Founding
In 1583, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, born in the village of St Bees, was ill and blind and was making preparations before his death. Elizabeth I had designated John Whitgift as Grindal's successor, but the former refused to accept the position while Grindal lived (allegedly). Grindal is accredited with having once described Copeland (the area in which St. Bees lies) as the:
| “ | ignorantest part in religion, and most oppressed of covetous landlords of any one part of this realm to my knowledge. | ” |
In 1559 Grindal had been appointed Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, a post he held for three years before resigning to concentrate on his duties as Bishop of London. Around this time he started planning for an institution of some kind by purchasing the tithes for St Bees from Sir Thomas Chaloner. The period up to his death in 1583 saw a great number of schools being opened in the wake of the Reformation. In the spring of 1583 Grindal applied for Letters Patent to the Queen to build a school in St. Bees whose land would be held in mortmain. On 3 July 1583 he published a number of statutes for the running of the school, to be named the Free Grammar School, which provided for a board of governors of seven men; the Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, the Parson of the Parish Church in nearby Egremont who in turn chose five others to serve. However, the Queen refused to sign the request for mortmain, and Grindal for his part refused to resign the Archbishopric, though he was fully aware he was incapable of fully carrying out his duties. He finally tendered his resignation on 12 April. The Queen signed the Letters Patent incorporating St. Bees School on 15 June 1583.
Three days after writing statutes for the school, Archbishop Grindal died on 6 July. In the statutes he had established that the Provost at Queen's College was to select the Schoolmaster, but that preference for the applicant was always to be given to a native of the counties Cumberland and Westmorland. However, Grindal had already selected the first Schoolmaster for the Free School, Nicholas Copland. In March, 1586 land was purchased from the son of the Thomas Chaloner who had sold Grindal the tithes, also called Thomas Chaloner (naturalist) and a building erected at the cost £366.3s.4d. Today that building forms the ground floor of the North block of the "Quadrangle" and serves as one of the school dining rooms. It and the accompanying buildings of the "Quad" are known as "Foundation".
Read more about this topic: History Of St. Bees School
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