The School Endowment in 1697

The letter which we print below was kindly sent to us by Mr. F. H. Woodward, Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, who came upon it in the course of researches at Bishopthorpe Palace and realised that the Free School mentioned therein must be St. Peter's. We need make no apology for reproducing the letter (and an accompanying enclosure) in full, since any new documentary evidence bearing on the history of the School cannot fail to be of interest. We add, too, some comments of our own on the matters and persons involved, in the hope of setting the letter in perspective and clarifying its significance.

LETTER FROM CUTHBERT HARRISON TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS

Acaster Selby, February ye 23rd, 1697. "May it Please Your Grace : The weighty and important concerns that engross your time for the public good might very well exempt you from a trouble of this kind, did not the advancement of charity and ye promotion of learning and piety claim a favourable access to ye same, and the rather at this time, because if this opportunity be lapsed some years will not retrieve it. I •therefore humbly crave leave to acquaint Your Grace with several lands and tenements in Knapton within ye County of Ye City of York and elsewhere being formerly appropriated to superstitious uses, were about ye third and fourth years of King Philip and Queen Mary by licence from the Crown and ye consent of the then proprietors conveyed by the heirs of the donors to the Dean and Chapter of York for the erecting of a Free School in or near the City of York to the intent that as many poor children as the revenues would extend to might there receive their maintenance and education in learning gratis till they were of ability to serve in the Ministry. This great Charity hath been long neglected and abused by leasing the land, particularly in Knapton, at a very low rent, viz. £30 per annum, whereas they really to my knowledge are of the annual value of £230 per annum and upwards, and converting the fines to the Trustees own use though it's very apparent from ye donation and letters patent that the same ought to have been let for ye most improved value and the profits thereof converted to the maintenance of as many poor children as possible : but on the contrary a competent maintenance is reserved for the Schoolmaster, and the poor are utterly defeated of the Charity. The lease being now intended to be renewed (as soon as the Dean returns to York) I could not, in compassion to the poor and in duty to Your Lordship (who is constituted ye Visitor of ye Charity) omit informing you of the abuse that you may opportunely (if your Grace should think fit) enjoin the Dean to waive renewing the lease till you have made a satisfactory

scrutiny into ye matter, and if Your Grace may be convinced what I write proceeds from no sinister end or malevolent design I do assure you that if the Charity be by Your Grace's intervention and prevalence fixed again upon its right basis and made to answer and serve its primary end and institution, that I will add my benevolence to the Corban by setting £50 per annum for the advancement and carrying on so good and pious a work. And if I might be so happy as to receive Your Grace's assistance and instruction in modelling and regulating the gift it would be a very extraordinary honour to, My Lord, Your Grace's Most dutiful and obedient humble servant, Cuthbert Harrison."

Enclosure : "The free School whereof ye Dean and Chapter of York are Trustees was at first a Hospital endowed with the Rectory of Stillingfieet, etc., hereinafter mentioned.

Queen Mary obliged the Master and Fellows thereof by Letters Patent to give and grant to the Dean and Chapter in fee all the lands, houses, and whatsoever belonged to the Hospital for the erecting a Free School and the maintenance of a Master, an Usher, and a certain number of Scholars and other Officers, the boys to be taught till they were fit to serve in the Cathedral of York or where the Bishop thought convenient.

The lands were begged of King James the First as being given to a superstitious use, but at the proper cost and charges of one Mr. Moyser who had then the lease of Stillingfieet they were preserved to the School, and the King made a new grant to the Dean and Chapter which Mr. Moyser that died last had in his possession.

By an inquisition taken at the Castle of York the 25th September 1667 before G. Marwood, J. Hewley Knights, etc. the Free School was found to be endowed as follows :- First with the Rectory of Stillingfieet and its Rights, members and appurtenances then valued by the jury at k too per annum to be let. Dean Marsh and the Chapter let the lease of Stillingfleet to

Mr. Moyser for £70, out of which they kept themselves £50 and gave to Mr. Langley, then Master, £20. Item with a farm in the Lordship of Heworth then valued by the jury at £20 per annum to be let. Item with a farm at Knapton then valued by the jury at £12 per annum to be let. Item with a Close where the Free School stood before the Civil

Wars let now from year to year for £7. 10. valued then by the jury at £g but cannot now be let for more than £7 10.

John Gowland of Knapton renewed his lease in Dean Wicham's time, his old rent was £ 1. 13. 4. per annum. The Chapter made him take it for — years and to pay for ever £5 yearly and took noe fine When Mr. Dawson of Heworth renewed his lease his old rent was £ I. 13. 4. The Dean and Chapter likewise took no fine, but caused him to pay for ever £3. 13. 4." *

This letter of Cuthbert Harrison about the Knapton property is yet another commentary on the maladministration of the School's endowment, which began at least as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century and persisted until 1820. The practice of granting long leases of the lands and rights of the School at excessively low rentals to friends and kinsfolk of the trustees was already notorious in 1633, when Charles I, on the occasion of his visit to York, administered a rebuke to the Dean and Chapter for their abuse of their position. The reprimand, however, had no effect, and the misuse of the Trustee's powers, with the connivance of the Schoolmasters, as Cuthbert Harrison's letter and other evidence shows, continued unabated. There can be little doubt that financial difficulties thus created were largely responsible for the serious decline in the fortunes of the School in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The endowments of 1667 as listed in the enclosure which the public-spirited (and beneficent) Cuthbert Harrison sent to the Archbishop were much the same as they were one hundred years before when, by the licence of Philip and Mary, the rights and properties of St. Mary's Hospital near the Horse Fair were granted to the Dean and Chapter for the benefit of the Free School. Only a "messuage in Fossgate" had disappeared, and the site of the School building demolished in the Civil War had depreciated very considerably, since "it cannot now be let for more than £7. to. o." It was one, George Marshall, by whom, in 1619, "the lands were begged of King James I as being given to a superstitious use." The motives of Mr. Moyser (his name was "Thomas") in preserving them to the School were not entirely disinterested, although he and his son, James, spent nearly t,000 of their own money in defending the title of the Dean and Chapter and securing the confirmation by James I, in 1621, of the Philip and Mary grant. For we hear that in 1644 James Moyser was holding the rectory of Stillingfleet by a lease for 3 lives at a rental which could be described as "improper"; and the Moysers, father and son, obviously had a vested interest in preserving the "status quo."

How seriously the interests of the School suffered by this kind of jobbery is shown by an inquiry in 1657. In 1649 Deans and Chapters were abolished by Act of Parliament, but provision was made that all revenues or rents which "had been or ought to have been paid for the maintenance of any grammar school or scholars" should continue to be paid. The trusteeship of the School endowment in this way passed in 1653 to the York Corporation, and four years later a commission,

headed by one Christopher Topham, was appointed "to view the rectory of Stillingfleet and enquire after the true value of the same." They found that the true value was £.150 per annum and that the lessee was actually paying to the Rev. Christopher Wallis (who held the Headmastership from 1638 to 166o) a rent of only £23 a year. An application for a renewal of the lease was refused by the Corporation, who contended that since 2 of the 3 lives had expired a reversion of considerable value to the School could be expected reasonably soon.

But with the Restoration the Dean and Chapter were once more back in the saddle, and the Moyser family came into their own. In 1661 a new lease was granted to James Moyser on the favourable terms which were revealed by the inquisition of 1667, as detailed in Cuthbert Harrison's enclosure. "G. Marwood, J. Hewley Knights, etc." rightly found that the leases to Mr. Moyser, to Mr. Dawson of Heworth, and John Gowland of Knapton were all improper and ordered their cancellation. For the Dawsons and the Gowlands had done no less well than the Moysers. Knapton had originally been leased in 1627 for 3 lives at a rent of thirty-three shillings and four pence, though it was forth £,12, and William Dawson had acquired Heworth on identical terms, though its real value was £40. Mr. Moyser, however, had all the characteristics of the Vicar of Bray and was clever enough to circumvent the order of cancellation. We learn that in the very next year, 1668, a special exception was made in the case of the lease to James Moyser, though we are not told on what grounds. Indeed the very fact that thirty years later Cuthbert Harrison was inspired to appeal to the Archbishop about Knapton shows that there was no real change of heart.

The Dean and Chapter of Restoration times seem to have been a particularly hard nut to crack. The commission of 1667 also assailed them about the School premises and ordered them to obtain the approbation of the Archbishop and, before Lady Day, 1669, erect a convenient new building with the fines exacted for the lease of their property. The Archbishop, however, insisted that the Horse Fair School should be rebuilt, and his Injunction of October, 1667, instructed that "the School House in the Horse Fair, demolished in the late warrs, be re-edifyed and the fine taken for the lease of the lands belonging to the same be repayd and be imployed towards rebuilding of the same." The Dean and Chapter obeyed neither the commission nor the Archbishop. No new school was erected, the Horse Fair premises remained a ruin, and the School continued in the temporary and inadequate home in the Bedern, acquired when, in 1644, the siege of York compelled them to take refuge within the walls.

Cuthbert Harrison's is thus only one of many complaints about the misuse of the endowment. His letter seems to have had some effect, for in the following year (1698), presumably at the instigation of the Archbishop, there is yet another re-valuation of the School lands. In his reference to it in his "History of St. Peter's School," Angelo