Catalogue description Katharine Lady Berkeley's Grammar School, Wotton-under-Edge

Foundation of the School.

School Properties.

Legal.

Patronage and the Appointment of Masters.

Minutes.

Accounts.

Miscellaneous.

Katharine Lady Berkeley's Grammar School, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire

THESE RECORDS ARE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR RESEARCH

Accession 541 was deposited by the Governors of Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, 12 May 1950; accession 733 was deposited by the Governors of Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, 26 July 1951; accession 739 was deposited by the Governors of Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, 20 August 1951; accession 1191 was deposited by the Governors of Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, 28 January 1955; accession 1328 was deposited by the Governors of Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, 12 March 1956; accession 2678 was deposited by the Governors of Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, 28 October 1971; accession 4834, files D733/5/4-8, 6/6-8, 7/7, 8/1, 9/1 and 10/1, was deposited by the Governors of Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, 29 June 1984; accession 4898, files D733/11/1-3, 12/1 (part) and 12/2, was deposited by Mr F Hornsby, a former teacher at the school, 19 October 1984; accession 7861, files D733/7/8 and 12/1 (part), was deposited by Mr F Hornsby, a former teacher at the school, 3 February 1998

In compiling this catalogue, use of the accounts of the history of the School by E. S. Lindley in his Wotton-under-Edge, 1962, pp. 224 ff. and by A. F. Leach in the Victoria County History, vol. II, pp. 296 ff. has been made.

• Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire
• Secondary schools

Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School, founded in 1384 by Katharine, Lady Berkeley is said to be the oldest school in England founded by a woman. Among these records is the royal licence permitting the foundation (D 733/1/1), while there are transcripts of the licence of Thomas Berkeley, Katharine, Lady Berkeley's foundation deed and the statutes and ordinances of the School of 1384 (D 733/1/2-5). The original of Thomas Berkeley's licence is now at the Birmingham Reference Library among the records of the Smyth family of Nibley in the Fletcher collection (see G.R.O. EL 96). The school of 1384 was probably a refoundation of an earlier school as the licence (D 733/1/1) authorizes the building of a school house 'de novo'. There is also among the muniments at Berkeley Castle a bailiff's account for the Manor of Hurst [in Slimbridge] for 1291-2 which quotes an "account delivered to the master of the scholars of Wotton according to agrement 48s. by tally". There is also some evidence, although vague, of an attempt by the Friars of the Holy Cross to found a house and maintain a school in Wotton-under-Edge in 1349.

This collection contains, besides records relating to the School's foundation, leases and deeds of the School's properties. Included amongst these are records of the Smyth family's estate (D 733/2/13-20). By the eighteenth century the property of the School in North Nibley leased to the Smyth family had become intermingled with the Smyth family's own estate. Other leases of the School's properties are to be found at the Birmingham Reference Library (Fletcher collection, see G.R.O., EL 96), (leases from 1476 - [1606] and abstract of title [1420] reciting deeds, 1366-1420), and in the Gloucestershire Records Office, D 73 (leases, 1638-1732), P 120 MI 1/1-3 (leases, 1638-1672) and D 2203 (leases, 1728-1741).

This collection also contains papers concerning the law-suits carried on by the School in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These law-suits with various members of the Smyth family as defendants are very complex and intricate and no attempt to disentangle the details has been made in this catalogue. That these lawsuits were concerned with the endowments of the School and the Smyth family's right to nominate the Master (which they still held at the end of the 18th century (D733/2/18) is, however, clear. Other records, in some quantity, relating to the lawsuits, Crockhey v. Smyth and the Attorney General and others v. Smyth (see D 733/3/1-10) are in the Gloucestershire Collection at Gloucester City Library.

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