The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and
Instruction., by Various

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Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.
Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829.

Author: Various

Release Date: February 26, 2004 [EBook #11322]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. XIII, NO. 359.] SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1829. [Price 2d.

RUGBY SCHOOL

[Illustration: Rugby School.]

On the eastern border of Warwickshire, about 13 miles from Coventry, and
16 from Warwick, stands the cheerful town of Rugby, a place of great
antiquity, but of little note previous to the erection of a grammar-school
there, towards the close of the sixteenth century. The circumstances under
which this school was founded, and the rank it has attained among our
classical seminaries, may probably be interesting to the reader.

Rugby School was founded in the ninth year of Elizabeth, by Lawrence
Sheriff, grocer, of London, chiefly as a free grammar-school for the
children of the parishes of Rugby and Brownsover, and places adjacent. For
the accommodation of the master, who was, "if it conveniently might be, to
be ever a Master of Arts," he bequeathed a messuage at Rugby, in which it
is probable he had himself resided during the last few years of his life,
and he directed that there should be built, near this residence, a fair
and convenient school-house, to defray which expense, and of a contiguous
almshouse, he bequeathed the revenue of the rectory of Brownsover, and a
third portion of twenty-four acres of land, situate in _Lamb's Conduit
Fields_, "near London," and termed the Conduit Close. These eight acres
were of trivial value at the period; and in 1653, the trustees of the
property paid the schoolmaster a salary of 12_l_. a year, and each of the
alms-men 7_s_. 7_d_. In 1686, the Lamb's Conduit property was leased for
fifty years at 50_l_. per annum. The metropolis increased, and stretching
one of