The Beverley Grammar School still possesses its ancient library of books; among which are an edition of Vergil printed in black letter at Florence, one of Terence printed at Paris in 1552,[1552,] one of Cicero printed at Basle in 1553, and a very early edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, containing gruesome illustrations of practical methods of torture. But there is now no need for chains to preserve these books from being surreptitiously ‘borrowed.’
The Grammar School at Hull also had its revenues confiscated, but these were afterwards in part restored. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the school was rebuilt, mainly at the expense of Alderman Gee, who contributed for the purpose the sum of eighty pounds and twenty thousand bricks. In his will, Alderman Gee put a further bequest thus:—
I give and bequeath to the schoole of Hull which I builded through God’s goodnes, two houses in the Butchery.... I give these houses for ever for and towards the said Schoolmaster’s fee for his good teachinge and bringinge upp youth.
Pocklington Grammar School was saved through the efforts of Thomas Dowman, the nephew of its founder, who obtained a private Act of Parliament to continue the existence of the school.
What happened to Bridlington Grammar School is uncertain. But we know that in 1636 an inhabitant of Bridlington, by name William Hustler, gave ‘forty pounds yearly out of his estates for the maintenance of a schoolmaster and usher in a school-house, by him to be founded and erected.’ This endowment still forms a part of the revenues of the school.
Howden Grammar School also managed to survive, and lives to-day in the side chapel of the parish church that has been its home for several centuries.
Other smaller Grammar Schools, founded by private individuals, formerly existed in the East Riding. Marmaduke Langdale founded one at Sancton in 1610, Lord D’Arcy founded another at Kilham in 1633, and John Blanchard in 1712 left funds for the salary of a grammar school master at Barmby-on-the-Marsh.
We have now reached the beginning of the eighteenth century, and there has so far been no mention made of Girls’ Schools. The reason is not far to seek. There were no schools for girls in the far-off days when the Grammar Schools of Beverley, Howden, Bridlington and Hull came into being.[being.]