Reference was made in a previous paragraph to the custom of whittlegate as applying to schoolmasters. From the former chapter on church curiosities it will have been noted that the clergy occasionally had recourse to that method of supplementing their scanty incomes. As it often happened that the schoolmaster and parson were one and the same individual, difficulties were thereby removed. At any rate the following extract from Clarke’s “Survey” of over a century ago has an interesting bearing on the subject. Writing of Ambleside, of which the Rev. Isaac Knipe, M.A., was curate and schoolmaster, he remarks:—
“The chapel is a low, mean building, and stands in the parish of Grassmere. The inhabitants (who are land owners), as well as those in the parish of Winandermere, as those in the parish of Grassmere, have the right of nominating and presenting the curate. The rector of Grassmere usually nominated the curate, but the inhabitants of this and many other perpetual curacies in the north have, by custom, gotten it from the rectors of vicars; the reason is this: before the death of Queen Anne, many of the chapelries were not worth above three pounds a year, and the donees could not get persons properly qualified to serve them, so they left them to the inhabitants, who raised voluntary contributions for them in addition to their salary, with clothes yearly and whittlegate. Whittlegate is to have two or three weeks’ victuals at each house, according to the ability of the inhabitants, which was settled amongst them so as that he should go his course as regular as the sun, and compleat it as annually.”
The custom prevailed so late as 1858 in some country parishes; it is not a little curious that it has not been found to exist in any counties except Cumberland and Westmorland, though the Rev. J. Wharton, Stainmore, has informed the writer that it is recognised still in some parts of the United States.
The custom of barring out is probably unknown to the present generation of Cumbrian and Westmerian school-boys—at any rate in the sense in which it used to be observed. There exist numerous stories of the thoroughness with which the boys formerly maintained their supposed rights in this direction. The Rev. E. H. Sugden’s sketch of the history of Arlecdon and Frizington shows how the observance was followed there every Christmas:—“The old men of the parish tell with delight their experiences and adventures in carrying out this old custom. One says he remembers the master entering the school by creeping down the chimney. Another tells of a boy hiding himself in the chimney when the master had forced the door open. It appears that during this period of expulsion the doors of the school were strongly barricaded within, and the boys who defended it like a besieged city were armed in general with elder pop-guns. In the meantime the master would make several efforts, both by force and stratagem, to regain his lost authority. If he succeeded, heavy tasks were imposed, and the business of the school went on as usual; but it more commonly happened that he was repulsed and defeated. The siege was continued three days, after which the terms of capitulation were proposed by the master, who usually pushed them under the door, and as a rule the boys accepted. These terms stipulated what hours and times should for the ensuing year be allotted to study, and what to relaxation and play. Securities were given by each side for the due performance of these stipulations, and the paper was then solemnly signed by both master and pupils.
“Mr. Sibson, of Whitehaven, formerly of this parish, relates the two following incidents in connection with this custom. On one occasion, Mr. C. Mossop endeavoured to enter the school. As soon as he put his hand on the window sill, intending to enter that way, a boy hit his hand with a red-hot poker, so that for many days he went about with it in a sling. On another occasion, Mr. Hughes, the master, took some slates off the roof, and succeeded in getting his legs and part of his body past the rafters, but he could get no further, and the boys with red-hot pokers burnt him severely before he could be rescued by his friends. In those days many young men attended the school during the winter time.”
At Appleby, the “barring out” sometimes lasted for days, and the scholars slept in the schoolrooms. In most places the mutiny was apt to break out early on the morning of the day fixed for breaking up for the holidays. They defied the master by means of sundry cries, that at Kendal being:—
“Liberty, liberty, under a pin,
Six weeks’ holiday or nivver come in.”
Apparently the custom was killed in the old grey town at the beginning of this century by the then master, Mr. Towers meeting with a distressing mishap. He was contending with them, apparently for admittance, when his eye was accidentally destroyed, and the disaster served to bring about the abolition of the old custom.
Fine warm days of that Indian summer so often experienced in the two counties in September and October were devoted to “going a nutting,” and the headmaster of Appleby Grammar School never refused a holiday at that season, provided that each scholar brought him a quart of “leamers”—nuts sufficiently ripe to leave the husks without compulsory treatment. As Christmas approached, the schoolmaster was “barred out” in orthodox fashion, until he agreed (and he only pretended to be loth to make the contract) to extend the coming holidays as long as his pupils demanded.
