History lessons

PAPERS concerning Ripon Grammar School dating from 1540, governors’ meeting minutes from 1623 and examinations and school magazines from throughout the ages will soon be available at the click of a button.

This means the school’s young historians will have the original documents on their computer screens so they will be able to flesh out the truth of these tall stories and long tales from their school’s illustrious past.

THE BEGINNING

NO one knows for certain when Ripon Grammar School began. Some sources suggest that it was before the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Others say that the first documentary proof of a school in the town is dated 1348 when Ricardum le Chamberlayn, who is described as “the former master of the Schoolhouse”

was one of 138 people who failed to appear before the Court of the King’s Bench.

As Ricardum was part of such a large group, it is suggested that he was involved in a mass disturbance, perhaps a riot.

As punishment, he was outlawed – so the first known schoolmaster of Ripon is not an especially good role model.

BRIBING PRIESTS

THE medieval school was given land by benefactors.

The land was let out to farmers and the income supported the school. The school was also connected to a collegiate church in Ripon. In the 1540s, when Henry VIII was dissolving the monasteries and seizing the church’s land, it seemed likely that the school’s fields would be regarded as church property and so would be seized by the king. The fear in Ripon was that this would force the school to close through lack of income, so the townspeople hatched a cunning plot.

When Henry’s commissioners arrived in town to decide which land now belonged to the king, two priests had been bribed to tell them that the land had nothing to do with the church but belonged directly to the school. The commissioners believed the lying priests and let the school keep the land.

Ripon rejoiced.

However, in 1550 the school’s governors tried to dismiss the schoolmaster, the Reverend Edmund Brown. In retaliation, the reverend told the authorities of the chicanery that had occurred, and the Duchy of Lancaster seized the lands. The school’s future was back in doubt…

BLOODY MARY

QUEEN MARY, the only child of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, is known for the brutal way in which she re-asserted the Roman Catholic faith – during her five-year reign, she had more than 280 Protestant dissenters burnt at the stake.

Perhaps because of Ripon’s attempt to frustrate her Protestant father’s plans, she looked kindly on the fate of the school. On June 27, 1555, she signed a royal charter which established the Free Grammar School of Queen Mary at Ripon. This granted the school’s ten governors the disputed fields and so it was saved.

This date is regarded as the foundation of the modern Ripon Grammar School.

SCUM OF THE COUNTRY

SCHOOL legend has it that in the 1650s two school governors became embroiled in a violent dispute over a young lady. Jonathan Jenings, an alderman of Ripon who had kindly provided the school with some slate to repair the roof, called his fellow governor, George Aislabie, “the scum of the country”.

This led to the duel in which Aislabie was fatally injured.

Jenings rushed to London to obtain the king’s pardon for the murder he had just committed.

SCHOOL FRICTIONS

TWO fascinating frictions that future scholars should investigate run through the school’s history.

The first concerns how a school is funded when the income from the fields is not enough to cover the costs and there is no state help.

To overcome this lack of money, some headmasters encouraged pupils from wealthy families to come and board, which is why even today Ripon is one of very few state schools that has boarders.

The more boarders a headmaster recruited, the wealthier he became and the better lessons he could offer.

But lots of boarders meant there were only a few places left for local day boys.

And fees went against Queen Mary’s founding charter that set up a “free school”

– not a free school as Michael Gove would understand it today which is free from local government involvement, but a school that was free of charge to local pupils.

Queen Mary, the school’s founder

However, a school without enough income is a school without decent facilities, and in the middle of the 19th Century there were growing complaints about the unhealthy nature of the school’s building in St Agnesgate, in the shadow of the cathedral.

The importance of boarders to the school’s economy was shown in the 1880s when wealthy families took their boys away from the school because of a naughty rumour concerning the headmaster and a local lady. This plunged the school into financial uncertainty.

In the 70 years before the Second World War, the local authorities took an increasing role in financially supporting the school, and the last fees were abolished in 1944.

LESSONS ON LESSONS

THE second friction concerned what the school should teach. It was set up to concentrate on Latin and Greek grammar, which was needed for scripture study and for boys to be accepted for university. For example, when the Reverend William Plues was headmaster at the start of the 18th Century, boys learned 50 to 100 classical lines by heart everyday.

But as the 19th Century wore on, there was little demand in Ripon itself for people who could spout vast passages of Pliny, and so there was growing local pressure for the school to teach more commercial and modern subjects.

In 1848, local tradesmen signed a petition opposing the tuition of “dead languages”

and demanding more maths, book-keeping, Continental languages and science.

The difficulty for the school was that if it produced young people who were valuable to local businesses it could not also produce pupils ready for university, and this would deter wealthy families from sending their sons to board there and so income would again decrease.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

THE brilliantly-bearded Marquess is worthy of great study. He was chairman of the school governors from 1860 to 1909, when he died at his home in Studley Royal, near Fountains Abbey (his mansion burned down in 1946).

He was born in Downing Street when his aristocratic father, Lord Goderich, was beginning his 144 difficult days as the Conservative Prime Minister. Somehow, the Marquess turned into a radical Christian socialist – views of which his parents disapproved.

Playing rugby on the field before the First World War

His views mellowed a little when he was elected MP for Hull in 1852 and he became a member of William Gladstone’s Liberal governments.

He formed an alliance with Florence Nightingale to improve Army conditions, and he was in favour of giving more people the vote.

For four years he was the Viceroy of India where his tasks included extricating British forces from an ill-advised war in Afghanistan.

He worked closely with Edward Forster – a Quaker who had spent some time working in Darlington in a textile mill – on the introduction of the 1870 Education Act which created state elementary schools.

On a local level, the maverick marquess’ interest in education was shown by his deep involvement in the grammar school. In 1872, the Marquess gave the school a new, large property in Bishopton Close which enabled it to move out of its unhealthy premises near the minster. An architect, George Corson from Leeds, was called in, and in 1889 the school’s iconic clocktower was opened by the Marquess himself.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS

IN 1894, the school 1st XV rugby team won the Yorkshire Public Schools Challenge Cup for the second time.

The school’s official history says: “The event was unfortunately marred by the drunken celebration of the team.”

In the early 1960s, boys produced wine from gooseberries grown in the caretaker’s garden and strained it through dirty socks. They presented a bottle to a new history master who took it home with him.

Cricket at Ripon Grammar School in the late 1870s, with the Bishopton Close building given to the school by the Marquess of Richmond

The school’s history says: “He placed it in his sitting room where it exploded during the night, causing considerable damage. The remainder of the substance was confiscated.”

OLD BOYS

EVERYONE knows of Richard Hammond, the Top Gear TV presenter who somehow cheated death when crashing at 288mph, and Bruce Oldfield, the designed who dressed Diana, Princess of Wales. But Sir William Chambers, another Old Riponian , deserves mention. Although born in Gothenburg, Sweden, he left Ripon in 1746 and designed the Gold State Coach which has been used in the coronation of every British monarch since George IV in 1821.

WAR BOYS

IN both world wars, Ripon Grammar School lost at least 48 pupils. John Dean, who attended the school from 1932 to 1939, wrote: “The sad thing for my generation is that the 6th form classes of 1938, 1939 and 1940 were so heavily decimated by the casualties of war.

“I was one of the few who survived to enjoy the benefits the school gave me over a long career.”

POLITICS

THE documents currently being digitised will give a fascinating insight into how late 20th Century politics shaped the school.

First of all, in the early 1960s, when co-education was the fashion, the school was threatened with “disestablishment”

if he did not agree to amalgamate with Ripon Girls’ High. The school was already considering the move, but the prospect of a loss of money from the state certainly concentrated minds.

A dramatic poster produced in 1872 by a townsperson unhappy that tuition fees were being introduced at the “free school”

The school retained its grammar school status, meaning it was one of only three in North Yorkshire that selected its pupils. Labour governments wanted comprehensive education to end selection, and the grammar school was only saved by Conservative General Election victories in 1970 and 1979.

In 2000, the battle was refought and Ripon became the only catchment area in England to hold a ballot. Parents voted – 1,493 to 747 – to retain the school’s selective nature.

Lord Hattersley led the campaign against selection, saying it was “devisive and consigning children who fail the 11-plus to a lifetime of failure”.

Its supporters pointed to the school’s unique atmosphere and excellent exam results. In 2012, it was rated outstanding by Ofsted.

The Marquess of Ripon, the school’s benefactor