Herefordshire Through Time
Herefordshire Through Time
With the increase of trade and the breakdown of feudal society, the demand for literacy and education grew, even in rural areas. According to one scholar, there were 17 grammar schools in Herefordshire during the period of the Dissolution of the monasteries and the chantries. Some of these schools took in boarders, but most of them provided an education for pupils from the surrounding area.
There were also smaller schools for people of modest means that taught reading and writing. In the Survey of Chantries made under King Edward VI in 1547, there is mention of a Richard Cooley (or Cowley) of Staunton "which doth teach poor men's children". Children would not usually board at these schools and farmers' children would probably miss chunks of time during the harvest or lambing periods. Sometimes wealthy people would give money for a school to be founded for poor children.
Teachers were very strict and beatings were frequent. At the old grammar school house in Eardisland, for example, you can still see the whipping post, which badly-behaved children were tied to in order to receive a beating. Funds for the building of this school were bequeathed in a will in 1603, but the vicar kept the money for himself and the school was not built until 1652.
During the later Middle Ages schools had not only been attached to monasteries, but also to chantry foundations, and these too suffered from the closures during the Dissolution. The priest at the Trinity Chantry in Ledbury, for example, had taught local children. The townspeople had to petition the King's Council for the school to continue:
"...to graunte that the saide scole maye ther styll be kepte, and the said Stipendary [priest] to Remayn for the maynteynying therof to the erudicion of yough, a charytable dede, for the Inhabitaunces of the same Have nott only Hade profytt and advauntage by the kepyng of a gramer scole there..."
The school was allowed to continue, as were the former chantry schools in Bosbury and Bromyard. Under the reigns of both Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I there was a programme of re-foundation, and in fact a charter of re-foundation was given to Bromyard school by Queen Elizabeth (after whom the school was then named) in 1566.
The chantry school in Ross-on-Wye was also allowed to re-open after the suppression, changing its name from Churchyard School to Latin Grammar School.
Many monks and chantry priests who became "unemployed" during the Dissolution of the monasteries turned to teaching. Sir Thomas Nicolles of Dilwyn, for example, became a school-master, as did at least seven other men in the diocese of Herefordshire. The evidence for monks turned teachers comes from pension certificates issued by the Tudor administration, which today are held in Hereford Cathedral library. The following men are also listed as having a connection with a school:
Note for teachers: The Eardisland Oral History and Archaeological Projects Group has published a video on local history for Key Stage 2. Every primary school in the county has been sent one, but further copies are available. The video very clearly explains archaeological techniques and the use of sources and evidence, and would be a useful and lively teaching aid for any primary school teacher, not just those in the Eardisland area.
[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2003]