The Church of Grasmere: A History

160

The beam was dislodged when the new rectory was built in 1895, but upon the furnishing of the old tithe barn as a parish room in 1905, it was appropriately set up there.

161

Ry. Hall MSS., His. MS. Com. 2084.

162

See A Westmorland Township, Westmorland Gazette, May 7th, 1910. He was not, however, as there stated, the son of Michael.

163

See Ambleside Town and Chapel, p. 53.

164

See Ambleside Town and Chapel. More particulars of the education of George Fleming will be found in the forthcoming Chronicles of Rydal.

165

See Dictionary of National Biography. The fact of his having acquired the rectorate of Grasmere seems, however, not to have been known to his biographers; but the Registry of Chester shows it.

166

One would willingly connect this Grasmere land-holder with the astronomer of the same name who enjoys a place in the National Dictionary of Biography. This remarkable man was born of statesmen parents as near as Whitbeck, under Black Combe, in 1767, and was educated at the Hawkshead Grammar School. His biographer, Dr. Lonsdale, in the Worthies of Cumberland, says, "Between his leaving Hawkshead and his becoming a clergyman of the Church of England I have no facts to guide me: but it may be inferred that he went to Cambridge."

167

Rydal Hall MSS.

168

Rydal Chronicles.

169

Letters of the Wordsworth Family.

170

In the mediæval story of Reynard the Fox, the Priest's barn is well walled about. See Francis Bond's Misericords, p. 73.

171

De Quincey Memorials, vol. ii., 90-91.

172

The Ven. William Jackson, D.D., was born in 1792, and preferred to the benefices of Whitehaven, Penrith, Cliburn and Lowther (Rector 1828-1878) by the Earl of Lonsdale, who gave him Askham Hall to serve as the Rectory of Lowther. Bishop Percy appointed him Canon and Chancellor of Carlisle, and gave him an Archdeaconry, which he resigned on becoming Provost of Queen's College, Oxford (1862-1878). He married the daughter of Mr. Crump who built Allan Bank, and had four daughters; two died young, one married a Mr. John H. Crump, the other the present Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, the Rev. J. R. Magrath, D.D. – Ed.

173

He had resigned the living in 1878.

174

See Ambleside Town and Chapel, p. 42.

175

See Ambleside Town and Chapel, p. 46.

176

Ambleside "Curates" Bible, Transactions, C. and W. An. S., n.s. vol vii.

177

Ambleside Town and Chapel, Transactions, C. and W. An. S., n.s. vol. vi., p. 47, where particulars of some of the following curates and their assistants are given.

178

May mean server or sufferer. But whether we are to take it that John Osgood served as a clergyman or suffered as a Quaker is not easy to decide. – Ed.

180

There were sad doings among the Pluralists and absentee parsons of the eighteenth century; and the unpaid curates were often addicted to drink. See Ambleside Town and Chapel, pp. 56-7 and onward.

181

From a recent work, Educational Charters and Documents, by H. F. Leach, we learn that the clergy taught both themselves and others from the earliest times; for instance, in the seventh century, Aldhelm, writing to the Bishop about his studies, tells him how after long struggles he grasped at last, in a moment, by God's grace, "the most difficult of all things, what they call fractions." In the tenth century a canon of King Edgar enjoins that "every priest in addition to lore to diligently learn a handicraft," and later in the same century the Council enacted that "priests shall keep schools in the villages and teach small boys without charge," and also that they ought always to have schools for teachers, "Ludi magistrorum scholas" in their houses, thus they would prepare others to take up the work professionally which they were doing for nothing. Five hundred years later we find it ordered at Bridgenorth, in 1503, that "no priste keep no scole, after that a scole mastur comyth to town, but that every child to resorte to the comyn scole." But the plague broke out and swept away "scole masturs" and pupils alike, and in 1529 the Convocation of Canterbury once more bade all rectors, vicars, and charity priests to employ some part of their time in teaching boys the alphabet, reading, singing, or grammar; and appointed a Revision Committee of one archbishop, four bishops, four abbots, and four archdeacons to bring out a uniform Latin grammar for all schools. That grammar was taught in Latin in the tenth and eleventh centuries we know from the Colloquy of Œlfric, 1005, and from his preface to the first English-Latin grammar, in which teachers were told that "It is better to invoke God the Father giving him honour by lengthening the syllable (Pāter) rather than cutting it short (Păter); no, comparing pronunciation as is the Britons' way, for God ought not to be subject to the rules of grammar."

182

Dr. Fox's Parish Registers of England.

183

The dates of these legacies are incorrectly given on the list within the church.

184

Rydal Hall MSS., Grasmere, was by no means behind the times in education. There was no parish school at Clayworth, Notts., in 1676, when an independent master was encouraged by permission to teach within the church; and an effort made to raise a school "stock" or endowment failed five years later. See Rectors' Book of Clayworth.

185

The Mackereths made no pretention to learning, and Robert Pooley or Powley acted as school-master after the Revd. Noble Wilson in Sir Richard Fleming's time, and he was keeping the registers in 1814.

187

Hawkshead Parish Register.

188

From Mr. William Satterthwaite, of Colthouse, a member of the Society of Friends.

189

Indictment Book, Kendal Quarter Sessions.

190

Papers of the Satterthwaite family.

191

Transactions, Cumb. and West. Ant. So., vol. 6, N.S.

192

Indictment Book.

193

Hone's Table Book.

194

The following list of omissions in the earliest Grasmere Church Register, 1570-1687, has been kindly supplied by Miss H. J. H. Sumner. – Ed. "No Marriages between ffeb. 1583-4 and June 1611; no Burials between July 1588 and May 1598; no Christenings between Dec. 1591 and ffeb. 1600-1; no Burials between May 1604 and Apr. 1611; no Christenings between March 1603-4 and Apr. 1611; no Christenings between ffeb. 1625-8 and June 1627; no Marriages between July 1625 and May 1627; no Burials between ffeb. 1625-6 and May 1627."

195

The reference is to the Dean of Durham's Companion to the Temple, the standard work of the period on the Prayer-Book; but the passage goes no further than to say that "some among us" still observe the "former" prohibition.

196

Dr. Cox's Parish Registers.

197

See "A Westmoreland Township" in the Westmorland Gazette.

198

Mr. G. Brown has been helpful in this matter, which is very fully discussed in Mr. H. S. Cowper's Hawkshead. See also Ambleside Town and Chapel.

199

Memorials of Old Lancashire, vol. i., p. 60.

200

Browne MSS

201

Remnants of Rhyme, by Thomas Hoggart, Kendal, 1853.

202

Hone's Table Book.

203

Queen Elizabeth's Palace at Greenwich had its Presence Chamber, in 1598, "richly hung with tapestry and strewn with rushes."

204

Morrison Scatcherd, quoted in the Rushbearing pamphlet compiled by Miss E. Grace Fletcher.

205

Survey of the Lakes, 1789.

206

MS. account, given in Whitaker's Richmondshire.

207

Westmorland and Cumberland, etc., Illustrated, 1833.

208

The wardens' accounts, given below, practically agree with the story as told in the Rushbearing pamphlet, p. 24, where the Festival of 1885 is described, but apparently the date 1834 should be 1839. "Before leaving the church-yard, the children, to the number of about 115, were each given a sixpenny piece, in accordance with the custom that has prevailed for over the last fifty years. The origin of this gift of sixpence will perhaps be of interest to many. In 1834 there were only seven rushbearers, and it seemed that this revered custom was on the decline. Mr. Dawson, of London, and owner of Allan Bank, was present, and he gave each of the rushbearers sixpence, which gift he has continued yearly ever since. The next year the numbers of bearers was increased to fifty, and year by year this figure has been added to. It is said that Mr. Dawson does not intend to continue his gift any longer, so that it appears the year 1885 will be the last one in which the children will receive their brand new sixpence, unless someone takes the matter in hand, or Mr. Dawson reconsiders his decision."

209

A supply of Kendal wigs (a special cake still made in Hawkshead) came to the shop once a week, as Miss Greenwood remembers.