a more adequate allowance made for the very important duties required from them. The Committee, therefore, recommended that the annual gratuity (called Cock Pennies) to the Master & Usher be discontinued, & that in lieu thereof the following Quarterage be substituted: For all boys under the care of the Usher (or low side), 10/- each per quarter; For all boys on the two lowest Benches, under the Head Master, 15/- each per quarter; For all boys on the Upper Benches, 20/- per quarter.

"That the sum of £70 per annum heretofore granted to the Head Master be continued, & also that the sum of £40 per annum heretofore granted to the Usher be also paid to the Head Master, making his Salary £110 per

annum."

"That there be no gratuitous education either for the sons of Freemen or others, the Committee being of opinion that there is now ample provision for that kind of education in the National and other Schools."

An old scholar, who was educated at the school from 1825 to 1832, has left the following notes as to the school at that time:

The School was a two floored building. The School room on the ground floor ran the whole length of the building; the upper storey was divided into two rooms. The entrance to the School was in the centre of the front. All South of the door on each side, was considered "low side," all north "high side." Mr. Beethom presided over the "high side," but on Wednesdays the masters exchanged classes.

Mr. Sanderson (the Writing & Mathematical Master) had the upper rooms, & after saying one lesson half the boys went to be instructed by him in the forenoon, the others in the afternoon.

We had two home lessons to prepare each night. They were neither long nor difficult, but it must be remembered that music, drawing, dancing, foreign languages (except Greek & Latin) were extra-mural, &, if studied at all, had to be acquired in the evening or early morning.

The fixed holidays were 4 weeks at Christmas & Midsummer, Monday & Tuesday at Shrovetide and Whitsuntide, and Fridays, Mondays, & Tuesdays at Easter, the Kings birthday, Mayor choosing day, the Monday before (called Auditors day), the middle fair days & one day each Assizes.

We had usually one day before & one day after the Christmas vacation to follow the hounds if they cast off near the town.

On the Monday before Mayor choosing day the Corporation Accounts were audited. At about a quarter past eight in the morning the Mayor Bailiffs & Auditors preceded by the mace bearer-wearing their laced hats but no other insignia-entered the School & invited the Masters to assist them to audit the accounts, & to give the boys holiday. Immediately after our dismissal we used to set off with the Mace bearer to turn out the other Schools.

On Mayor choosing day we marched to St. John's Church with the Corporation in the morning, & in the afternoon we were regaled by the new Mayor & bailiffs; we received two Mayors cakes, two apples, two pears, a cup of sweet wine, and a horn of nuts at each place.

The boys at the National School used to waylay & rob us, but most people tried to create a diversion by throwing them apples out of the front windows & letting us escape at the back.

The first six boys had wedding money, that is, each watched one day a week & solicited remembrance of the happy couples as they emerged from church. If any inquisitive person ventured to ask what claim we had upon him the answer was ready, that it was an ancient custom & had to be kept up." In the case of a gentleman's wedding the present was generally a guinea, the usual donation half a crown.

In 1850 Mr. Beethom resigned, and the Rev. Thomas Faulkner Lee was appointed head master. In the following year a new school and master's house were erected in East Road on land given by the Corporation of Lancaster. By Royal Warrant, in 1851, Her Majesty the Queen was graciously pleased to direct that the school should be called "The Royal Grammar School."

Dr. Lee resigned the head mastership in 1872, and was succeeded by the Rev. W. E. Pryke, who, on his resignation in 1893, was followed by Mr. George Alfred Stocks, the present head master.

In 1893 the trustees of Miss Bradshaw's will, who had at their disposal a sum of £10,000 bequeathed by that lady for charitable or educational purposes, offered to appropriate that sum for the endowment of the school if a new scheme was framed for the government of the school. This new scheme came into operation on the 16th day of August, 1896, and under it the governing

body consists of fifteen gentlemen: Five nominated by the Corporation of Lancaster; two nominated by the Lancashire County Council; one by the Council of University College, Liverpool; one by the Council of Owens College, Manchester; one by the Lancaster School Board; and five by the Bradshaw trustees. The amount to be paid by the Corporation of Lancaster was fixed at £200 a year, and the total endowment is estimated at £500 a year.

The two most famous scholars were William Whewell, the famous master of Trinity, and Richard Owen. The latter gave me the following account of how Whewell came to go to the grammar school. Owen's mother and the Rev. Joseph Rowley lived next door to each other in Lancaster. Not far down the street Whewell the carpenter lived, and he was employed to mend the garden fence between the houses of Mr. Rowley and Mrs. Owen. Mr. Rowley found Whewell's son looking at the work his father had done, and proceeding to enter into conversation with him was much struck by his replies. When the father returned to his work, Mr. Rowley urged him to send his son to the grammar school. The father objected on the ground that his son had a special talent for carpentry. However, he took a week to think it over, and eventually Mr. Rowley undertook to find him in books, and not to charge any fees for his education. Whewell went to the school, and once there sprang to the front.

From Lancaster he went to Heversham, thence to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took the chancellor's gold medal for his poem of "Boadicea," and eventually rose to be Master of Trinity.

The other-Richard Owen-was to those who had the privilege of knowing him a striking personality, a giant figure looking back from the vanishing ranks of a prior

E

generation. There are few-perhaps none-left now who remember his early days when he was a scholar at the old grammar school. One there was in Lancaster but a few years ago who told of that long past time and described him as

The merriest then

The manliest of all, the merriest still

The greatest man, and yet the simplest child.

And told also of that eye

Then sparkling most in mirth and joyousness;
In mischief not too seldom, shall I say,
Mischief too merry to be mischievous.

And do not we of a later generation remember how at that other school, which stands above the town, we looked upon the busts of Whewell and Owen at the end of the room as representing two intellectual giants—the Great Twin Brethren of a bygone time?

So, too, when school days were over did we not wander through the long corridors of the Natural History Department at the British Museum and gaze with wonder on the thousands of specimens of all ages. gathered together under the direction of Richard Owen? And in the far corner was there not a doorway on glancing through which we could see the tall figure of the professor bending over some minute fragment upon which to build the form of a creature which had ceased to exist thousands of years ago?

Not long after the scene changes to the palatial building at South Kensington, where Owen reigned supreme, and which, as its erection was due to his untiring energy, will always remain as his most fitting

monument.

Time rolls on and shows us Sir Richard Owen living the last years of a long life in that picturesque cottage

just within the borders of the Royal Park at Sheen. Anyone from Lancaster was always welcome, and whoever went there will always remember the genial greeting he received from the tall old man, who was the friend of princes, and one of the men of light and leading of the age.

At Sheen, under the shade of lofty trees, many of which he himself had planted, with the sun sinking to the west in a golden glory, while all around was still, the memories of the past would revive, and forth from the recesses of a wonderful memory would come story after story of his life in Lancaster nearly eighty years before.

As years went on they left their mark upon the great professor. His letters tell their own tale—the wording always characteristic, the writing at first firm and vigorous, then gradually failing, and the letters themselves growing few and far between. Almost always, however, at Christmas time he makes some allusion to "old Lancaster-my native Town."

"I have never allowed"-he wrote to me in his eightysixth year "I have never allowed my grateful memory of my birthplace and the education I received there to cool. Since I retired from my museum work the recollections of the benefits I received at Lancaster have brightened my leisure hours and friendly memories have returned."

So would we leave the old scholar of Lancaster School, sitting in his garden at Sheen, with the lofty trees around him, his long white hair gently moving in the breeze, his lustrous eyes-eyes of wonderful charm-seeming to gleam in the twilight, a few bars of music the only sound to break the silence, save when the old man's voice falls upon our ears, telling in softened accents of those people and places in Lancaster dear to him eighty years ago.