REPTON SCHOOL v. GILBERT THACKER.
All Reptonians and visitors to Repton know the two pillars, and low wall
which divide the School yard into two, almost equal, parts. Bigsby and
others believe that the wall is the boundary of the two Manors of Repton.
In the year 1896 I found, in the School muniment chest, among a lot
of musty, fusty documents, deeds, &c., two rolled-up folios, lawyers’
briefs, with interrogations, depositions, &c. On the back of one of the
briefs is a very rough pen and ink sketch-plan of the School buildings,
&c. This has served to identify the various portions occupied by the
School and the Thackers, described in the last chapter, and also gives
the reason why the wall was built. It appears that during the life-time
of Godfrey Thacker, grandson of Gilbert, the destroyer of the Priory,
the “schollers” of Repton School used to annoy him, while working in his
study, by playing too near his house, many rows ensued. These went on
till the days of Godfrey’s son Gilbert: he determined either to put an
end to the annoyances, or to the School, he did not care which, as we
shall see.
In 1652, soon after he succeeded to the estates, he commenced a suit
against the School. Gilbert Thacker, plaintiff, John Jennings, Master of
Etwall Hospital, William Ullock, Headmaster of Repton School, and others,
defendants.
“Plaintiff declared that the defendants the 1st day of December, 1651,
with force and armes the close of the said Gilbert, called the greate or
broade court (the School yard) at Repton did breake and enter and his
grasse there lately growing to the value of one hundred shillings with
their feete walkinge did treade downe and consume to the damage of £40.”
Defendants pleaded not guilty, and produced twelve witnesses, O.R.s and
others, who proved that “the scholemasters used to walke up and downe
the broade court at their pleasures, and the schollers have used to play
there.... That some scholemasters that kept cowes have used to turne
there cowes into the yard. (Mr. Watson stalled them in a room in the
Priory itself!) That Thacker’s father (Godfrey) was a barrister-at-law,
and never questioned it although continually used.”
The matter was settled “out of court,” by the appointment of two
arbitrators, Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., and Sir Samuel Sleigh, Knt.,
(O.R.s), with Gervase Bennett, as referee. They pronounced “theire award
by word of mouth about the yeare 1653.” Thacker was to build a wall
across the Court, beyond which the boys were not allowed to pass. This
he refused to do, so the alleged trespass, and annoyances went on for
another twelve years, when, owing to the conduct of Gilbert, the School
brought an action against him. “The schollers with threats of smites and
blows were affrighted, many of them were assaulted and beaten, many to
avoyd effusion of blood and expenses have absented themselves for a week
together, thro’ fear of arrest, some have withdrawn to other schooles.
If theire hats blew over the “Causey” (the entrance to the School) they
durst not fetch them, if Mr. Thacker was in the way.”
He also employed one Godfrey Kinton, a carpenter, to set up “stoopes
and rayles (post and rails) from the Chancell nooke to the nooke of the
nether School House chinney below the door,” but alas! boys were boys
even then, for we read when “he set up one stoope, and went for more,
before he returned, the stoope was pulled up, and earth thrown into the
hole by the schollers!”
Gilbert also tried in a more offensive way to make the occupants of
the Schoole House “weary of being there.” Down the School yard “uppon
a sudden rush of raine there was usually a water-course through the
Courtyard into Mr. Thacker’s inner court ... and soe under the dogg
kennell to the river.” This course he stopped “with stones and clodds,
and caused the water to run into the School House! twenty-seven or
eight pales-full of water had been ladled out.” When Mr. Ullock (the
Headmaster) complained, and requested that the stones and clods might be
taken away, he was bidden “to take them away himself if he durst, this
the schollers did more than once.”
Mrs. Ullock came in for a share of the “smites and blows.” For, we read,
“one day Gilbert Thacker furiously assaulted Mrs. Ullock as she stood
at her own door, and flung her into the house, followed her and strucke
her.” His wife joined in the fray, “she strucke Mrs. Ullock, and tore her
own gorgett upon a neale.”... “Ann Heyne, being by, interceded for her
mistress, whereupon Gilbert strucke her and felled her to the grounde,
and gave her a foule pinch by the arm, and again strucke Mrs. Ullacke,”
then Mrs. Thacker and her son “ran up to Mr. Ullock’s studdy and told
him that his wife had abused _her_ husband!” So we are not surprised to
hear that the School brought an action against the Thackers. The High
Court of Chancery appointed four gentlemen, as Commissioners, to try the
case. William Bullock (O.R.), Daniel Watson, Esquires, Thomas Charnells,
and Robert Bennett, gentlemen. They met “at the house of Alderman Hugh
Newton, at Derby, there being at the signe of the George.”
There they summoned witnesses to attend; fifty did so, twenty-five a
side. Their depositions, in answer to interrogatories, were taken on
April 15th, 1663, and fill sixty pages of folio. As before mentioned,
they consist of two folios, one for the School and one for Thacker. The
chief questions administered to the witnesses for the School, referred
to their knowledge of the School buildings, Schoolmasters and boys,
Thacker’s ancestors, rights of way, award of Sir Francis Burdett, and Sir
Samuel Sleigh, former suits at law, the Thackers’ conduct, the value of
the land, as grass land, and the use of the yard for recreation by the
boys, &c. For Thacker, the questions asked referred to their knowledge
of prohibitions by his ancestors and himself, and complaints made to the
Schoolmasters, &c.
The depositions are most interesting, as the knowledge of witnesses
extended back to within forty years of the founding of the School.
The number of Schoolmasters varied—in Watson’s time two, in Whitehead’s
three, Schoolmaster, Middle Master, and Usher. The number of boys also
varied from 60 to 200, with “7 or 8 poor schollers.” Among the boys
mentioned were four sons of Philip, first Earl of Chesterfield, Philip,
Charles, George and Ferdinando Stanhope; Michael Folliott, son of Henry
Folyot, Foleott or Ffoliott, Baron of Ballyshannon, Ireland; Wingfield,
Thomas, Vere Essex, and Oliver Cromwell, the four sons of Thomas
Cromwell, first Earl of Ardglass, besides the sons of divers knights and
gentlemen, Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., Sir Samuel Sleigh, Knt., Godfrey
Meynell, Thomas Sanders, William Bullock, &c., &c., most of whom had gone
to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge. (See _Repton School Register_)
The “Court yard” (School yard) had been used by the boys to recreate
themselves in, without let or hindrance from the defendant’s ancestors.
The award was well known, and agreed to at the time, 1653, but the
defendant had refused to comply with it, and had stopped several ways,
and blocked up a door leading to the brook, from the north-east corner of
the Schoolmaster’s garden.
The evidence of Ann Heyne, &c., referred to above, proved that the
defendant’s conduct had “caused many brawls, and many schollers to be
affrighted and absent themselves from schoole.” The value of the land was
worth from 2d. to 6d. per annum!
The defendant’s witnesses agreed about most of the points in dispute, but
they said the boys had no right to play in the great court yard without
permission, and some of them remembered having been whipped by Godfrey
Thacker and Schoolemaster Watson for so doing, and others remember
playing in “the Staineyard,” by orders of the Schoolemasters Watson and
Whitehead. Defendant also objected to the disposal of ashes, which the
Headmaster used to have placed on a mound opposite his front door, and
the Usher at the back of the Causey (_i.e._ the way between the stone
walls, leading into the old big school) instead of in the garden at the
back of the School, as they used to be put, as one witness said “he had
seen them carried by Mr. Schoolemaster Watson’s daughter!”
The Commissioners “recommended the differences between the two parties
to the Right Honourable Philipp, Earl of Chesterfield, to call the
said parties before him, and to hear and finally determine the said
differences between them if his Worship so can.” Gilbert Thacker again
failed to carryout the terms agreed upon, so on the 11th day of January,
in the 18th year of the reign of Charles II., King, a writ was issued
against him for contempt of court. The writ is in the Muniment Chest,
and it is a rare specimen of a legal document in Latin, written short,
full of abbreviations, very difficult to decipher, as Thacker pleaded in
his answer, “it was written in short lattin, some of the words written
very short, he did not well understand it, nor could say if it was a true
Coppy,” when Mr. Motteram (counsel for the School) delivered it to him,
and read it over to him, but he was wise enough to understand and obey
it eventually, so his contempt was pardoned, and in the following year a
final agreement was made between him and the School.
(1) The School to build up the way out of the School House
garden in the north wall, and to give up all rights to go (that
way) to the Brook.
(2) Also to give up the Void piece of ground called the
Slaughter House Yard (now the Hall Garden) between the School
House and Thacker’s Kitchen.
(3) A wall was to be built, by both parties, from the Chancel
north-east Corner, to the north side of the door of the Nether
School House.
(4) And the boys were allowed to play between the wall and the
Greate Gate (the School Arch).
A receipt for £14. 19s. 0d., half the cost of building the wall, signed
by Wm. Jordan, proves the wall, and pillars were built, or finished in
May, 1670, and the long continued disputes ceased.
In Dr. Sleath’s time the gates were removed, and the wall, which at first
was nearly level with the capitals of the pillars, was taken down on the
west side, and lowered on the east, as it is now. This is the history of
the pillars and wall, as recorded in the deeds, &c., lately discovered in
the Muniment Chest, which may contain other interesting details of events
long ago forgotten in the history of Repton School, and may be unearthed
(literally) out of the dust of ages!