Fragments of Two Centuries Part 15

Henry Watson, who was appointed master of the Sunday School, had also the picturesque duty to perform of wielding his ten-foot wand over the heads of the scholars during divine service at Church, and for this purpose would walk up and down the aisles, and if any unfortunate youngster did anything wrong, down came the wand, whack, upon the--no, not upon the boy's head but upon the back of the seat, for the boys generally could dodge it!

One of the earliest Sunday Schools established in Hertfords.h.i.+re was at Hoddesdon (1790) of which the following rules will perhaps be read with interest by some youthful readers who think an hour in school a trial of patience--

"The Children are to appear in the School-room at Eight o'clock in the Morning during the Summer Months, and at nine in the Winter, and again both Summer and Winter at Half-past Two o'clock in the Afternoon, with clean Face and Hands, Hair combed, and decently clothed according to the Abilities of their Parents; to proceed to Church, and from thence to School, there to remain receiving Instruction till Six o'Clock in the Evening!

"The Teachers shall receive One s.h.i.+lling per Score; and have an a.s.sistant when the Number requires it."

"Children not coming to School in time, are to wear a Mark inscribed Idle Boy or Girl, in large Letters, during Church, and the whole or part of the School Time.

"Children behaving ill to wear a Mark of Naughty Boy or Girl."

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The Old Meeting Sunday School, established in 1813, appears to have been brought into the shape of an inst.i.tution by the earlier efforts of the Misses Nash, daughters of Mr. Wm. Nash, a noted lawyer, whose name is mentioned elsewhere. These ladies first conducted a cla.s.s for girls in their own house. The school at the Old Meeting was started with the following Committee of Management:--Rev. John Pendered (their minister), James Pigott, William Clack, William Smith, William Field Butler and Henry Butler, and the first Sunday scholar on the old register I notice was the late Mr. John Norman, the naturalist; Mr.

James Jacklin being also among the earliest scholars.

The Sunday School at the New Meeting (Kneesworth Street Chapel) was established later by the efforts of Mr. Stallabra.s.s, a wool stapler, living in Melbourn Street. The distinction of paid Church school teachers and voluntary teachers at the Chapels appears to have been kept up for at least 20 years after the schools were established, for in 1831 a return was required to be made by the Overseers to the House of Commons of all schools in their parishes, and from the return made on that occasion by Thomas A. b.u.t.terfield and Philip Craft (overseers), I give the following:--

"Three Sunday Schools--one Church School with 55 scholars, and two Dissenters' Schools with 204 scholars. A lending library attached to both Dissenting Schools. In the two Dissenting Sunday Schools the children are taught by gratuitous teachers. Church Sunday School supported by voluntary contributions; master's salary seven guineas per annum."

The above return enables us to compare the growth of Sunday Schools in the town, and the most striking fact is that while at first the Chapel Schools were by far the larger, the later figures show a great increase in the Church Sunday School in particular, and of Sunday scholars in general. In 1831 we see that the Church had only 55 scholars; in 1890 it had 405; in 1831, the two Independent Schools had 204 between them, now they have about 420. In 1831, the total scholars in Sunday Schools in Royston was 259, now, including Wesleyan School, the number is about 900. To get an exact comparison about two-thirds of the present figures should be taken, as the population of the town in 1831 was very nearly (not quite) two-thirds of what it is at present. This basis would give us 600 scholars now against 259 sixty years ago. Those who think we may be losing our hold upon the children must remember that we have all this advantage plus the elementary education of the day schools, as compared with sixty years ago, and a comparison with eighty years ago would of course be even more in favour of the present.

By the year 1840 the relative position of the Sunday Schools as to scholars was, Church School 92, the three Dissenting Schools {120} 264--viz., New Meeting 154, Old Meeting 85, and Unitarian 25. By 1831, out of a population of 2,258, there were 1,313 who could read and write.

Coming to Day Schools we find from the same Parliamentary return for a date somewhat beyond that a.s.signed me, viz., 1831, the following particulars, as questions and answers, are given--

What number of Infant Schools, if any? One public Lancastrian School, 53 in attendance, 70 on the list; children may enter at a year-and-a-half and remain till 6 or 7--mistress L30 a year.

What number of Daily Schools? One Lancastrian, 53 in attendance, 90 on the list; enter at 6 years of age and remain as long as their parents please to let them--mistress 12s. a week.

Total number of schools of all kinds, 16. Three Boarding Schools and for day pupils; one for males 30 scholars, one 25 scholars (7 males, 18 females); one 15 scholars, (3 males, 12 females); one 27 scholars (4 males, 23 females); one 26 (male) scholars; six schools for both s.e.xes, 3 to 8 or 10 years of age.

What number of schools confined nominally or virtually to the Established Church? Only one Sunday School as above.

What number of schools confined nominally or virtually to any other Religious Denominations? Four--Infant, Lancastrian and two Sunday Schools (Independents).

Of the sixteen schools in the town, of which details of fourteen are given above, none had many pupils; some were virtually dame schools, where the teaching was not often a very elevating process; and too often appealed to the motive of fear, either of a black dog in the cellar or of the a.s.surance that Buonaparte was coming! Education of the well-to-do was much more local than now, owing to the expense and inconvenience of travel, hence the large number of private schools.

Of the first Day Schools where any considerable number of children attended before the present series of public schools was established, the evidence goes to show that they were of the dame school order, remembered best in after years, not by the amount of erudition acquired, but by some of the elder boys who went little errands over the way to the "Fox and Duck" (now the house occupied by Mr. H. Clark, Market Hill), and from the facts that the article they returned with having, by special injunction, to be placed behind the door, that the worthy dame soon afterwards repaired to that corner of the room, the more knowing of the scholars were apt to draw certain conclusions as to the somnulent condition of their instructress and the easy terms upon which a truant boy could get off by going that little errand! But the limited means placed at the disposal of those engaged in the education of children then, compared with our millions of Government grant of to-day, do not allow us to judge too harshly of results.

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Even where there was some endowment it was generally on too small a scale to do much for a general system of education. At Melbourn the first school of this kind a.s.sembled in a quaint room at the top of the Church porch!

At Barkway, where the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond's endowment led to a free school, this was of so limited a character that in the Commissioners'

report as late as 1838, the endowment was only L10 0s. 4d., to which was added L5 from the town lands, L5 from the rent of the town house, besides which the tolls of the annual fair, varying from 3s. to 5s., were also applied to education, and together seven boys and five girls were being educated at the Free School out of a population of a thousand souls, and this was only one year before the National Schools were started in 1839!

The germ of public elementary education in Royston is a.s.sociated with the present Infants' School and with the honoured name of Miss Martha Nash. The present Infants' School was established in 1832. The land upon which it was built was given by Lord Dacre, and funds for the building were obtained chiefly from a very successful bazaar under the patronage of the then Lord and Lady Dacre.

The original trustees of the School were:--Edward King Fordham (Royston), Wedd William Nash, John Phillips, John Edward Fordham, John George Fordham, Valentine Beldam, John Beldam, John Butler, Thomas b.u.t.terfield, William Hollick Nash, Joseph Pattison Wedd, William Field Butler, James Piggot and Thomas Pickering.

The British School was established in 1840, and the building erected on land the gift of Lord Dacre; the National School was commenced in the same year and the school building also erected on land given by Lord Dacre. The following is a list of the first trustees of the British School:--Wedd William Nash, John Phillips, John George Fordham, John Butler, Joseph Pattison Wedd, John Medway, S. S. England, F. Neller, W.

F. Butler, John Pendered, Henry Butler, William Hollick Nash, T. S.

Maling, James Piggot, James Richardson, William Simmons and Thomas A.

b.u.t.terfield.

I am unable to give the corresponding list of the first trustees of the National Schools, but the following names occur as being present at a meeting soon after the school was founded, and several of them were no doubt trustees, viz., Rev. J. Whiting (vicar), John Phillips, William Nunn, Henry Thurnall, G. Smith, ---- Brown, sen., R. Brown, and D.

Britten.

Whatever weight may be attached to the circ.u.mstance itself, or to the oft-repeated complaints that religious wors.h.i.+p and religious beliefs have not so strong a hold upon the minds of men now as in the past, all the evidence available points unmistakably to the fact of an enormous increase in the habit of attending public wors.h.i.+p at the {122} present time compared with a hundred years ago, even when the constable went his rounds in our streets to look up defaulters about the town, and "particularly at the Cross."

There was a marvellous difference in the state of the Established Church at the end of the last Century and to-day. It is a very rare thing now to see a parish without a resident clergyman, but then, clergymen often held two or more parishes without residing in either.

In 1791, for instance, the Vicar of the two parishes of Great and Little Abington lived in a house of his own at Thriplow. The truth is, says an old writer under date, 1789, "that most of the Churches within ten miles of Cambridge were served by Fellowes of Colleges." In some cases the Curates hastened back to dine in hall. In this way the Curates would come out to the parish to a service, to a wedding, a funeral, or a day's shooting, and often served two or three parishes in this free and easy fas.h.i.+on, and it became necessary to limit the service in each parish to alternate Sundays.

Upon this subject and upon the character of the services in many village Churches of the time, I am indebted to a very good authority--MS. reminiscences by the late Mr. Henry Thurnall--for the following: "Neither Whittlesford, Sawston, Great Shelford, Newton, Hauxton, Barrington, or Chis.h.i.+ll, had a resident minister." As to the character of the Psalmody practised in the Churches, the same authority says:--At Duxford, John and Thomas H---- performed on two ba.s.soons anything but heavenly music; at Shelford old John M----, the clerk, used to climb up a ladder into a high gallery and there seating himself, often quite alone, and saying "let us sing to the praise and glory of G.o.d by singin' the fust four vusses of the 100th psalm, old vusshun';" and he put on his spectacles and read and sung each verse, frequently as a solo accompanying himself on a ba.s.s-viol, said to have been made by himself! At W---- old V---- set the tune with a cracked flute, and on one occasion, when reading the 26th verse of the grand 104th Psalm, he said:--"There goes the s.h.i.+ps, and there is that Lufftenant [Leviathan] whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein."

In an extremely interesting book of reminiscences, which may be cordially recommended to the notice of the reader,--"What I Remember,"

by Adolphus Trollope, brother of the famous novelist, Anthony Trollope--there are some interesting glimpses of a Parish Church and its services in one of the villages in this district at the beginning of this century. The Trollopes were related to the Meetkerkes, of Julians, Rushden, and the entertaining author of "What I remember,"

was, at the time of Waterloo, the expected heir to Julians, and of Adolphus Meetkerke, Esq., the then head of the family. Young Trollope visited Rushden as a boy and gives us a graphic picture of family life, Church services, and the squire of the village {123} playing the part of Sir Roger de Coverley. The house-keeping at Julians, we are told, was in the hands of "Mrs. Anne," an old maiden sister of the squire, who, though a prim, precise little woman, sometimes came down to breakfast a little late, "to find her brother standing on the hearth-rug, with his prayer-book open in his hand, waiting for her arrival to begin prayers to the a.s.sembled household. He had a wonderfully strong rasping voice, the tones of which were rarely modulated under any circ.u.mstances. I can hear now his reverberating, 'Five minutes too late again, Mrs. Anne' 'Dearly beloved brethren,'

etc.; the change of person addressed, and of subject having been marked by no pause or break whatever, save the sudden kneeling at the head of the breakfast table; while at the conclusion of the short, but never missed prayers, the transition from 'Amen,' to 'William, bring round the brown mare after breakfast,' was equally unmarked by pause for change of voice or manner."

To this is added a glimpse of the villagers a.s.sembled in Church under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Skinner. "Whether there was any clerk or not I do not remember," says Mr. Trollope, "but if any such official existed, the performance of his office in Church was not only overlaid but extinguished by the great rough 'view-holloa' sort of voice of my uncle. He never missed going to Church, and never missed a word of the responses, which were given in far louder tones than those of the Vicar. Something of a hymn was always attempted, I remember, by the rustic congregation; with what sort of musical effect may be imagined.

* * * * But the singers were so well pleased with the exercise that they were apt to prolong it, as my uncle thought, somewhat unduly, and on such occasions he would cut the performance short with a rasping 'That's enough!' which effectually brought it to an abrupt conclusion.

The very short sermon * * * having been brought to an end, my uncle would sing out to the Vicar, as he was descending the pulpit stairs, 'Come up to dinner, Skinner!' and then we all marched out while the rustics, still retaining their places till we were fairly out of the door, made their obeisances as we pa.s.sed."

In this glimpse we miss the genial face of Sir Roger, but there is nothing in it inconsistent with the village squire of the Spectator, Indeed, Mr. Trollope says of the old squire, "He was a good man too, was old Adolphus Meetkerke; a good landlord, a kindly natured man, a good sportsman, an active magistrate, and a good husband."

He was evidently a regular attendant to his magisterial duties on the Royston Bench, for his clean, linear, and well-written signature turns up frequently in the Royston parish books. The Meetkerkes descended from a famous Dutchman, Sir Adolphus Meetkerke, who was at one time amba.s.sador to England.

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Before the t.i.the Commutation Act was pa.s.sed, a very curious piece of work in the harvest field was the paying of the parson by the t.i.the man going round among the shocks of corn and placing a green bough in every tenth shock, &c., for then the t.i.the was collected in kind--the tenth shock, hay-c.o.c.k, calf, lamb, pig, fowl, pigeon, duck, egg, the tenth pound of b.u.t.ter, cheese, and so on through all the products of the land. The inconvenience of this clumsy system was often greatly felt, when a farmer was compelled to delay the carting of his corn simply because the t.i.the man had not been round to set out the t.i.the corn, while on the other hand it was obviously impossible for the clergyman to get the work all done at once to suit all parties, and thus when a Commutation Act came it was a great relief alike to the clergyman and the farmers and landowners, and did away with a longstanding cause of strife and litigation, especially in a town like Royston, where a farmer might have t.i.thable produce in several parishes.

Sometimes the t.i.the owner found an attempt to impose upon him some of the lean kine, and that the tenth of its kind had a way of differing somewhat from the other nine! When, for instance, in the last century, Canon Weston was away in Durham, his curate, at Therfield, on going to Brandish to t.i.the the ringe-wood, found the woodman over anxious for him to begin counting at a certain spot, where the cutting commenced, but suspecting that the ringes had been cooked a little, the wily curate examined them and found every tenth, from the woodman's way of counting _fell upon a very thin ringe_! Remonstrances followed and the "tenths" were made up to the same condition of plumpness as the rest, and the curate received the commendation of his superior for so well looking after his affairs!

Since the date to which the foregoing state of things refers, the Established Church has had an awakening which has taken a real hold upon and has been influenced by the laity, and has recognised that it has a mission to the people rather than an official routine, facts which are not without significance in their bearing upon what follows with regard to the town of Royston, and the relative positions of the Church and Dissenting bodies.

A hundred years ago the Nonconformists included most of the wealthy families in the town and neighbourhood. The pulpit at the Old Meeting (Independents) erected in the narrow part of Kneesworth Street in 1706 was occupied at least once a year by Robert Hall, the great Baptist preacher then at Cambridge, who was a not unfrequent visitor at the houses of Edward King Fordham, the banker, and William Nash, the lawyer.

One of the princ.i.p.al events in the religious life of the town at the end of last century was the division of the congregation of Independents at the Old Meeting.

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The origin of the New Meeting, as it was called, was a very small one, and does not look at first like a very serious split in the old congregation. An old paper, still in existence, written apparently and read at the opening of the New Meeting, states that "in the year 1791 a few of us met at a friend's house a few weeks for prayer and the reading of the Word of G.o.d; our numbers soon increased and then we met in a barn for a considerable time. We went on till the year 1792, and our numbers still increasing we erected this meeting." At this time the Rev. Mr. Atkinson was the minister. It is evident, however, that the new movement grew apace, and some interest began to be taken in it in the town, for on 24th February, 1791, we find J. Butler laying J.

Beldam a bottle of wine "that the New Meeting House will be begun in six months at Royston." Evidently Mr. Butler won his bottle of wine, for on the 2nd of May, in the same year, the contract for the new building, to be afterwards known as the "New Meeting" (Kneesworth Street) was signed.

It is interesting to note the plain, inexpensive kind of building which suited persons a.s.sembling for public wors.h.i.+p compared with to-day, for the amount of the contract for erecting the building "in a workman-like manner" was only L320. This contract was between John Stamford, carpenter and builder, on the one part, and on the other part the following gentlemen who were the first trustees:--Samuel Luke, of Royston, Cambs., maltster; William Stamford, Royston, Herts., maltster; George Fordham, the elder, and George Fordham, the younger, both of Kelshall, gentlemen; Robert Hankin, Royston, Cambs., draper; Thomas Wells, Royston, Herts., grocer; Thomas Trigg, Ba.s.singbourn, yeoman; Samuel Walbey, Royston, Cambs., maltster; William c.o.xall, Ba.s.singbourn, gentleman; John Abbott, Royston, Herts., breeches-maker; Abraham Luke, Royston, Cambs., yeoman; and John Goode, Royston, Herts., carpenter.