School Years
Willoughby Cotton entered Rugby School at the age of 12 in 1795. Cotton, aged 14, was a ringleader in the “Great Rebellion” of November 1797. Aggrieved by the attitude of the Head Master, Dr. Henry Ingles (1794–1806), to the breaking of a window, students blew his classroom door off and followed this by burning desks and books upon the close, before retreating to the Island (a Bronze Age burial mound surrounded by a moat. Ingles called in the local militia, whereupon the Riot Act was read and the island taken. Soldiers stole round to the rear, and wading across the moat, drawn sword in hand, took the whole party prisoners. Cotton was among the students to be expelled as a result of this confrontation.
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