The Usher's place was taken by William son of Thomas Wilsonne, "Agricolæ" in Giggleswick. He had been at the School for ten years under Mr. Dockray and at the age of eighteen had gone up to S. John's, Cambridge, as a Sizar in 1639. Thence he went back to his old School in 1642 and remained there for twenty-four years.
Chapter V.
1642—1712.
THE Rev. Rowland Lucas was a native of Westmorland and had been educated at Kirkby under Mr. Leake. In 1626 he was admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge, as a Sizar and took his B.A. in three years and his M.A. in 1633. Before he came to Giggleswick he had been Headmaster of Heversham. In 1643 his salary was increased to forty marks and in 1645 to £40, and during his six years many scholars went to Cambridge and won distinction in the world, such as Thomas Dockray and John Carr. At his death in 1648, William Wilsonne, the Usher, supplied his place for a few weeks and later William Walker was elected. He was a native of Giggleswick and had been a boy at the School under Mr. Lucas. In 1643 at the age of eighteen he was admitted as a Sizar at Christ's and commenced B.A. 1646-7 and later M.A.
The numbers of the School at this period are quite uncertain. The accommodation was slight and the teaching staff limited to the Master and Usher, but the boys were probably packed very close. During the nine years of his mastership, boys were steadily sent to Cambridge. Christ's alone admitted twenty-five and in one single year (1652) three others entered S. John's. These boys were sons of really poor men. John Cockett in 1651 was the first recorded receiver of the Shute Exhibition of £5, and in the next year it was given to Josias Dockray, son of the late Master, "whom we conceive to be a poore scoller of our parish." Both these boys became ordained and in time were appointed to one or more livings. For a century and a half Giggleswick fed Christ's with a steady stream of boys who almost without exception entered the service of the Church.
Seventeenth century Giggleswick took no heed of the progress of the School and records do not abound. It was a disturbed period in English history and political and religious troubles occupied men's minds to the exclusion of lesser matters. Giggleswick was nevertheless well-known, for in 1697 Abraham de la Prynne records in his diary an anecdote of a Mr. Hollins who thirty years before had lived at Giggleswick "as I remember in Yorkshire where the great school is." Apparently Anthony Lister, who was then Vicar had roused the resentment of a particular Quaker, who found himself anxious to go to the Parish Church to rebuke Lister publicly, when he began to preach. On his way thither he met a friend and told him of his intention. The man tried to dissuade him but finding argument of no avail, he asked him what induced him to choose this particular Sunday. Whereupon the Quaker replied that "the Spirit" had sent him. The rejoinder came quickly "why did the Spirit not also tell thee that one Roger and not the Vicar is preaching to-day?" There was at this period one particularly distinguished son of Giggleswick, Richard Frankland born at "Rothmelæ" (Rathmell) in 1631 who came to the School when he was nine and at the age of seventeen went as a Burton Exhibitioner to Christ's College, Cambridge. The Shute Minute-Book of 1651 has the following entry:
xxjst January, 1651.
Received the day and yeare abovesaid from Robt. Claphamson the some of eight pounds which he received of James Smith, of Burton, for one year's rent, the which is disbursed by us as follows (to witt) to Jane ffrankland for her son, viz. xls.
His father John Frankland is said on his tombstone in Giggleswick Church to be one of the Franklands of "Thartilbe" (Thirkleby, near Thirsk) and he was admitted to Christ's in 1626.