In another place it has been shown how the sworn men had often a great share in the selection of the churchwardens and other officials. Their duties also extended to the procuring of money for educational purposes. It was ordered by Commissioners in the thirteenth year of Elizabeth, concerning the endowed school at Keswick, “that whereas two pence for every fire-house hath been paid to the parish clerk yearly, and also certain ordinary fees for night-watch, burials, weddings, and, moreover, certain benevolences of lamb wool, eggs, and such like, which seem to grow up to a greater sum than is competent for a parish clerk; the eight men shall herafter take up the said two pence a house for the use of a schoolmaster, paying thereout to the parish clerk yearly 46s. 8d.” In the time of King James it was found on inquiry by a Commission of Pious Uses, “that the eighteen sworn men had from time immemorial laid a tax for the maintenance of the schoolmaster, and other occasions of the parish, and appointed the schoolmaster, and made orders for the government of the school, and that the inhabitants had by a voluntary contribution raised a school stock of £148 2s. 3½d., nevertheless that Dr. Henry Robinson, Bishop of Carlisle, Henry Woodward, his Chancellor, and Giles Robinson, brother of the said Bishop, and Vicar of Crosthwaite, had intermeddled, and that the said Bishop, sometimes by authority of the High Commission for Ecclesiastical Causes, sometimes as a justice of the peace for the county, and sometimes by his power as ordinary, had interrupted the orders of the eighteen men, and had committed thirteen of them to prison. Therefore the commissioners restore the eighteen men to their authority concerning the appointing of a schoolmaster, and the government of the school.”
Among the curious bequests known to have been made at various times by residents in the two counties, not the least noteworthy was that of the Vicar of Raughton Head, Mr. Sevithwaite, who, at his death in 1762, left £20 to the school; and another £20, the interest whereof, after the death of his widow, was to be laid out yearly in purchasing Bishop Beveridge’s “Thoughts upon Religion,” and the Bishop of Man’s “Essay for the Instruction of the Indians,” to be given to the poor housekeepers of the parish.
Among the curiosities of tenure in addition to those already mentioned in a previous chapter, was that of surrendering by the rod. In the summer of 1750 “John Sowerby surrendered to the lord of the manor (of Castle Sowerby) by the hands of his steward by the rod a messuage at Sowerby Row ... to the use and behoof of Joseph Robinson and his assigns according to the custom of the manor; conditioned to pay yearly to three trustees £5 for the use of a schoolmaster within the liberty of Row Bound to be chosen by the trustees.” As in most other places, the schoolmaster had to teach certain children for a very small sum per quarter, and the parents in better circumstances had to pay 2s. 6d. per quarter for each child.
How faithfully some of the clerical schoolmasters performed their duties during long periods may be proved from numerous sources. One entry, a burial, will suffice—from the Mardale register of 1799:—
“Richard Hebson, in ye 75th year of his age. He was 53 years master of the Free School at Measand, and 51 years the pastor of this Chapelry. Singularly remarkable for his faithful, assiduous, and conscientious discharge of the duties of both these stations.”
At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were in the diocese of Carlisle few schools other than those held in the all too frequently dilapidated parish churches. In most cases the curates were the only schoolmasters, and it was as an encouragement to those clerics that the parishioners took it in turn to provide the curate with a “whittlegate.” Much interesting information about the old-time schools and schoolmasters may be found in Bishop Nicolson’s Visitation Miscellany. One man, who afterwards became examining chaplain to Bishop Law, used to keep school at Sebergham in a mud hut. Of another cleric, the Rev. T. Baxter, who was incumbent of Arlecdon in the first half of last century, it is recorded, in Mr. W. Dickinson’s “Reminiscences of West Cumberland,” that he “taught the parish school in the chancel of the parish church, on an earthern floor, without fire either in summer or winter.” Bishop Nicolson’s descriptions speak eloquently of the poverty of some parishes:—“The quire at Warwick, as in many other places, is shamefully abused by the children that are taught in it. Their present master is Thomas Allanson, a poor cripple, remov’d hither from Rockliff, who has no settled salary, only 12d. per quarter and his diet, and would be thankful for ye commendum of ye clerk’s place; which, he saies, would bring him an addition of about six shillings p. an.”
Of Irthington he wrote:—“The quire is here (as before) miserably spoil’d, on the floor, by the school boyes; and so vilely out of repair in the roof that ’tis hazardous comeing in it.”
Crosby-on-Eden was a little better than the former place:—“Mr. Pearson, the school master, has no certain and fixed salary. He teaches the children in the quire; where the boys and girls sit on good Wainscot Benches, and write on the communion table, too good (were it not appointed to a higher use) for such a service.” Here is a picture with regard to Cumwhitton, not calculated to make people really wish for the old days about which some grow enthusiastic:—“The south window is unglazed and starves the whole congregation as well as the poor children; who are here taught (for the present) by the parish clerk, a man of very moderate qualification. Mr. Robley, their new curate, is not yet resident among them; but will shortly come, and take the office of teaching out of this illiterate man’s hand.”
In a parish not far from the Cumberland border—Allendale—the curates of West Allen High and St. Peter’s Chapels were certainly as recently as 1835, and probably still later, obliged to teach the miners’ children for 1s. 6d. per quarter each, in consideration of certain annual payments. These were five shillings from each miner of one description, and half-a-crown from those of another, which they, in common with the incumbent of Allenheads Chapel, received as ministers of the respective chapels.
It was certified in 1717 that while at that time there was no divine service performed in the parish of Clifton, some three miles from Workington, “formerly every family in the two hamlets [of Great and Little Clifton], being about forty in number, paid 6d. each to one that read prayers, and taught the children to read, and the rector gave £2 a year, and officiated there every sixth Sunday, but that these payments had then ceased for above 40 years last past.”