The statutes entitled the Fellows to £10 a year stipend, and 2s. a week, or £5, 4s. a year, for commons, whereas they had increased their stipend to £50 a year, and received in lieu of commons on an average £550 a year each, or £10, 11s. 6d. per week instead of 2s.
The statutes entitled the Provost and seven Fellows to allowances amounting in all to £200 per annum, but in practice they received nearly £7000.
The statutes required that the scholars should be supplied with dress and bedding; with all, in fact, “quae ad vestitum et lectisternia eorundem aliaque iis necessaria pertinent.” Nevertheless, with the exception of a coarse gown, the scholars received nothing appertaining to dress from the funds of the College.
The statutes provided ample allowances for breakfast, dinner, and supper, with the use of certain fisheries. In practice breakfast was omitted altogether, and for dinner the only kind of meat provided for the scholars throughout the year was mutton, which even if good in quality was not sufficient in quantity.
According to the statutes thirteen servitors were to wait upon the Provost, Fellows, and scholars in Hall, which arrangement had further developed into the Lower boys waiting upon the Upper, who in their turn performed the same menial offices for the Provost and his company on the occasions of their dining in the College Hall.
The statutes required that each scholar should be instructed free under the most strict oath to be taken by the Head and Lower Masters. In direct defiance of this each scholar was charged £6, 6s., the amount having been gradually increased to that sum.
The statutes allowed each Fellow a separate apartment, but such accommodation had long ceased to be sufficient for them, and instead they resided in spacious houses, free from taxes and the expense of repair, with stables and coach-houses attached.
The statutes enjoined that one room should be provided for every three boys, free from any expense. In 1834 upwards of forty boys slept in Long Chamber, whilst those who were lodged in the two adjoining rooms paid a sum of money annually to the second master.
The statute that any scholar during a short illness should be maintained at the College expense (if longer than a month, to receive a sum of money) was entirely ignored.
Finally, the statutes were required to be read to the scholars assembled in a body three times a year. This was never done; the scholars, moreover, were not allowed access to them.