The Free Schools.
EDUCATION is, in the British empire, an object of national concern. Our
various universities and public schools are splendid monuments of the
attention paid by our ancestors to the important object of training and
enlightening the youthful mind. The provision made for the support of
these establishments, especially in England and Ireland, is, generally
speaking, munificent. At the same time, it is not sufficient to afford a
temptation to the indulgence of idleness, by the conversion of
respectable offices into sinecures. The dignity hence accruing to their
teachers and professors, invests them with high authority, and imparts
additional weight to their instructions; while the respect in which they
are habitually held by long established prescription, gives a powerful
sanction to the system of their discipline.
This observation applies with peculiar force to the munificent edifice of
the Royal Free School of King Edward VI. which is situate at the northern
extremity of Castle Street. Its erection was completed in 1630, the
ancient school-room, which was composed of timber, having been removed in
order to the completion of the present spacious and convenient structure
of free-stone. The building surrounds two sides of the court with a
square pinnacled tower in the angle. In the centre of the front is a
gateway, adorned on each side with a Corinthian column, very rudely
designed, upon which stand the statues of a scholar and a graduate,
bareheaded, and in the dress of the times. Over the arch is a Greek
sentence from Isocrates,
’Εὰν ῆς φιλομαθὴς ἔσῃ πολυμαθής.
Importing that a love of literature is necessary to the formation of a
scholar. Above are the arms of Charles I. The ground floor on one side
the gateway, contains a room originally used as an accidence school; on
the other the third master’s house, now given to the head master, who
places his assistant in it. In the middle story are comprised the
lodging rooms of the assistant’s house, and the lower master’s apartment,
which for many years has been converted into a writing school. The
principal school room, which occupies the upper story, is 80 feet by 21.
The chapel is on the ground floor of the other part of the building, and
is divided from the anti-chapel by a handsome open screen of oak, richly
embellished with grotesque carving, as are the pulpit and bible stand.
The ceiling is adorned with a variety of foliage, devices, and rebusses,
preserved from the ruins of St. Alkmond’s Church. The arms of the first
and present masters are placed along the middle. Prayers are read here
twice on school days, by the head master, who is chaplain and catechist,
for which he has a distinct salary of £20 a year.
Over the chapel, and of the same size, is the library, which contains a
most valuable collection of books, and in size and decoration is in no
respect inferior to the majority of those in the Universities. A half
length of Henry VIII. and his son Edward VI. when a boy; a full length of
an Admiral in the dress of Charles II. reign, probably Benbow, together
with five portraits of head masters, ornament the walls. In this room
are also preserved three sepulchral stones discovered at Wroxeter.
A small museum is separated from the lower end of the room, in which are
some Roman antiquities, chiefly from Wroxeter, with a few fossils and
other natural curiosities. Among the latter, is the dried body of a
sturgeon, caught in 1802, in a weir adjoining the island, a quarter of a
mile below the castle. When alive, it weighed 192 pounds, and was 9 feet
long and 3 feet 4 inches round.
In front of the schools on the town side, is a play ground enclosed from
the street by iron railing, and a considerable piece of ground is used
for a similar purpose at the back, which opens to the country and is
entirely secluded from the town. Two large houses most delightfully
situated contiguous, belong to the masters, with every accommodation for
boarders. The revenues are very handsome, and are derived chiefly from
the tithes of a number of townships in the parishes of St. Mary and St.
Chad, and the whole rectory of Chirbury, which were granted by King
Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth.
This seminary has been long celebrated for the erudition of its scholars.
Under the “excellent and worthie” Thomas Ashton, it flourished eminently.
At one period he had 290 pupils, among whom we notice Sir Henry Sydney,
whose son, the heroic Sir Philip Sydney, laid here the seeds of that
exemplary friendship with the celebrated Sir Fulk Greville, Lord Brook,
which he maintained through the whole of his short but splendid career.
Beside these, the noted Jeffries, Lord Chief Justices Jones and Price;
Drs. Bowers and Thomas, Bishops of Chichester and Salisbury; the Rev.
John Taylor, L.L.D. and the celebrated Dr. Waring, received their
education here. Nor does the present character of the school fall short
of that distinguished pre-eminence which it formerly sustained. Under
the judicious direction of the learned Dr. Butler, it is in a flourishing
state. Not only do the children of the principal families in the
adjacent counties and North Wales, receive the rudiments of their
learning here, but also those of many families of distinction from
distant parts of the empire. The appointment of master rests solely in
the fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge; that of ushers and the mode
of instruction is vested in the head master.
The House of Industry.
This handsome brick building, situated on the opposite side of the river
to the Quarry, was erected in 1765, as a Foundling Hospital, at an
expence of £12,000. Numbers of children were sent here from London, and
placed out at nurse during their infancy with the neighbouring cottagers,
under the superintendance of the surrounding gentry. When arrived at a
proper age, they were brought into this house and employed in various
branches of a woollen manufactory, and afterwards apprenticed to various
individuals. About 1774, however, the governors finding their funds
inadequate to the support of the charity, the house was shut up; and a
few years after was rented by government, who in the American war used it
as a place of confinement for Dutch prisoners.
In 1784, an act of parliament was obtained to incorporate the five
parishes of Shrewsbury and Meole Brace, as far as related to their poor,
and to erect a general House of Industry. The governors of the Foundling
Charity were glad of an opportunity to dispose of their erection at a
considerably reduced rate, and the building was accordingly purchased,
together with about twenty acres of land, for about £5,500, and it was
opened for the reception of paupers in December in that year. For a
short period they were employed in the fabrication of woollen cloths, but
this being found injurious to the pecuniary resources of the house, it
was discontinued, and at present their employment chiefly consists in
manufacturing the various articles of their clothing. They breakfast,
dine, and sup in the dining hall, a very long room, the men, women, boys
and girls, being each placed at separate tables. Divine service is
performed twice each Sunday, in a neat chapel parallel with the hall.
There is also an infirmary, where the sick and infirm are lodged in
proper wards, and attended to by nurses and the apothecary belonging to
the house. The whole is under the management of twelve directors, chosen
from persons assessed in the associated parishes at £15. or possessed of
property to the amount of £30. per ann. who appoint a governor and
matron, to superintend the domestic economy of the establishment.
Mr. Nield, the worthy disciple of the philanthropic Howard, remarks of
this place, which he visited in 1807, “This House of Industry is
certainly a house of plenty, for the books every where, bear record of
good living, and the famous beef slaughtered here. The average number in
the house is 340; the children delicate and pampered, from being
accustomed to abundance and variety of provisions, and comfortable rooms,
very dissimilar to the hardy peasant, and therefore ill calculated to
rear up useful assistances in the employments of agriculture, or to make
useful servants in this agricultural county. They would prefer a race of
hardy lads, inured from their infancy to combat weather and temporary
want; whose nerves are strong by early exertions, and their
understandings furnished with some knowledge of rural life.”—Mr. Nield’s
extensive observation and experience, qualified him to judge of the most
proper aliment and employment of this class of persons, far better than
most of the directors and governors of similar institutions can
reasonably be expected to do; and as indulgence and plenty cannot be
supposed to be the portion of the children of the poor in their progress
through life, we may indulge a hope that the directors will speedily
devise some plan for the initiation of their young dependants into habits
of judicious labour and healthy abstinence.
Along the north front of the house is a beautiful gravel walk, from
whence the town is seen to great advantage. On the right, the
Abbey-foregate, with its two venerable churches, various manufactories,
Lord Hill’s Column, and a great extent of fertile land, are seen backed
by the Wrekin, Haughmond Hill, &c. In front, the river Severn flowing
close underneath, the beautiful verdure of the quarry, and the town,
present themselves; whilst on the left are descried a large portion of
this extremely fertile county, together with the distant Montgomeryshire
and Denbighshire hills. This extensive prospect over the neighbouring
country, with the endless variety of scenes that present themselves to
the spectator are finely described in the following lines:
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view?
The fountain’s fall, the river’s flow,
The wooded vallies warm and low;
The windy summits wild and high
Roughly rushing on the sky!
The pleasing seat, the ruin’d tow’r,
The naked rock, the shady bow’r
The town and village dome and farm
Each give each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop’s arm.