Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

elector in any examination or election, shall be ipso facto ineligible to any fellowship or scholarship at that election; and any elector who shall, directly or indirectly, by himself or through another person, promise or engage his vote or favour at any examination or election for any fellowship or scholarship, shall ipso facto be disqualified for voting at such election."

The Charter declares and directs that pupils of the respective ranks of fellow-commoners, pensioners and sizars, shall be admitted into the College in the same manner as they are admitted into other Colleges in the University; and that they shall be instructed in law, physic, and such other useful learning as is generally taught in other Colleges, and that they shall be subject to the same academical discipline. The Statutes add that a certificate of the birth and baptism of every pupil, and a testimonial of his good character, from the place or places in which he has been educated, shall be produced at the time of his admission as a member of the College.

The undergraduates at present are all fellow-commoners. The grounds of Downing College, about thirty acres, include St Thomas's Leys, in the parishes of St Benedict, St Botolph, and St Mary the Less, which were enclosed under an act of parliament passed in the forty-first year of King George III.

Since the year 1807, not less than £60,000 has been expended, under the sanction of the Court of Chancery, on the erection of the College buildings; the whole of this sum, with interest, was charged on the College estates, and was not entirely paid off till the year 1843.

In 1821 the College buildings, comprising nearly two sides of a large court, were completed, when, with the sanction of the Court of Chancery, the College was opened for the admission of students.

In 1800 the master, professors and three fellows only, were appointed to administer the affairs of the College; the six scholars and the remaining thirteen fellows are not to be appointed till the buildings of the College have been coinpleted.

On the 9th Jan. 1852, the amount of the building fund was £14,686. 28. 5d., three per cent. consols: £213. 178. 4d. cash,

BB

the January dividend on this stock, and £600 cash paid to t fund. The sum required to complete the buildings, accordi to the plan approved by the Court of Chancery, would probab amount to £40,000.

There is a rectory and vicarage united, which forms t only ecclesiastical patronage of the College.

The total gross yearly income of the revenues of the C lege, on an average of the seven years ending 1850, w £7,239. 178., and the total net income £4517. 8s. In t year 1800, the gross income of the College was £4,467.

In the Statutes of Downing College is contained the si gular but most judicious regulation :-"Whereas it is high expedient that those who are to live according to the regulati of any code of laws, should have every facility which ma enable them to become acquainted with those laws. Ar whereas the provision in the Charter of this College for t alteration of the Statutes, may always prevent them fro becoming obsolete or impracticable through lapse of time, change of manners; It is ordained, as a fundamental law this College, that the Statutes for the time being shall printed, together with the Charter, and that a copy of bot shall be given to every member, officer, and pupil of this Co lege on his first admission; and whenever there shall be an alteration or addition to the Statutes, the same shall be printe and disposed of in like manner.”

AN

ACCOUNT

OF THE

FELLOWSHIPS,

SCHOLARSHIPS,

AND

EXHIBITIONS,

ATTACHED TO

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

IN

ENGLAND AND WALES,

AND

TENABLE BY THEIR STUDENTS

AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

BEDFORDSHIRE.

BEDFORD.

THE FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL.

FOUNDED 1552, a.d.

THE Free Grammar-school at Bedford was founded in the sixth year of the reign of Edward VI. by letters patent, on the petition of the mayor, bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty of the town of Bedford, for the education, institution, and instruction of children and youth in grammar and good manners, to endure for ever. The warden and fellows of New College, Oxford, were constituted visitors of the school, and in them was vested the appointment of the master and usher.

In 1556, the eighth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir William Harpur, Knight, alderman of the City of London, and Dame Alice his wife, granted lands for the endowment of the school and exhibitions to the universities, and for other charitable purposes. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1764, for the appointment of trustees and the carrying into execution the rules set forth for the management of this charity, of which the clear income was then about £3000 a year, but now exceeds £12,500.

The trustees were empowered to erect a statue in front of the schoolhouse, and a monument of marble in St Paul's church, Bedford, where the bodies of Sir W. Harpur and Dame Alice his wife were interred, with proper inscriptions, in testimony of the gratitude and reverence of the town of Bedford to the memory of the munificent founders of "the Bedford Charity."

Another Act of Parliament was passed in 1793, for the more convenient management of the Charity, and by Rule X. of the Schedule, it was provided that, after April 25, 1794, the trustees of the Bedford Charity shall, from time to time, for ever, grant exhibitions of £40 per annum, at either of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, for such scholars who have been at the school not less than four years, as may be deemed, after examination, most worthy of preference; but so that there be not more than three scholars receiving exhibitions at one time, and that no scholar hold his exhibition longer than six years. Each Scholar was to receive the payments yearly on producing a certificate from the college authorities that he had resided, had been attentive to his studies, and also moral and exemplary in his conduct.

The number of exhibitions has been increased to eight, and the value of each has been raised to £80 a year, for four years. By a late

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »