A HISTORY OF RUTLAND entered the same college from Grantham Scliool on 19 June 1655.^ A John Love, of St. John's, took his M.A. degree in 1662, and he, with whichever of the two he is to be identified, was doubtless the master appointed to Oakiiam in that year ; he must have taken his degree of Master of Arts to qualify for the post. Of his pupils who entered St. John's, besides the two already mentioned, two were brothers Wing- field, sons of Sir Richard Wingfield, of Ticken- cote, one was the son of a ' gentleman,' six were sons of ' clerks,' one of a grazier {pecuarius), one of a shepherd {pastor), one of a husbandman [agricola), one of a carpenter [faber lignarius), and six nondescript, showing that at Oakham at the latter end of the 17th century there was an admixture of the masses with the classes which vvould satisfy the most radical of modern educa- tionists. The destination of almost all of them, as probable holders of Archdeacon Johnson's scholarships at St. John's, must have been the church. In addition to Abel Mellors, John Lacock, and Madson, the names of the following ushers or assistants, who held office before 1700, are known: — Thomas Griffin (1607-15); John Haycocke, who, on 25 February 1 61 3, received licence from the Bishop of Peterborough to teach boys at Oakham ' in lingua vernacula ' ; Mr. White (1617-20), perhaps more correctly Wright, since a Mr. Wright held the curacy of Egleton, which at this period was regularly given to ushers of the school, from 1620 to 1622 ; Mr. Seaton (1726-29) ; Francis Clap- ham, M.A., who, on 8 April 1630, received licence to teach boys and adults in the art of grammar in the Free School of Oakham; Vincent Alsop,"' an old Uppingham boy, and a pupil of Francis Meres, who was admitted to St. John's on 13 September 1647, and probably came to Oakham immediately after taking his B.A. de- gree ; Thomas Sumpter (1663-7), '^^ Gonville and Caius College, B.A. 1661, M.A. 1665 ; and a Mr. Choice,^^ who may have been the John ' Choyse ' who took his B.A. degree from Lincoln College, Oxford, on 12 November 1633, and subsequently became vicar of Bis- brooke, or the John Choice of Kirp (?), Leices- tershire, whose entry at St. John's is recorded on 7 July 1697, and who took his B.A. degree in 1700. Henry Wright, who was schoolmaster from 1702 to 1724, must have been a man of excep- tional power judging from the number of dis- tinguished men wiio were his pupils. He was probably an Oxford man, who had matriculated at New College as pauper puer on 21 March 1697-8, graduated B.A. from the same college ■' Admissions to St. Join's, pt. i, 122. " Ibid. pt. i, n. xxiii ; also 86 ; and infra, p. 282. " W. L. Sargant, op. cit. 2 1 ; Jdmissions to St. Join's, pt. ii, 144. in 1702, and later, in I7ii,had been incorpo- rated at Christ's College, Cambridge, when taking his M.A. degree.^ To him, as to another Oxford man, whose invasion in more recent times of one of the Rutland grammar schools, the strict preserves of graduates of the sister university, was a less daring achievement, Oakham no doubt owes a great deal. In his first year the school received a gift of classical books from the vicar of the town, the Rev. John Warburton, who was one of the governors. His son, William War- burton, was a scholar of the school, and in 1703 passed on to St. John's (7 October).-* His name heads the list of holders of the school exhibitions in The Book of Oakham School^^ under date I 706 ; but the reference must be to a renewal rather than to an original award. Next year he took his B.A. degree and his M.A. in 1 7 1 1 . He be- came a fellow of his college. While still a school exhibitioner, he accepted the ushership at Uppingham,^" but soon resigned it for the post of assistant under his old head master, Mr. Wright, succeeding a Mr. Weston,'^ probably an old boy, Nathaniel by name, who was admitted at St. John's on 26 May 1702,'^ and graduated B.A. in 1 705, and M.A. in 1715. The men- tion of an assistant master in addition to the usher suggests that the school had now grown to a considerable size. In 1 7 14 Warburton was appointed to the mastership of Newark Grammar School, possibly through a judicious use of family influence, where he remained until his death in 1729. A much more famous namesake, his cousin, the celebrated Bishop Warburton, of Durham and Gloucester, son of the town clerk of Newark, was at first a scholar at Oakham, but probably followed his cousin back to his native town and became his pupil, both at the school and after leaving it. He acknowledged that he had gained considerably from the association.'* An earlier teacher — Weston, it is said — described him as 'the dullest of dull boys,' a verdict which he lived to stultify. Other pupils of Wright were Thomas Lovett, of Sidney-Sussex College, B.A. 1717, M.A. 1721, who, in 1766, founded two exhibitions at Sidney-Sussex College, tenable by sons of graduate clergymen, who themselves intended to take orders, with a preference for scholars of Oakham and Grantham who had spent three years at these schools before proceed- " Foster, Alumni Oxon. '* Admissions to St. Join's, pt. ii, 1 69. " Op. cit. 22.
- ° See injra, p. 284.
W. L. Sarg.int, op. cit. 21, from Decrees of the Governors, 1710. "Admissions to St. Join's, pt. ii, 162. N.ithaniel Weston sent his son to O.ikham School, whence he proceeded in due course to St. John's, 26 April 1728 (op. cit. pt. iii, 56). " He wrote the epitaph for the tomb of his name- sake, the master of Newark School. 272
