View source for Yeovil Grammar School

{{Short description|Boys' grammar school in Somerset 1858–1907}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2023}}
[[File:St John the Baptist Church, Yeovil, with Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, c. 1750.jpg|thumb|St John’s Church, Yeovil, with Chantry attached, showing schoolmaster and boys, c. 1750]]
'''Yeovil Grammar School''' was a [[grammar school]] in [[Yeovil]], [[Somerset]], which was founded or refounded about 1860 and closed in 1906 when its only headmaster, Henry Monk, retired.
The 19th-century grammar school grew out of a long-established charity school, which according to some sources was itself a grammar school when founded in 1573 and was referred to by that name in 1839 and 1853.
==First school==
From the 16th century to the 19th century, a [[charity school]] provided a free elementary education in Yeovil for sons of the poor, funded by local charitable bequests, including the income from about 25 acres of land. Beginning in the 18th century, there were also ten places available for boys from nearby parishes, paid for by the Nowes Foundation, a charity established for the purpose of educating local boys and setting them up in trades.<ref name=SIC/><ref name=LCH/>
For centuries, the school occupied a building called the Chantry, a chapel in the churchyard of the [[Church of St John the Baptist, Yeovil|parish church of St John the Baptist]], which was attached to the church tower. This was fitted out as a schoolroom by the parish in 1573.<ref name=DV/> The full name of the building was the Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin without the Church. It probably dated from the early fourteenth century, and may have formed part of an earlier church on the site.<ref name=50B/> Some sources say that the school was established in the 16th century as a grammar school.<ref>A millennium blue plaque on the present Chantry building in Yeovil, dated 2000, says: "This 14th century chantry chapel was converted into a grammar school in 1573 and relocated to this site, from the churchyard, in 1854".</ref>
In the early 19th century, litigation was begun in the [[Court of Chancery]], due to the charity school having decayed and those entrusted with its investments not paying what was due on them. In 1819, the School Commissioners investigated the affairs of the school.<ref>''Reports from the Commissioners: Charities in England and Wales'', Vol. V (1820), [https://books.google.com/books?id=vzBbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA591 591—606]</ref><ref name=DV>Daniel Vickery, ''A Sketch of the Town of Yeovil'' (1856), [https://books.google.com/books?id=SHNbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA35 pp. 35–40]</ref>
In September 1839, the Rev. John Langdon was appointed as [[schoolmaster]], when the school was reported to be called "Yeovil Free Grammar School".<ref name=Prom>"PROMOTIONS" in ''[[The Globe (London newspaper)|The Globe]]'' (London), Thursday 3 October 1839, p. 4: "Rev. J. Langdon to the mastership of Yeovil Free Grammar School."</ref> By December of that year, Langdon was advertising for young gentlemen to be taken as private grammar school pupils.<ref>''Sherborne Mercury'' (Dorset), Monday 30 December 1839, p. 2: "YEOVIL GRAMMAR SCHOOL: REV. JOHN LANGDON, B. A. receives a limited number of YOUNG GENTLEMEN, under fourteen years of age…"</ref> In July 1853, Langdon was described as "curate of [[Barwick, Somerset|Barwick]] and Head Master of Yeovil Grammar School" when the Dean and Chapter of Wells Cathedral nominated him as vicar of [[Mudford]], some three miles from Yeovil.<ref name=Globe>"Contemporary Press: Intelligence" in ''The Globe'' (London), Thursday 21 July 1853, p. 2</ref>
In 1855, the old Chantry was demolished, in order to make more space in the churchyard for burials, and was rebuilt (or replaced by a new building of similar size and appearance) next to the churchyard. This cost £1,200 and incorporated some features of the original building, including two chimneypieces and three niches. The doorway and all the windows were built from newly cut stone.<ref name=DV/><ref name=50B/> There were [[feoffee]]s of the new Chantry, who appointed the schoolmaster.<ref name=SIC>"Yeovil — Free School", in ''Schools Inquiry Commission'', vol. XIV (1868), [https://books.google.com/books?id=aN5MAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA243 pp. 243–247]</ref><ref>[[Ordnance Survey]], [https://maps.nls.uk/view/122163842 "Somerset LXXXIII.13"] (surveyed 1886, published 1889), see "Grammar School, School (Girls & Infts)" immediately to the west of "St. John the Baptist’s Ch."</ref>
In May 1859, Henry Monk, then aged twenty-four and of [[Harrow Weald]], was appointed as [[schoolmaster]] of the Yeovil Charity School, replacing the Rev. John Langdon, who had resigned. The ''[[Western Flying Post]]'' noted that "There were several candidates for the position."<ref name=WFP>"Yeovil Charity School", in ''Western Flying Post'', 17 May 1859</ref> Monk’s salary was £93 a year, with permission to take private pupils,<ref name=LCH/> the purpose of this being to encourage a better class of schoolmaster.<ref name=SIC/>
==Two schools==
In January 1860, Monk married Elizabeth Henrietta Hawkins (who was 'Superannuated from the War Department') at All Saints Church, Harrow Weald. At first they lived on the Sherborne Road, Yeovil, but in the 1860s they moved to a house in Hendford Hill, which acted as a boarding house for boys.<ref name=BO>Bob Osborn, [https://www.yeovilhistory.info/monk-henry.htm "HENRY MONK Headmaster of Yeovil Grammar School"], yeovilhistory.info, accessed 20 September 2022</ref><ref name=FH>[http://www.yeovilhistory.info/flowershouse.htm "Flowers House"], yeovilhistory.info, accessed 20 September" 2022</ref> These were the first pupils of a new school which was advertised as Yeovil Grammar School.<ref name=LCH/>
In 1864, there were two schoolrooms in the Chantry.<ref name=LCH/> One was used to teach thirty-four boys, the sons of working-class fathers; of these, ten were on the Nowes Foundation and received two suits of clothing a year and £5 towards buying an apprenticeship when they left the school at the age of about thirteen. The second room at the Chantry was used by the boys of the new grammar school, of whom there were nine day boys and another twenty [[boarding school|boarders]], who lived with the Monks.<ref name=LCH/> During the 1870s, Monk acquired a larger house, in Hendford, now called Flowers House.<ref name=BO/><ref name=FH/>
In 1873, Monk was advertising the "Grammar School, Yeovil", as a [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public school]] "founded about 1573". He then had three assistant [[schoolmaster]]s, one of whom taught [[French language|French]], and the school fees were between six and eight [[Guinea (coin)|guineas]] a year for day boys, between 25 and 30 guineas for boarders.<ref>George Phillips Bevan, ''The Teacher's List: Containing a Calendar of All Executive and Examining Bodies; Universities; General and Special Colleges; Public, Proprietary, and Middle-Class Schools; Denominational Colleges and Schools'' (1873), [https://books.google.com/books?id=DED62C5ZNDoC&pg=RA144 p. 144]</ref>
By the 1870s, the Endowed Schools Commissioners did not like Monk combining what they considered to be a private grammar school for middle-class boys with a primary school; they wanted to create instead a public grammar school. However, beneficiaries of the educational charity at [[Preston, Somerset|Preston]], [[Alvington, Somerset|Alvington]], and [[Brympton]] were against the loss of the clothing and apprenticeship payments,<ref name=LCH/> to which they were entitled under the 18th-century Will of Dr John Nowes.<ref name=SIC/> In 1877 the [[Charity Commission for England and Wales|Charity Commissioners]] decided that in any event they had no powers under the [[Endowed Schools Act 1869]] to promote the plan.<ref name=LCH/>
In 1879, the Nowes foundation stopped paying Monk its share of his salary,<ref name=LCH/> but the charity school continued to operate at the Chantry, as did Monk’s own school, which also used his home and boarding house in Hendford.<ref name=BO/> The income from the Nowes endowments was at first conserved, pending the way forward for that charity being found.<ref name=LCH>L. C. Hayward, [https://www.yalhs.org.uk/1987-apr-pg134-136_the-charity-school-part-3of3/ THE YEOVIL CHARITY SCHOOL – (PART 3 OF 3)] in ''Chronicle: Yeovil Archaeological and Local History Society'', April 1987, pp. 134-136</ref>
==One school==
The charity school closed in 1884, and Monk continued to use the Chantry as a schoolroom until 1889, paying rent for it.<ref name=LCH/> In January 1886, Monk’s son F. E. Monk was acting as Assistant Master of the grammar school and was said to be a member of the [[University of London]]. A public notice of the beginning of the school term stated "Pupils prepared for public schools, local examinations, or commercial life. There is a Preparatory Class for younger boys."<ref>"Grammar School, Yeovil" ''[[Western Gazette]]'', 8 January 1886</ref>
After 1889, for several years the Chantry was used for Roman Catholic Church services,
one of the meeting places they occupied before the new Church of the Holy Ghost was consecrated in Higher Kingston.<ref name=50B>
Bob Osborn, ''Yeovil in 50 Buildings'' (2017), [https://books.google.com/books?id=n_I6DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT16 p. 16]</ref> The Yeovil School Board then occupied the Chantry for two years.<ref name=LCH/>
A boy who attended Monk’s school in the 1890s later recalled being taught to read by Mrs Monk, at a time when there were some fifty or sixty boys in the school. Classes were taught by Monk, his daughter, and his son-in-law.<ref name=FH/> In 1897, the house in Hendford was put up for auction and described as a three-storey, ten-bedroom house, with a schoolroom which could be converted into a coach house, and a walled garden.<ref name=BO/> After the sale of his own school building, Monk took the Chantry again for teaching in,<ref name=LCH/> but after the school returned to the Chantry, the numbers fell to only about a dozen boys.<ref name=FH/> Teaching went on at the Chantry until Monk retired in 1906.<ref>"Other Tributes", ''Western Chronicle'', Friday 26 October 1906, p. 4: "The boys wished to express their thanks to Monk for the able manner in which he had carried out his work as head of the Yeovil Grammar School. They tendered to him their heartiest wishes for his welfare and happiness, and asked his acceptance of that book…"</ref>
<ref>''Western Chronicle'', Friday 28 December 1906, p. 4: "Mr H. Monk, former headmaster of Yeovil Grammar School, entertained to dinner a number of his old scholars (19th)"</ref> After that, his school came to an end.<ref name=LCH/>
==Masters of the charity school==
*1711: Mr Hibberd<ref>Vickery (1856), p. 37</ref>
*1754–1803: John Boucher Hodges,<ref name=Masters>''Reports from the Commissioners: Charities in England and Wales'', Vol. V (1820), [https://books.google.com/books?id=vzBbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA603 603]</ref> died 1806<ref>[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/40627:5111 Will of John Boucher Hodges of Yeovil Schoolmaster], ancestry.co.uk, accessed 20 September 2022 {{subscription required}}</ref>
*1804: Rev. Thomas Tomkins<ref name=Masters/>
*1839–1859: Rev. John Langdon<ref name=Prom/><ref name=WFP/>
*1859–1884: Henry Monk<ref name=WFP/>
==Notable former pupils==
*[[T. E. R. Phillips]] (1868–1942), clergyman and astronomer<ref>"Theodore Evelyn Reece Phillips" in  [https://issuu.com/stedmundhall/docs/st_edmund_hall_magazine_1942 St Edmund Hall Magazine 1942–43], pp. 29–31</ref>
*[[Ernest Petter|Sir Ernest Petter]] (1873–1954), engineer<ref>''Western Chronicle'' (Somerset), Friday 16 October 1925, p. 5</ref>
==Aftermath==
Monk retired to [[Ryme Intrinseca]]. After the death of his wife in 1911, he moved to [[Stratton-on-the-Fosse]], where he died in 1921.<ref name=BO/>
After 1906, the Chantry was used for  various educational purposes, while the income from the charity school endowments was applied to  offering free places at [[Yeovil School]] and the High School for girls. Since 1945, when secondary education became publicly funded, the trustees have made grants for higher education. As of 1987, the Chantry was in use as a store-room for legal documents.<ref name=LCH/> In 2017 it was used by a firm of solicitors as a meeting room and by then was a Grade II [[listed building]].<ref name=50B/>
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Schools in Somerset}}
[[Category:1860 establishments in England]]
[[Category:1906 disestablishments in England]]
[[Category:Defunct grammar schools in England]]
[[Category:Defunct schools in Somerset]]
[[Category:Educational institutions established in 1860]]
[[Category:Educational institutions disestablished in 1906]]