John Incent - Foundation of Berkhamsted School

Foundation of Berkhamsted School

It was common at this time for high-ranking clergy to make their mark by founding schools. Incent was master of the Brotherhood of St John the Baptist in Berkhamsted, a monastic hospital which Incent himself had closed down. In 1523 he appropriated the brotherhood's lands and joined it to his own land, donating it for the creation of a school. In 1541 he obtained a Royal Charter for "one chauntry perpetual and schools for boys not exceeding 144 to be called Dean Incent’s Free School in Berkhamstedde". Records of the time state that Incent "builded with all speed a fair schoole lartge and great all of brick very sumptuously.". It was completed in 1544 ; "when ye said school was thus finished, ye Deane sent for ye cheafe men of ye towne into ye school where he kneeling gave thanks to Almighty God". The school had no chapel of its own; for over 300 years the St John's Chantry in neighbouring St Peter's Church was used exclusively by the masters and boys of the school for worship, until a new school chapel was built in 1894 by Charles Henry Rew, based on the design of the church of the Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice.

Incent died some 18 months after his school opened, but it remains today as a lasting legacy of his more constructive activities. The founder died intestate and there were legal arguments originating from "Evill Persons" who claimed a financial interest in his estate. In order to protect the school from subsequent challenges of this nature, school was incorporated by an Act of Parliament as The Free Schole of King Edwarde the Sixte in Berkhampstedde, making the Master and the Usher into trustees of the school property and making the Warden of All Soul's, Oxford the Visitor. The school received a common seal bearing Incent's coat of arms of crossed swords on a blue shield.