The National and Infant Schools, situated on elevated ground in Listley street, were established in 1820. There is accommodation in these schools for 300 children: 150 boys and 50 girls attend. The schools are supported by annual subscriptions, donations, charity sermons, and small weekly payments from the scholars. The income for the year ending March 25th, 1851, amounted to £228. 14s. 3d.
The British School, in West Castle street, is held in a spacious and convenient room under the Baptist chapel: it is numerously attended. There is also a school taught in a room over the Independent chapel, where about sixty children are instructed.
St. Mary’s School, situated in the Low Town, is a commodious building of brick, erected by public subscriptions in 1847, at a cost of £756. Upwards of 100 children attend the school.
The Free Grammar School.—This school was founded more than three hundred years ago, by the bailiffs and burgesses, for the purpose of affording, free of expense, to “all comers,” instruction in literature and good learning, until they shall be capable to be sent to the universities of Oxford or Cambridge. For the better maintenance of the school, Sir Rowland Hayward, in 1624, gave a rent charge of £20 per annum; £4 a year was left by his son; £2 a year was left by Sir John Hayward for the usher; and £8 a year, called the king’s allowance, was also paid to the usher out of the audit money. In 1639, the lease of a house was granted by Sir William Whitmore, at an annual rent of 8s., for a residence for the master. In 1687 Sir William Whitmore renewed the lease, and by a covenant therein, bound his successors to continue the lease on the same conditions, as long as the school should continue to be a free school. It appears that the master of the free school has always received some allowance from the corporation, which in 1726 amounted to £10; in 1817 it was increased to £30; and it was further agreed to supply from the private funds of those members of the corporation who sent their sons to this school, as much money as, in addition to the several sources of emolument before particularised, would make up an annual salary of £100 for the master. For the last two years the grant from the corporation has been discontinued: it is hoped, however, the corporate body will see the propriety of renewing their grant. The various bequests to this school, and the exhibitions at Christ College, Oxford, will be found noticed with the following account of the general charities of Bridgnorth.
Charities.—Edward Careswell, by will dated 3rd February, 1689, left certain lands in the counties of Salop and Stafford, in all containing 1,075a. 2r. 23p. of land, chargeable with the maintenance of eighteen scholars in the college of Christ Church, in Oxford, four of the aforesaid scholars to be chosen from Shrewsbury Free Grammar School, three from Bridgnorth, four from Newport, three from Shiffnal, two from Wem, and two out of Donnington, in the parish of Wroxeter, who were to receive while undergraduates £18 each for four years, after he should have commenced bachelor of arts; £21 each for three years, until he should commence master of arts; and £27 yearly to each for three years after he should commence master of arts, and no longer. In the year 1813, a considerable surplus of the rents and profits having accrued, the sum of £1,500 was applied to the purchase of the rectoral tithes of the Walker’s Low and Walkham Wood farms: and in 1815 the further sum of £1,515. 7s. was laid out in the purchase of 26a. 0r. 38p. of land, with a new built brick and tiled barn in the parish of Quatford. This farm had previously gained an addition of 36a. 1r. 14p., under the Morfe Enclosure Act; and on the Priors Ditton enclosure, in 1813, an allotment of 10a. 1r. 2p. was awarded to the Sydnall Farm. The tenants of the land respectively hold from year to year, and the rents are varied from time to time, as circumstances are found to require. At the time the charity commissioners published their report, the annual rent was £1,191. 2s. From the surplus rents and profits there remained on 25th January, 1820, the amount of £9,394. 7s. 6d. three per cent. consols, and in cash the sum of £1,093. 18s. 1d.; the former sum affording an income of £281. 16s. 7½d., which, with the rents, make the sum of £1,472. 18s. 7½d. as the total annual income, which is subject to a charge of £308. 1s. 4d. for repairs, leaving for the objects of the charity the sum of £1,164. 17s. 3½d. By a codicil to the will of the aforesaid Edward Careswell, dated 24th February, 1689, he devised the sum of £10 to be annually paid to the minister of Bobbington, in augmentation of his salary, which sum was to be deducted out of the several allowances of the eighteen scholars, when the same shall become payable, by an abatement of 11s. 1½d. out of each of the said scholars’ allowance.
Arthur Weaver, Esq., by will, dated 27th February, 1709, gave to his son Anthony and his heirs the granary, and garden thereunto adjoining, in Bridgnorth, and £112. 12s. 6d. to be disposed of as follows:—First, he desired that it should be employed for keeping about 900 bushels of corn, to be bought when it was 2s. 6d. per bushel and sold when it was above 4s. per bushel, and that the residue of the building and garden should be employed towards the charge of looking after the corn. For perpetuating the stock, he desired that 2s. 6d. should be reserved out of each bushel sold, the residue to be given from time to time to the poor housekeepers having three or more young children of both the parishes of Bridgnorth only, as also the product of the stock when not laid up in the said granary, it being found after the testator’s death impossible to comply with those directions, the sum of £112. 12s. 6d. was placed out at interest and the interest, as also the rents of the granary, were distributed as directed by the will. In 1779, by an order, the aforesaid sum was directed to be invested in the three per cent. consols, and the interest is now distributed to poor housekeepers. The rents accruing from these charities are now applied in aid of a free school, called the Blue Coat School, in which thirty boys are instructed and clothed, and at the time of their leaving school a small sum is allowed to each scholar to apprentice him to some trade. The school is situated over the North Postern Gate.
The Almshouses—The earliest mention of the almshouses is contained in a document preserved among the archives of the corporation, which purports to be the presentment and verdict of a jury, impanelled at Bridgnorth, on the 2nd of September, in the 6th year of Charles I., under a commission of charitable uses, by which they presented that William Swanwicke gave to divers feoffees, on the 2nd of March, 2nd and 3rd of Philip and Mary, a tenement and three gardens for the use of the poor almsfolk residing within the almshouses in Church street of the said town. They further presented that Henry Taycock gave towards the relief of the poor almspeople aforesaid a certain close called Brown’s Croft, and seven acres and two selions of land; and William Sparry, by indenture, dated the 2nd of May, 26th Elizabeth, gave two acres of ground in Astley Abbotts, for 3,000 years, to the intent that the profits of one acre should redound to the use of the poor almspeople aforesaid, and the rent of the other acre to the use of the poor of St. Leonard’s parish.
The sum of £80 was vested by the bailiffs and burgesses in the year 1709, with other monies, in the purchase of an estate at Higley, of which we shall give an account when treating of St. Leonard’s parish. In respect of this, an annual sum of £4 is distributed by the churchwardens of St. Leonard’s among the twelve almswomen, together with 10s., which in some of the earlier entries in the parish books is termed “the interest of £10,” and in others, “the interest of late Milner’s money.”
In a common hall order, dated 18th of January, 1768, reciting that twenty elms, the property of the almshouses, were sold for £11, it was agreed that the corporation should take the money, and pay the almswomen 12s. yearly at Christmas for the same. The corporation likewise pays the sum of 20s. yearly for the interest of £25, which was left for the use of the poor people in the almshouses. The inmates have the interest of £100, left in 1838, by Mr. Milner, and of a sum of £37. 5s. 6d., the gift of Mrs. Bell in 1832. Each almswoman has 3s. 6d. weekly. They are appointed by the corporation.
Paul Bridgen, by will, dated 24th of February, 1769, gave to the corporation of Bridgnorth the sum of £24, for the poor women of the almshouses to have a shilling each paid to them on Good Fridays, and one upon the second day of March, it being the interest thereof.