Repton and its neighbourhood

by F. C. Hipkins

There they summoned witnesses to attend; fifty did so, twenty-five a side. Their depositions, in answer to interrogatories, were taken on April 15th, 1663, and fill sixty pages of folio. As before mentioned, they consist of two folios, one for the School and one for Thacker. The chief questions administered to the witnesses for the School, referred to their knowledge of the School buildings, Schoolmasters and boys, Thacker’s ancestors, rights of way, award of Sir Francis Burdett, and Sir Samuel Sleigh, former suits at law, the Thackers’ conduct, the value of the land, as grass land, and the use of the yard for recreation by the boys, &c. For Thacker, the questions asked referred to their knowledge of prohibitions by his ancestors and himself, and complaints made to the Schoolmasters, &c.

The depositions are most interesting, as the knowledge of witnesses extended back to within forty years of the founding of the School.

The number of Schoolmasters varied—in Watson’s time two, in Whitehead’s three, Schoolmaster, Middle Master, and Usher. The number of boys also varied from 60 to 200, with “7 or 8 poor schollers.” Among the boys mentioned were four sons of Philip, first Earl of Chesterfield, Philip, Charles, George and Ferdinando Stanhope; Michael Folliott, son of Henry Folyot, Foleott or Ffoliott, Baron of Ballyshannon, Ireland; Wingfield, Thomas, Vere Essex, and Oliver Cromwell, the four sons of Thomas Cromwell, first Earl of Ardglass, besides the sons of divers knights and gentlemen, Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., Sir Samuel Sleigh, Knt., Godfrey Meynell, Thomas Sanders, William Bullock, &c., &c., most of whom had gone to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge. (See Repton School Register)

The “Court yard” (School yard) had been used by the boys to recreate themselves in, without let or hindrance from the defendant’s ancestors. The award was well known, and agreed to at the time, 1653, but the defendant had refused to comply with it, and had stopped several ways, and blocked up a door leading to the brook, from the north-east corner of the Schoolmaster’s garden.

The evidence of Ann Heyne, &c., referred to above, proved that the defendant’s conduct had “caused many brawls, and many schollers to be affrighted and absent themselves from schoole.” The value of the land was worth from 2d. to 6d. per annum!

The defendant’s witnesses agreed about most of the points in dispute, but they said the boys had no right to play in the great court yard without permission, and some of them remembered having been whipped by Godfrey Thacker and Schoolemaster Watson for so doing, and others remember playing in “the Staineyard,” by orders of the Schoolemasters Watson and Whitehead. Defendant also objected to the disposal of ashes, which the Headmaster used to have placed on a mound opposite his front door, and the Usher at the back of the Causey (i.e. the way between the stone walls, leading into the old big school) instead of in the garden at the back of the School, as they used to be put, as one witness said “he had seen them carried by Mr. Schoolemaster Watson’s daughter!”

The Commissioners “recommended the differences between the two parties to the Right Honourable Philipp, Earl of Chesterfield, to call the said parties before him, and to hear and finally determine the said differences between them if his Worship so can.” Gilbert Thacker again failed to carryout the terms agreed upon, so on the 11th day of January, in the 18th year of the reign of Charles II., King, a writ was issued against him for contempt of court. The writ is in the Muniment Chest, and it is a rare specimen of a legal document in Latin, written short, full of abbreviations, very difficult to decipher, as Thacker pleaded in his answer, “it was written in short lattin, some of the words written very short, he did not well understand it, nor could say if it was a true Coppy,” when Mr. Motteram (counsel for the School) delivered it to him, and read it over to him, but he was wise enough to understand and obey it eventually, so his contempt was pardoned, and in the following year a final agreement was made between him and the School.

(1) The School to build up the way out of the School House garden in the north wall, and to give up all rights to go (that way) to the Brook.

(2) Also to give up the Void piece of ground called the Slaughter House Yard (now the Hall Garden) between the School House and Thacker’s Kitchen.