Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cromleholme, Samuel
CROMLEHOLME, SAMUEL (1618–1672), head-master of St. Paul's School, born in 1618 in Wiltshire, was the son of the Rev. Richard Cromleholme, who was rector of Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, from July 1624. He was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 13 Nov. 1635, at the age of seventeen, and took the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in due course. He became master of the Mercers' Chapel school, London, and in 1647 was appointed sur-master of St. Paul's School, where he found a friend in the Rev. John Langley, the head-master, through whose recommendation he got the mastership of the Dorchester grammar school on 10 Oct. 1651. On 14 Sept. 1657 he succeeded Langley, who on his deathbed had recommended him as head-master of St. Paul's School. Pepys was intimate with him, and held him in honour for his learning, but in one place calls him a ‘conceited pedagogue’ for being ‘so dogmatical in all he does and says.’ He was a good linguist, and hence earned the name of πολύγλωττος. At the burning of the school in the great fire of 1666 he lost a valuable library, the best private collection in London it was reputed, and its loss was thought to have hastened his death, which took place on 21 July 1672. His remains were buried in the Guildhall chapel, and his funeral sermon was preached by Dr. John Wells of St. Botolph's, Aldersgate. His wife, Mary Cromleholme, survived him, but he left no children.
[Gardiner's Admission Registers of St. Paul's School, 1884, p. 49; Knight's Life of Colet, 1823, p. 325; Hutchins's Dorset, 1863, ii. 368; Obituary of Richard Smyth (Camd. Soc.), p. 96; Pepys's Diary, ed. Mynors Bright, 1875, i. 24, 38, 391, ii. 10, 46, 139, 205, iii. 125, iv. 94; Bagford's account of London Libraries in W. J. Thoms's Mem. of W. Oldys, 1862, p. 74; and in Notes and Queries, 1861, 2nd ser. xi. 403; information from Mr. J. W. Bone and others.]