‘The College to be established by means of one hundred shares of £10 each; the possessor of each share to have the power of nominating a Pupil, and a vote at annual and special meetings.
...
‘That the management of the College for the ensuing year shall be vested in the Founders, viz.... who for this purpose shall be constituted the Committee of Management after the expiration of the first year, exclusive of the Treasurer and Honorary Secretary, who will be ex officio members of the Board, they being shareholders and members of the Church of England....
‘That the College be under the direction of a Principal, a Lady from whom the pupils will receive religious instruction at appointed times in accordance with the doctrine and the teaching of the Church of England....
‘That at the end of each year the pupils be examined by competent persons appointed by the Committee.
‘That the College shall consist of two departments, the Junior for children of both sexes, admissible after five years of age, the boys to be removed when they have attained their eighth year.
‘The appointment of the Lady Principal and all subordinate teachers and officers to be vested in the Committee.’
With few alterations these resolutions passed into the prospectus issued to the public in November 1853, an exact copy of which will be found in the appendix.[35] Experimental prospectuses, which never left the hands of the Committee, exist to show how the founders formed and modified their views for the College. It was proposed at one time to have a noble patron and a visitor, besides the working Committee; but as Miss Beale somewhat whimsically relates, this was found to be impracticable. ‘It was thought that it would add to the prestige of the College, and diminish the prejudice which then existed, to have a distinguished patron, and so Lord de Saumerez, then resident in Cheltenham, was applied to, but in vain. So there was no Patron.’[36] There was also no visitor until 1875, when Dr. Ellicott, then Bishop of Gloucester, kindly undertook the charge. The difficulty of securing patronage was probably what caused the Council, in virtue of one of their own rules, to invite Mr. Close to accept the office of President, with a seat at the Board. At the same time Mr. Bellairs was appointed Vice-President.
In the first instance it was intended that the College should be confined to day-scholars; then, in case this restriction should limit the scope of the work and perhaps injure it financially, a sort of half-measure was planned, and it was proposed to state that: ‘the Committee will not interfere with any arrangements made by the Parents and Friends of pupils for Boarding their Children, provided the numbers in any given Boarding-House do not exceed six. Should Boarding-Houses ever be opened offering accommodation to a greater number of pupils than six, the Committee reserve to themselves the power of insisting upon and conferring a License, before Children in such Boarding-Houses be allowed the privilege of becoming Students in the College.’
As early as the 1st of November three ladies had been found to undertake boarding-houses, and they were not restricted as to numbers. The low terms of the boarding-houses (£40 a year including all expenses, of course without the tuition fees) suggest that the ideas of the liberal-minded Committee may have forestalled those of the future Lady Principal, ever eager to help on those who deserved but could not afford education. The tuition fees were on the same low scale; from six guineas to twenty guineas, and including pianoforte lessons, class singing, elementary drawing and needlework, besides English subjects and French.