Parliamentary election was in progress the candidates (for North Derbyshire) being the Marquis of Hartington. and Mr. Thomas Coke. The opposition supporting Mr. Coke wrote that gentleman, saying "It hath been observed a great number of votes have come out of Glossopdale against you. There's one Waterhouse, and My Lord George Howard's bailiff one Wagstaffe that are the great men amongst them. If you could with conveniency send us the least charge that could he expended in procuring a Patent for a Free Grammar School in our parish “ . . Mr. Coke would have a better chance of election. Mr Coke did not respond: My Lord George’s man won. Mr. Hamnett does not give the source of his letter The village was growing bigger and the support was not wholly with the Court party.
In 1704 the Parish Register records the death and burial of William Robinson of Whitfield. “formerly master of Glossop school” he died on the 20th and was buried on the22nd of June.

In the archives of the Glossop Town Council there is a draft of a public notice concerning the school, and indicates trouble in the camp. It reads: “Whereas the school of Glossop has been Vacant for some time past by the removal of Jonn Hulme, I Frederick Henry Howard of Norfolk, the sole and undisputed disposer and trustee of the school do nominate Robert Twyford to be schoolmaster there, desiring that he may be licensed thereunto”. This notice would probably be posted on the door of the Parish church and would no doubt be the source of a great deal of gossip. Why John Hulme should be removed is not known nor is there any record of payments to Robert Twyford, but there are receipts in the bold script of John Hadfield from 1728 until 1742. John Hadfield, who appears to have had the longest continuous spell as master of the grammar school at Glossop was one of the Hadfields of Lees Hall; he was curate of chapel of ease of Mellor and combined these duties with those of master of Glossop school.

The receipts from John Hadfield (now in the possession of the Town Council) are worth glimpsing; the different ways of acknowledging receipt of the master's salary by John Hadfield lead one to suspect that the payment of the salary from the estate revenues was not very popular with the estate officials. Thus on April 23rd 1728, he describes the payment of Ł5 as being “a gift gratisly given to the schoolmaster for the use of the inhabitants”. ln two payments for 1737 and one in 1738, the Ł5 is described as a “gratuity” to the schoolmaster, The Michaelmas payment for 1738 is stated to be “a half-yeares pension to the school master of Glossop Free School for teaching ye said schoole”. The two payments for 1739 are variously described as “pension” and “gratuity”; the 1740 payments “one half yeares rent to the master for teaching Glossop school” but on April 14th 1742 it is “one half of ye money given to ye schoolmaster for teaching ye said schoole”.

This appears to have been the last payment that Hadfield received; it is not in his usual florid copybook handwriting, and it is doubtful whether he wrote it. From one receipt in the possession of the council we know that he was succeeded in 1742 by Henry Bray and, as the receipt is made out at Michaelmas, it is fairly certain that Henry Bray took up duties at Lady Day. How long the school lasted after this latest appointment is not known, but in the latter part of the 18th century the economy of the country was rapidly changing, it was no longer pastoral. Commons were enclosed, turnpikes constructed which revolutionised transport long before the invention of the railway; small manufactories—like Gnat Hole and Bridgefield—were dotted here and there on the mountain streams and the pupils of the school needed more than Latin. Many of the Elizabethan Latin schools simply winked out, and the “Free schoole of Glossope” was no exception. How long Henry Bray functioned as master we know not but when the Parish Church was re-built in 1914, a tombstone recording the death and burial of Henry Bray was found in the nave, face downwards. He died in 1795.

The Rev. Christopher Howe, who was presented to the living in 1793, endeavoured to continue the school, firstly in an old building in the vicarage garden and later in two cottages on Castle Hill, Old Glossop. It would appear, however, that the subsidised salary from the Lord of the Manor had ceased; entries appear in the church wardens accounts, recording sums spent on repairs for the school building. Moreover, cotton had arrived in the neighbourhood; and cotton omnivorously grabbed as many little children as possible to go to work in factories rather than go to to school.
The old Latin Grammar school was dead but in 1852 the thirteenth Duke of Norfolk, Lord of the Manor of Glossop built and endowed the school that is now known as the Duke of Norfolk's school. It is now a primary school, but when it opened, it was known locally as “the Grammar School”; it was considered to be carrying on the traditions of the old grammar school, and indeed classics were taught to children whose parents could afford to pay.

Half a century later, Francis, second Baron Howard of Glossop, built and presented to the borough an Art and Technical school, which now is Glossop Grammar School. Thus, it is through the munificence of the Howards, Lords of the Manor, that Glossop through three centuries, has had its grammar schools; and it must be agreed that the thirteenth Duke of Norfolk, and Lord Howard of Glossop, maintained the liberal outlook of their illustrious ancestor Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey Lord of the Manor of Glossop from 1606 to 1646.

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Last updated: 16 November 2021