which arrests the eye on Castle Gates, was founded by Edward VI., on the
18th of February, 1552, who named it the “Free Grammar School”—a title
about the meaning of which there has been a good deal of philological
disputation. On the south window is a Latin inscription, which runs as
follows:—“At the supplication of Hugh Edwards and Richard Whittaker, King
Edward the Sixth laid the foundation of a Shrewsbury School.” The
supplication was induced by the fact that there was no public institution
for the education of Salopian youth. This want was represented to the
king in 1551 by Hugh Edwards, a mercer in London, and afterwards of the
Shrewsbury college, and by Richard Whittaker, then bailiff of the town.
They solicited for the maintenance of a Free Grammar School a
considerable portion of the estates of the dissolved colleges of St. Mary
and St. Chad. The king readily granted their request; and the tithes of
Astley, Sansaw, Clive, Leaton and Almond Park, the property of St.
Mary’s, with those of Frankwell, Betton, Woodcote, Horton, Bicton,
Calcott, Shelton, Whitty, and Welbeck, belonging to St. Chad’s—the whole
then valued at the handsome sum of £20 per annum—were given for the
endowment of the school. Two masters were appointed by the bailiffs and
burgesses who were nominated governors, and who, with the Bishop of
Lichfield, were empowered to make statutes and ordinances. The
appointment of head and second masters now rests with the Fellows of St.
John’s College, Cambridge.
The first master was the Rev. Thomas Ashton who is called by Camden “the
excellent and worthie,” and who had “the best filled school in all
England.” He had 290 scholars, among whom were some of the aristocracy
of the county, heirs of the gentry of North Wales, and representatives of
the greatest families of the kingdom. He laid the foundation of that
brilliant fame which the school has always maintained. From a Latin
inscription on the south window we learn that “at the instance of Thomas
Ashton, a man pious, learned, and prudent, within these walls ever to be
revered, Queen Elizabeth augmented this foundation.” She did so by
adding to it on the 23rd of May, 1571, the entire rectory of Chirbury,
with further tithes and estates in the parish of St. Mary. The tithes
new produce about £3,000 per annum, a portion of which is paid in
stipends to the clergy of St. Mary’s, Chirbury, Clive, and Astley
parishes.
The School was originally a timber building, and the chapel, tower, and
library were added to it in 1595. The chapel was consecrated on 18th of
May, 1617, by Dr. John Overel, Bishop of Lichfield, and the sermon was
preached by Dr. Samson Price, who, for his abhorrence of Popery, was
named “The maule and scourge of heretics.” The wood building which
contained the first schoolroom was taken down, and the present fine
edifice of Grinshill stone erected in its place in 1627. In the centre
is a gateway, adorned on each side with a Corinthian column, upon which
stand statues of a scholar and a graduate, bare-headed, and in the
costume of the period. The library contains a large and valuable
collection of books and manuscripts. It was “increased more than double
by the testamentary bequest of Dr. John Taylor,” a native of the town,
educated at the School.
During the mastership of Ashton the School acquired and has since
maintained the most brilliant renown. The roll of illustrious students
is a lengthy one. Ashton had among his scholars George Sandys, the
well-known traveller, whose works obtained great commendation from Dryden
and Pope: Sir Henry Sydney, ambassador to France from the court of Edward
VI., President of the Welsh Marches, and Lord Deputy of Ireland, which
country, says Spenser and Sir John Davies, he governed with great wisdom,
and proved himself, according to Sir R. Naunton in the _Fragmenta
Regalia_, a “man of great parts:” Sir Fulk Greville, Lord Brooke, an
ingenious writer, a friend of Queen Elizabeth, and a poet of repute in
his day: Sir Phillip Sidney, the noble and chivalrous soldier and poet
whose bravery at the battle of Zutphen is one of the illustrious
incidents in our history, and whose exquisite mind is manifested in
_Arcadia_ the picturesque and in _Defence of Poesie_ the enchanting.
Those were Ashton’s scholars, and besides them there have been educated
here Sir Thomas Jones, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the
reigns of Charles II. and James II., whose answer to the last monarch’s
remark that he could soon have twelve judges of Sir Thomas’s opinion as
to his dispensation of power, “Twelve judges you may possibly find, sire,
but not twelve lawyers,” is well known: Dr. John Taylor, Canon
Residentiary of St. Paul’s, Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln, and
Archdeacon of Buckingham, a learned critic and philologist, who wrote a
work entitled _Elements of the Civil War_, and published what were said
to be excellent editions of Lysias, Demosthenes and Lycurgus: George
Saville, Marquis of Halifax, of whose courageous opposition to the
unconstitutional conduct of James II. Macaulay speaks, who, under that
sovereign, was President of the Council, in the Convention Parliament was
Speaker of the House of Lords, and under William and Mary was Lord Privy
Seal: Edward Waring, the learned English mathematician and Lucasian
Professor of mathematics at Cambridge in the middle of the last century:
while among more recent celebrities there are Mr. Thomas Wright the
antiquarian: Captain Richard Lloyd Edwards, an officer of the “brave and
bold” six hundred who rode “into the jaws of death,” at Balaclava; and
several Englishmen of note. May we not say that these are names of which
we may justly boast? May we not, adopting Macaulay’s elegant eulogium on
the famous students of Glasgow University, say that Shrewsbury School has
sent forth men “whose talents and learning have not been wasted on
selfish or ignoble objects, but have been employed to promote the
physical and moral good of their species, to extend the empire of man
over the material world, to defend the cause of civil and religious
liberty against tyrants and bigots, and to defend the cause of virtue and
order against the enemies of all divine and human laws.”
On the left of the Schools ST. NICHOLAS’S CHAPEL was recently observable.
It was the only one in existence of eight similar structures. It was
erected by Roger de Montgomery for the use of those of his retainers who
resided in the outer court of the Castle. At a subsequent period it was
appropriated for the accommodation of the President and Council of the
Marches of Wales. On the site has been erected a handsome structure by
the English Presbyterians, who have retained its ancient name, calling it