REPTON SCHOOL.
“The Foundation of Repton School dates from the middle of that century
which is truly described as the age of the revival of learning. It may
be that other times have witnessed great changes and progress,—that our
own day bears signs of even more wonderful intellectual activity than any
that has gone before. But our successes are only the natural results of
the achievements of our Fathers,—the gathering in of the Autumn fruits
sown in that Spring. The mental revolution of the sixteenth century broke
suddenly on the dull cold sleep of past ages, with the mysterious impulse
and pregnant energy with which a Scandinavian Spring bursts forth from
the bosom of Winter.
“The wisest of our countrymen in those days, men who could at once see
before them, and gather wisdom from the past, seem to have discerned
the movement when as yet the mass was hardly stirred, and it was their
care to provide means to foster and direct it. Kings and Cardinals and
Prelates led the way; Knights and Gentlemen and Yeomen followed. By the
munificence of Wolsey and King Henry, the noblest Colleges of Oxford
and Cambridge were established:—Edward VI. placed Grammar Schools in
all his principal towns; as Shrewsbury, and Birmingham, and Bath:—and
with the same object John Lyon, (yeoman of Harrow), Lawrence Sheriffe,
(grocer of London), Sir John Porte, (Knight of the Bath), founded their
schools,”[1] at Harrow, Rugby and Repton.
The founder of Repton School was descended from a long line of merchants
who lived at Chester, then called West Chester, to distinguish it from
Manchester.
His father was a student in the Middle Temple, and, after being called
to the Bar, filled many offices at it. In the year 1525 he was raised to
a Judgeship of the King’s Bench, and was knighted. He married twice, (1)
Margery, daughter of Sir Edward Trafford, and (2) Joan, daughter of John
Fitzherbert, of Etwall, by whom he had a son, John. After the dissolution
of the Monasteries, King Henry VIII. granted to him the Manor, together
with the impropriate Rectory and advowson of the Vicarage of Etwall.
He is said to have taken some part in the foundation of Brasenose
College, Oxford, and, with John Williamson, provided “stipends for two
sufficient and able persons to read and teach openly in the hall, the one
philosophy, the other humanity.”
Of the early days of his son John, nothing is known. He was educated at
Brasenose College, where he was the first lecturer or scholar on his
father’s foundation. At the coronation of King Edward VI. he was made a
Knight of the Bath. Like his father, he married twice. His first wife
was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Giffard, by whom he had two sons,
who predeceased him, and three daughters—Elizabeth, who married Sir
Thomas Gerard, Knt., of Bryn; Dorothy, who married George Hastings, Earl
of Huntingdon; and Margaret, who married Sir Thomas Stanhope, Knt., of
Shelford. From whom the present hereditary Governors of Repton School,
Lord Gerard, Earl Loudoun, and Earl Carnarvon, trace their descent. His
second wife was Dorothy, daughter of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, of Norbury,
by whom he had no children. In the year 1553 he was one of the “Knights
of the Shire” for the county of Derby, and served the office of High
Sheriff for the same county in 1554. In August, 1556, he “sat with the
Bishop of the diocese (Ralph Baine) and the rest of the Commissioners,
at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, to search out heresies and punish them.”
(Strype, Memorials, vol. III., part 2, p. 15.) Joan Waste, a blind woman,
was tried and found guilty of heresy, and was burnt at the stake in
Derby. By will, dated the 6th of June, 1557, among many other bequests,
he gave and devised to his executors, Sir Thomas Giffard, Richard Harpur,
Thomas Brewster, John Barker, and Simon Starkey, all his lands, tenements
and hereditaments, in Mosley, Abraham, and Brockhurst, in the county of
Lancaster, to find a Priest, well learned and graduate, and of honest
and virtuous conversation, freely to keep a Grammar School in Etwall, or
Repton, also an Usher associate to and with the said master, to keep the
School. The School Master to have yearly twenty pounds, and the Usher ten
pounds. Also that his executors should hold, for the term of seven years
after his decease, his farm called Musden Grange, and with the profits
should find a priest to say Mass, &c., for seven years, and with the
residue of the profits of the stock and farm should build a substantial
school-house with convenient chambers and lodgings for the schoolmaster
and usher in the precinct on the north side of the churchyard of Etwall,
or at Repton, and this being done, without delay, to establish, by the
King and Queen’s license, and other assurances to the School for ever.
He also willed that Sir William Perryn, Bachelor of Divinity, his late
Chaplain, should be (if living and willing) the first Schoolmaster.
As the Report, made to the Charity Commissioners by F. O. Martin, Esq.,
in 1867, says, “Sir John had no property in Repton. His executors were
probably induced to establish the school there, rather than at Etwall, by
finding the remains of the dissolved priory well adapted to the purpose.”
By a deed, dated June 12th, 1557, “Gilbert Thacker of Repton, in
consideration of the sum of £35. 10s., bargained and sold to Richard
Harpur, serjeant-at-law, John Harker, and Simon Starkey, three of Sir
John Porte’s executors, one large great and high house, near the kitchen
of Gilbert Thacker, commonly called the Fermery (Infirmary) (now the
Hall), also one large void room or parcel of ground upon the east
part called the Cloyster, and one other room called the Fratry, (now
destroyed), upon which the Schoolmaster’s lodgings were erected and
builded, with all the rooms, both above and beneath, and inclosed with a
new wall, to the intent that the same should be a schoolhouse and so used
from time to time thereafter.”
Thus was Repton School founded by Sir John Porte. The management seems
to have been in the hands of the Harpurs till the year 1621, when an
agreement was made by Sir John Harpur on the one part, and Henry, Earl of
Huntingdon, Philip, Lord Stanhope, and Sir Thomas Gerard, Bart., on the
other, by which, after the death of Sir John Harpur, the management was
restored to the rightful descendants of the founder.
In 1622, on the petition of the above-mentioned co-heirs of Sir John, by
Royal Letters Patent, bearing date 20th June, 19th Jac., I., a Charter of
Incorporation by the style and title of “The Master of Etwall Hospital,
the School Master of Repton, Ushers, Poor Men, and Poor Scholars,” was
granted. “That, owing to the increased value of the lands and tenements,
it should consist of one Master of the Hospital, one School Master, two
Ushers, twelve Poor Men, and four Poor Scholars, and that Sir John Harpur
should be the first and present Governor and Superintendent of the School
and Hospital, and that after his death the co-heirs should manage them.”
The co-heirs “of their friendliness and goodwill to Sir John Harpur”
petitioned that his heirs should have the election and appointment of
three of the twelve poor men, and one of the poor scholars, which was
also granted, and they continue to do so to this day.”