Crewkerne Grammar School

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

1. Deeds of enfeoffment and individual properties; leases of school property.

2. Schemes for management of the school and its property, drawn up in Chancery and by Charity Commissioners.

3. Accounts and related material.

4. Minutes of feoffees' or governors' meetings.

5. Admission registers, and papers re places at the school.

6. Staff registers, and contracts.

7. Papers re scholarships and exhibitions.

8. Papers, General academic matters, including exams.

9. Building papers.

10. Miscellaneous.

CORRELATION OF OLD AND NEW BUNDLE NOS.

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C/2973

Crewkerne Grammar School is thought to have been founded c1499 by John de Combe, precentor of Exeter Cathedral and a former Vicar of Crewkerne. He endowed the school, which seems to have been carried on in one of the chantry chapels of the parish church, with property in Crewkerne, Combe St. Reigne and Merriott. By subsequent endowments and purchases the school acquired land in Haselbury Plucknett, and in Pilsdon and Maiden Newton, Dorset. The school was intended for the benefit of boys living in or near Crewkerne, but by the 18th century boarders from further away were accepted.

The foundation was managed by feoffees, including 6 townsmen of Crewkerne; in 1703 the number of feoffees was fixed at 23. Accounts were kept by one of the feoffees known as the Warden. In 1827, following a dispute between the master and the feoffees, an order in Chancery, laid down certain rules for the better management of the school, and stipulated that the master should be a clergyman of the church of England and that the principles of the church, together with Latin and Greek should form the basis of the curriculum. In 1876, the charity commissioners drew up a new scheme which broadened the curriculum and abolished the stipulation as to the master's religion. The school moved to new premises 1882. In 1904, after a prolonged financial crisis it was closed, re-opening in the following year as an ordinary secondary school under the Board of Education.