GIGGLESWICK School for over four hundred years has lived a life apart, unconscious of the world outside: but its life has not therefore been a placid one. Real dangers have continually assailed it, real crises have been faced. Most schools have been founded with a preliminary grant of an endowment, with which to afford a proper maintenance to Master and Scholars. But Giggleswick was not one of these. Its actual origin is obscure but this at least is sure, it existed before it was endowed. It was the private enterprise of one man, James Carr, who in 1518 "nuper decessit."

Nineteen years before, the same James Carr was a capellanus in charge of the Rood Chantry, which he himself had founded. The date of its foundation has not reached us, but the fact of its existence, and consequently the probable existence of the Grammar School, is certain in 1499.

In that year two-and-a-half acres of arable land in Settle and a meadow called Howbeck ynge were let to one William Hulle by the indenture of the cantarist. The cantarist or chantry priest was James Carr. Six years later, Hugh Wren, William Preston and James Carr, capellani, were made joint owners of "unum messuagium et unam bovatam terrÆ et prati."

These two possessions conclusively prove the existence of the Rood Chantry and the presence of James Carr during the last year of the fifteenth century, and from that year Giggleswick School may date its birth. The name Carr is variously spelt. Skarr, Car, Carre, Karr, Ker, all appear, but no importance is to be attached thereto. Spelling as part of the equipment of an educated man is one of the less notable inventions of the nineteenth century. As a family the Carrs come from Stackhouse, a village quite close to Giggleswick, but their recorded history begins with this generation. The father of James is nameless, but his eldest brother Stephen was living at Stackhouse in the year 1483, when he leased a plot of land from the Prior and Convent of Finchale. It was therefore not unnatural that James should found a chantry in the neighbourhood of his family home.

The purpose of a chantry was the offering up of prayers for the souls either of the founder or of such as he might direct. We do not know the original cause of James Carr's Chantry or for whose soul he prayed. But in 1509 he received a legacy from his brother Thomas, who was vicar of Sancton. The gift consisted of "unam calicem argenteam" and with it there was a request "ut oretur pro anima mea et parentum meorum diebus Dominicis." Henceforth this was his duty. But a weekly service of prayer on Sundays would be a poor occupation for a man, even though he had clearly another Mass to say as well. And he endeavoured to dispel the monotony of his chantry by teaching. He followed a common practice of chantry priests, but he had some additional qualifications for the work. He belonged to a local family of some importance, he had a certain income of his own, and he was prepared to take boarders as well as to teach the boys in the village.

The unique character of his enterprise declares itself very soon. He was so successful a teacher that he could no longer find it possible to carry on his work in his own house or possibly "like a pedant that keeps a school in a church," he required a building larger and more convenient. In other words he was prepared to take a risk and to invest his own capital in buildings. It is the only instance that has been recorded of what Mr. A. F. Leach calls a Private Adventure School. It was not endowed from an outside source before 1553, but until the year 1518 was the private property of James Carr. He endowed the Rood Chantry with lands producing six pounds one shilling a year, and the successive chantry priests carried on the teaching that he had begun.

On November 12, 1507, a lease had been entered into between "the Right Reverende ffader in Gode, Thomas, Prior of Duresme and Convent of the same on the one partie and James Karr, preste, on the other partie" by which the said James was given a seventy-nine year lease of "half one acre of lande with the appertenance, laitlye in the haldyng of Richarde lemyng, lyeng neir the church garth of Gyllyswyke in Crawen within the countie of york." He and his successors contracted to pay a full or rack-rent of xijd. of lawful English money every year and an additional vjs. viijd. as often as it might be desired to extend the lease. It was also provided that "whensoever the same James Karr shall change his naturall lyfe that then it shalbe lawful, as ofte tymes as it shalbe nedful, to the vicar of ye churche afforsaid for the tyme beyng and kyrkmasters of the same, heires, executors, and assignes to the said James Karr, jontlie, to elect one person beyng within holye orders, to be scole master of the gramer scole afforsaid." Such Schoolmaster had not only to be within "holye orders" but also to receive a license to teach from the Prior of Durham. Not till the nineteenth century was teaching a grammar or classical school regarded as a profession independent of the Church.

The half acre that he thus obtained was ordered to be enclosed and James Carr agrees that he will keep or cause to be kept there "one gramer scole" building it "at hys awne propyr charges and costes."

The Gentleman's Magazine in 1786 contains a letter from a correspondent describing the school that Carr built. It was low, small and irregular and consisted of two stages, whereof at that period the upper one was used for writing, etc., that is to say for elementary education, probably reading, writing and arithmetic; the lower stage on the other hand was used for advanced teaching. This would include the elaborate classical curriculum common to almost every school and to which we shall return later. On the North side there was a small projecting building, which before 1786 had contained a tolerable collection of books but at that time they had been dispersed. The date of the completion of the building is fixed by an inscription on a stone which was placed almost above one of the doors and is still preserved in the modern Big School.

The inscription is an ingenious but not altogether happy example of Carr's ability as a writer of Latin Hexameters.

Above this stone slab was an ornamented niche, which at one time contained an image but of which no knowledge can be obtained. It may have held a statue of the Virgin and Child and be the origin of the school seal, as a writer in the Giggleswick Chronicle, March 1907, suggests, but the chantry was not dedicated to the Virgin, it was the "Chaunterie of the Rode" and as such we should expect to find a crucifix with the Virgin standing by it.

There is only one other record of the School during the next thirty years but it is a very important one, for it shows that the School was not restricted to the village but encouraged boarders from distant villages and towns. About the year 1516 William Malhame writes to his brother John:

In September 1518, the Craven with Ripon Act Book describes James Carr as one who "nuper decessit" and his will was proved. No trace of it has been found but we know from the Chantry Commissioners' Report in 1546 that he had endowed the Chantry School with a rental of £vi xijd.

The Commission had been appointed to ascertain the chantry property which might be vested in the King. There were two excellent reasons for the change. Many avaricious men had already on various pretexts "expulsed" the priests or incumbents and taken the emoluments for themselves. Such private spoliation could not be allowed. And in the second place Henry VIII had involved himself in "great and inestimable charges" in the maintenance of his wars in France and Scotland. He needed money and he saw an easy way to getting it. The Chantry Commissioners made their report, but before many chantries were taken by the King, he died. At once the Chantries Act, which was only for Henry's life, is dissolved naturally.

Edward VI, "monstrificus puellus," was a precocious child of nine years old when he succeeded to the throne. The first "Injunctions" issued in his name gave distinct promise for educational bodies, as they comprised an order, compelling all chantry priests to teach the children reading and writing. Thus at one stroke of the pen he converted a body of men, who had insufficient work to do, into National Schoolmasters. Such a measure would tend to improve the quality of the chantry priests, who would no longer run "unto London, unto St. Poules" seeking for a chantry of souls, seeing that the toil of a Schoolmaster would be their lot.

But within a year a fresh Chantries Act was passed and a new Commission appointed by the Protector and his Council. The Act contained a prefatory statement which maintained that "a great part of superstition and errors in Christian religion has been brought into the minds and estimations of men" and this "doctrine and vain opinion by nothing is more maintained and upholden than by the abuse of trentals, chantries, and other provisions made for the continuance of the said blindness and ignorance." They therefore determined to dissolve the chantries and at the same time continue Grammar Schools, where they existed. The results belied the early promise. The clauses relating to the endowment of Grammar Schools have gained Edward VI a widespread fame as a founder of most of the schools in England. But that fame has been wholly fictitious.

Henry VIII had wrought great damage to elementary education, although he had professed "I love not learning so ill, that I will impaire the revenues of anie one house by a penie, whereby it may be upholden." But it has been calculated that in 1546 there was probably one school for every eight thousand people, whereas three hundred years later, the proportion was thrice as small. Yet Edward VI did not found one school in Yorkshire, and many, which had previously existed, he deprived of all revenue. So diminished were the means of education in 1562 that Thomas Williams, on his election as Speaker of the House of Commons, took occasion to call Queen Elizabeth's notice to the great dearth of schools "that at least one hundred were wanting, which before this time had been." In other words in a period of less than thirty years the number had decreased by a third. And this was in spite of a six years' reign of Edward VI., the supposed progenitor of schools.

In the report of the Commissioners of 1548 Giggleswick is recorded as having three chantries. There was the Chantry of Our Lady, the incumbent of which, Richard Somerskayle, is described as "lx yeres of age, somewhat learned" and enjoying the annual rent of £4. The Tempest Chantry with Thomas Thomson as incumbent 70 yeres old and "unlearned." The Chantry of the Rode, "Richard Carr, Incombent, 32 yeres of age, well learned and teacheth a gramer schole there, lycensed to preach, hath none other lyving than the proffitts of the said chauntrie." The net value of the chantry was £5 15s.

Richard Carr was a nephew of the founder and from the description of his two fellow chaplains he was evidently superior to the ordinary chantry priest. They were "unlearned," "somewhat learned," he was "well learned" and "lycensed to preach." For all that the chantry lands were taken from him, but the School was not dissolved: he was maintained as a Schoolmaster by a stipend of the annual value of £5 6s. 8d. charged on the crown revenues of York "for the good educacyon of the abbondaunt yought in those rewde parties."

The population of Giggleswick, which as a parish included Settle, Rathmell, Langcliffe and Stainforth, was roughly 2,400 and at the beginning of the nineteenth century was unaltered. Such a population was too "abbondaunt" for one man to teach, particularly if he took boarders, and it is not surprising to find in the report of 1548 the following paragraph:

John Malhome was probably the brother of William, who in 1516 had sent James Smith to be a boarder at the School, and, as he was a resident in the neighbourhood and was a "preist," perhaps a chantry priest at Giggleswick, his interest in the School is not unnatural.

Thomas Husteler had an even more adequate reason for leaving money to pay the stipend of a Schoolmaster, for he had been priest of the Chantry of the Rood, and had been wont to "pray for the sowle of the founder (James Carr) and all Cristen sowles and to synge Mass every Friday of the name of Jhesu and of the Saterday of our Lady." He had also to be "sufficientlie sene in playnsonge and gramer and to helpe dyvyne service in the church."

Thus in addition to his chantry duties he had to perform the double office of Grammer and Song Schoolmaster, and the work proving too heavy for him he left money to provide the maintenance of a second Master. Thomas Iveson received this money and probably acted either as an Usher or as Song Schoolmaster. Many schools in England employed a Master to teach music but during the sixteenth century a change was gradually taking place. Many Song Schools ceased to exist and everywhere the song master became of less importance. In 1520 Horman had written "No man can be a grammarian without a knowledge of music;" Roger Ascham, although he quoted with approval Galen's maxim "Much music marreth man's manners" considered that its study within certain limits was useful; and in 1561 Mulcaster declared that all elementary schools should teach Reading, Writing, Drawing and Music. Music then was no longer a part of the general curriculum, but was chiefly restricted to the Cathedral Choir Schools, where the young chorister had a career opened up for him either in the church or as a member of a troupe of boy-actors. It is therefore of some interest to find that in 1548 the Master at Giggleswick had a knowledge of plainsong as well as grammar.

Chapter II.