LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. To-day and here the fight's begun, Of the great fellowship you're free; Henceforth the school and you are one, And what you are, the race shall be. " Chaque peuple organise 1'Education a son image, on vue de ses moeurs et de ses habitudes ; 1'education, a son tour, reagit sur 1'etat social." ED. DEMOLINS A quoi tient la Superiorite des Anglo-Saxons. OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS THEIR INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH HISTORY CHARTERHOUSE RUGBY ETON ST. PAUL'S HARROW WESTMINSTER MERCHANT TAYLORS' WINCHESTER BY J. G. COTTON MINCHIN < " " Author of Old Harrow Dayt", Tht Growth of Freedom in the Balkan Peninsula" LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co., LIMITED PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1901 TO MY ESPECIAL THREE. PREFACE. FEW things in the perusal of biographies have struck me more than the manner in which the influence of the school and its surroundings on the subject of the biography, who spent his boyhood there, has been ignored. Until the publication of the School Registers of Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Merchant Taylors', Rugby, St. Paul's, Westminster, and Winchester (all excellent, though some are pre-eminently so), it was sometimes more than difficult to trace the school of a statesman or author. As few of the Registers go back to the seventeenth century, it is not even now easy to locate the school of some distinguished men, who are said to have been at public schools during the seventeenth or early part of the eighteenth century. Sir Francis Dashwood (Chancellor of the Exchequer) is an instance in point, though I have satisfied myself that he was a Commoner at Winchester. The only School Register of the eight schools referred to in this volume that was published in the eighteenth century is Welch's Alumni Westmonasterlenses. This work was published in 1788 and gives the names (coupled with bio- graphical details) of every King's (or Queen's) Scholar elected to Oxford and Cambridge since 1561, with the names of the Scholars admitted into St. Peter's College, Westminster, since 1663. It is probable that the existence of this admirable work of reference has some connection with the fact that so many Old Westminsters (relatively to the numbers of their school) figure in the pages of the Dictionary of National Biography. No one would belittle the merits of Westminster, but, thanks to Welch's book, the Old Boys from the Elizabethan Foundation were more easily ear-marked than those from other Foundations. As regards the schools of which some account is given VIII PREFACE. in this volume, the least invidious and best course appeared to be to follow the steps of the Public School Commissioners of 1861, who made a report on these eight Public Schools, with the addition of Shrewsbury School. At the time I first began to collect material, I was aware that the late Mr. George William Fisher was engaged on the Annals of Shrewsbury School, published since his death, and therefore I left the famous Salopian School out of the ambit of my inquiry. How far distinguished men have been influenced by the public schools at which they were educated must always remain a question which can receive no final and conclusive answer. I can only submit that the more keenly alive a man is to the influences of his time and generation and who were more so than Shakespeare, Milton, and Byron the more liable must be his mind to receive a bent and a direction from his environment at school. I have endeavoured to marshal the facts, and must leave the reader to say whether our Public Schools have through their Old Boys influenced for good, or evil, or at all, the history of our country. It is my contention that during the last three hundred years our Public Schools have influenced public opinion and the conduct of public affairs, and for good. I have received valuable and ungrudging help, not only from friends, but from some who were previously strangers. Some few to whom I am under special obligations I may be permitted to name. For Charterhouse: Mr. George H. M. Batten (Old Car- thusian). " For Eton : Mr. I. S. Leadam (Author of the Lives of Bishop Waynflete and Sir Robert Walpole" in the Diction- ary of National Biography}, and Mr. H. D. McLaren (Old Etonian). For Harrow: Mr. D. F. Carmichael (Old Harrovian), and the Rev. W. C. Stewart (Old Harrovian). For Merchant Taylors' School, the Rev. William Baker, D.D. (late Head-Master). For Rugby: Mr. M. Edwardes Jones (Old Rugbeian), and Capt. W. D. Malton (Old Rugbeian). PREFACE. IX For St. Paul's: the Rev. R. B. Gardiner (Old Pauline; Editor of Admission Registers of St. Paul's School), and Mr. J. A. Moore. For Westminster: Mr. John Sargeaunt (Author of Annals of Westminster School), and Mr. T. Wheeler, K.C. (Old Westminster). For Winchester: Mr. Clifford W. Holgate (Old Wyke- hamist; Editor of Winchester Long Rolls 16531721), and the Rev. W. H. C. Malton (Old Wykehamist). It will thus be seen that I have endeavoured to obtain my information from the best sources, but for all statements of fact, as well as of opinion, I desire to be held alone responsible. CONTENTS. CHARTERHOUSE. CHAPTER i page i n 9 ,, III 23 ETON. CHAPTER iv page 45 v 57 vi 68 vii 80 ii VIII 100 HARROW. CHAPTER ix page 114 x ,,132 XI ,,153 MERCHANT TAYLORS'. CHAPTER xii page 162 XIII 178 RUGBY. CHAPTER xrv page 196 XV ,,212 xvi ,,225 ST. PAUL'S. CHAPTER xvn page 235 xvm 243 xix ,, 257 XII CONTENTS. WESTMINSTER. CHAPTER xx page 274 xxi ,,293 xxn 306 WINCHESTER. CHAPTER xxin page 330 xxiv 343 xxv 354 xxvi 379 xxvn 393 CHAPTER XXVIII, CONCLUSION page 408 APPENDIX page 415 CORRIGENDA 424 INDEX 4 2 5 OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. CHAPTER I. CHARTERHOUSE. Omnes laudate Dominum Fontem perennem boni, Recolentes Fundatoris Memoriam Suttoni. CARMEN CARTHUSIANUM. THE founder of Eton was a King, the founder of Winchester a prince bishop, and the founder of Charterhouse a merchant prince. Of all school-founders Sir Thomas Sutton was the the fortune man of largest ; probably he was the only school- founder whom the ranks of the very rich have furnished. As a rule the founders of schools, with the possible exception of William of Wykeham, have been by no means men of great possessions. In many respects Charterhouse and its founder differ from our other public schools. Fuller has " called it The masterpiece of Protestant English Charity." Winchester and Eton were in their conception Catholic St. Paul's the creation Schools ; was of a liberal Catholic ; Harrow, Rugby, Repton, Uppingham, Merchant Taylors' and Charterhouse have been Protestant from their very foundation. To take first the chronological order of the Elizabethan Schools and where all are excellent, no classification by merit is possible Repton was founded in 1557, Westminster was refounded by Queen Elizabeth in 1560, Merchant Taylors' was founded by the Merchant Taylors' Company in 1561, Rugby in 1567, Harrow in 1571 and Uppingham by Archdeacon Johnson in 1584. Charterhouse, founded in 1611, is a Jacobian School. Just one hundred years after Dean Colet had founded St. Paul's, Sir Thomas Sutton 2 i OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. purchased from the Earl of Suffolk "the lately dissolved Charterhouse, beside Smithfield, in Middlesex," and obtained from James I. Letters Patent which empowered him to found a Hospital and School. A word or two should be said about Thomas Sutton. He was a most remarkable man an Empire man of the seventeenth century. Fortunately for him he was sent to Eton, and out of gratitude to Dr. Cox who suggested this step to his father, he bequeathed a legacy to Dr. Cox's children. How the boy Sutton travelled from Lincoln, his native town, to Eton is not recorded, but the journey must in those days have been more arduous than a trip at the present day from London to Cairo. Sutton is another illustration of Lord Rosebery's doubt as to whether Old Etonians or Scotchmen take the larger share in the government of the Empire Our old Etonian seems early in life to have learnt the value of money for public ends. He became Secretary to the Earl of Warwick, Master General of the Ordnance, and was appointed by him his deputy at Berwick-on-Tweed. This was a post of grave responsibility, but Sutton did not content himself with the mere discharge of his duties. He kept his eyes and ears open and secured leases of unde- veloped coal property. Northumberland was his Rhodesia. The consequence was that in about ten years he had amassed a fortune of half a million and returned to London. Sutton was not a man to bury his talent in the ground, but lent his money at the rate of sixteen per cent. The English Government used then to borrow at the rate of 14 per cent. Being a good man, it is, however, on record that he charged poor people only six per cent! He also married an heiress. No wonder people spoke of him as the possessor of more money than was owned by the Queen's Exchequer. But Sutton was no mere money-spinner. He helped the winds and the waves to wreck the Armada. The money required by the King of Spain was to be mainly provided by the Bank of Genoa. Sutton bought up all the drafts he could on the Bank of Genoa and required payment just before Philip's demand was made, so that the Bank was compelled to protest the King's Bills.