THE resignation of Dr. Butterton did not in any way modify the determination of the Governors to hold by the existing Scheme. A printed notice of the qualifications required by the new Master and Usher was sent out. The Master had to excel in all branches of learning, the higher branches of Greek and Latin Literature, advanced Mathematics, Logic, Rhetoric, English of all kinds and Moral and Political Philosophy. The qualifications of the Usher were less exacting. Salaries at a minimum of £210 and £150 were offered, and for every additional boy in the School after the first thirty and up to sixty, the Master received £5, the Usher £2 as a capitation fee. Each was given a house and garden, rent free, and could take boarders.

More than forty applications for the mastership were received and the Rev. John Richard Blakiston was appointed. Born in 1829 he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a Scholarship. In 1853 he was Second Classic and took Mathematical Honours. A Fellowship Examination was to be held in October, 1854, and Mr. Blakiston was studying for it, when Thring, who had been recently appointed to Uppingham, offered him a post there as a House-Master. After three-and-a-half years he accepted the Headmastership of Preston Corporation School and a year later—December, 1858—was appointed to Giggleswick. At the same meeting of the Governors the Rev. Matthew Wood was appointed Usher. Born in 1831 he was a Scholar of S. Catherine's College, Cambridge, and later an Assistant Master at Durham School.

John Langhorne was the only survivor of the days of Butterton and almost immediately he resigned and was succeeded by Mr. Arthur Brewin, who had been trained as a teacher in the Chelsea Training College and had served under Blakiston at Preston. His salary was to be £130 a year. A Modern Language Master was also chosen.

The following December the usual examination took place and the Bishop of Ripon appointed the Rev. Frederic William Farrar, who at that time was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a Master at Harrow. This first report is important, because of the great contrast it presents when compared with later years. The School in 1859 was staffed by very able, young and ambitious men, indeed Mr. Blakiston's intellectual capacity and ability as a teacher were quite exceptional, and the report speaks in terms of commendation of the work of the School, especially of the boys under Blakiston and Brewin.

In the next year 1860, the examiner appointed was the Rev. J. T. B. Landon, sometime Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; the progress that he reported was by no means so satisfactory as in the previous year. He praised the efficiency of the staff, but he pointed out that the pupils were not so advanced as to be able to profit sufficiently from the teaching. Similarly in 1861 there were no boys whose knowledge corresponded with that of an average sixth form in one of the greater Public Schools.

The causes were twofold. The number of boys had steadily decreased from ninety-six in Dr. Butterton's time, to fifty-six in 1860, and thereafter to an even greater extent. The consequence was that the competition became considerably less acute, and the proportion of boys from the neighbourhood considerably greater. Such boys would clearly in the main be less likely to profit by the efficiency of the teaching than boys from a greater distance. But there was a second and a contributory cause. The anomalous position of the Master and Usher, each of whom had a freehold in his office, had led to awkward incidents under the late Headmaster. But they were now accentuated by the fact that both Master and Usher were young men and were appointed at the same time. The subordination of the Usher to the Master was regulated by the Statutes of 1592, but in so vague a manner that they allowed room for all manner of evasion. It would be an unprofitable task to discuss these differences in detail; let it be sufficient to say that matters reached such a pitch that the Master was summoned before the Settle Bench of Magistrates on a charge of excessive vigour in applying punishment, and that the Usher was expected (though he did not do so) to appear as a witness for the Prosecution. The summons was dismissed, and the Master exonerated from all blame, but such a procedure was not calculated to enhance the prestige of the School, or modify the mutual difficulties of the Headmaster and Usher.

One of the chief of the minor causes of complaint was the position of the boarders. The advertisement issued for the purpose of encouraging applicants for the posts of Master and Usher had signified that both men could take boarders and so increase their salary. But Craven Bank, which was the Master's residence, was quite unsuited for the housing of boys. Butterton had only the attics to put them in, and Blakiston found it impossible to take any boys, except by allowing them to live entirely with his own family, and inhabit the same rooms, and for this he asked a higher fee of £75 a year. The Usher on the other hand was given a smaller house, but in April, 1859, the Governing Body spent £700 in enlarging it, and building what is now the Sanatorium. By this means he was able to take ten or twelve boys, keep them quite separate from his own family, and board them on lower terms than the Master at £56. As the numbers declined, the necessity for both men to have boarders disappeared, and in consequence the lower fees and the more comfortable internal arrangements of the Usher's house caused it to be more desirable in the eyes of the parents, and in January, 1863, the Usher had ten boarders, the Master one.

These were the more trivial causes of complaint, but Mr. Blakiston had too big a mind to suffer himself to be obsessed by the accidentals. He was fighting, and consciously fighting, a much bigger battle. Dr. Arnold had fought and won it at Rugby some years before, but the path at Giggleswick was not therefore the easier. The real point at issue was the 1844 Scheme for the Management of the School. It had driven away Dr. Butterton, it was harassing his successor. Mr. Blakiston on one occasion had to receive permission from the Governing Body to have the floor raised on his dais in the School, in order that he might have a better view of the boys as a whole. He could not arrange holidays without permission, he could not admit the boys without authority, he could not insist on a change in the pronunciation of Latin without rousing the interference of the Governors. The pronunciation, that is to-day called "new," was introduced by Mr. Blakiston in 1860, as well as a novel method of pronouncing Greek; he tried in vain to induce other Headmasters to follow his example.

These restrictions were particularly harassing to an ambitious and enthusiastic man, and in March, 1862, he applied to the Charity Commissioners for an amendment of the Scheme. They were unwilling to take any hand in it on the mere motion of the Master, and their refusal led to much recrimination. Men, anonymous and otherwise, wrote to the Newspapers commenting on the decadence of the School in efficiency and numbers, and the subject became well-worn. In the midst of it Mr. Blakiston received generous and unexpected support. Mr James Foster, a City of London Merchant, who had been educated at Giggleswick and had property in the neighbourhood, heard of the dissension that was going on, and read the published pamphlets of Mr. Blakiston. He accordingly asked his nephew and partner—Mr. James Knowles—to wait upon Mr. Blakiston with the offer of £500 wherewith he might be enabled to continue his efforts. James Knowles also wrote independently to the Charity Commissioners, as a member of the public anxious for the welfare of a School in whose neighbourhood he owned property. He called attention to the differences which had arisen between the Master and the Usher and the consequent depression of the School, and desired that they should open an investigation themselves in the interests of the Public.

Meanwhile the Governors had at last bestirred themselves and in September, 1862, had caused a letter to be written to the Commissioners, asking for an amendment to the Scheme. They suggested that, in accordance with Mr. Blakiston's suggestion, the area, from which members of their body could be chosen, should be slightly extended and their numbers raised from the statutory eight to fifteen. They put forward the names of seven additional members, but on two declining the honour, they reduced the number to five. The great danger of the previous number of eight drawn from the small area of the Parish of Giggleswick had lain in the tendency to choose men, who were closely allied one to another by ties of relationship and so possibly of prejudice. In 1864 the Scheme was so amended and the new Governors were chosen. They included three men, who soon shewed a very real, active and enlightened interest in the prosperity of the School—Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, Mr. C. S. Roundell, and Mr. Walter Morrison. One object had now been attained and the way lay open for a more thorough amendment of the position of the Master.

But first it will not be amiss to mention other features of the School life. Potation Day was celebrated to the usual accompaniment of Figs until the year 1860, when the Charity Commissioners objected to it and to the Governors' dinners as a waste of trust funds. The Governors declined to entertain the objection, but limited the expenditure on the dinner given by the Governors to themselves and the Masters to £12, and any further expense was to be borne by the whole body of Governors present. The following year the dinner was again held and paid for as formerly, but in 1862 the differences between the Master and Usher and the death of one of the Governors gave them an opportunity of omitting the dinner in a dignified manner. Since that date the dinner has never been held. Fig-day, as far as the boys were concerned, was also celebrated this year but for the last time. In 1863 it was resolved that the customary payment of three guineas by the Scholars for School fires and cleaning should be discontinued and the money which had been collected in the winter of 1859-60 was to be applied to the purchase by Mr. Blakiston of books for the School Library. This is the first recorded intimation of the buying of books for the Library, which had been built by Dr. Butterton.

In 1861 it was decided to purchase for the School a clock not exceeding the value of £5 and also to erect a shed in the Schoolyard. It was to be used as a playing and drilling place for the boys in wet weather, but as the estimated cost of it was £80 the Governors refrained from carrying the matter further until July, 1862. In that year some members of a committee, who had been appointed many years earlier to promote the decoration in the re-building of the School reported that they had £66 3s. 9d. in hand. This they offered to the Governors to assist them in the building of the shed in an ornamental style. In 1864 it was suggested that the Building Committee should report on the additional cost, for which the shed then in course of erection could be converted into Fives Courts. In 1865 Mrs. Kempson, of Holywell Toft offered £150 as a prize, to be called "The Ingram Prize," in memory of her father, the Rev. Rowland Ingram, sometime Headmaster. Five years previously the Pupils Prize and the Howson Prize had been suspended, but Mrs. Kempson's offer was gratefully accepted. She wished it to take the form, if possible, of a Bible with references.

The Usher had already absented himself for one term in order that he might undertake work at Cirencester, but he found it uncongenial and returned to Giggleswick. In June, 1864, he definitely resigned. The Governors at once requested permission from the Charity Commissioners to suspend for six months the post of Usher and to appoint a temporary Assistant to take the work. It was inconvenient to have the freehold occupied at a time when the Governing Body were contemplating amendments to the 1844 Scheme. In the meantime the Master was allowed the option of living in the Usher's house.

Henceforth the fortunes of the School began to improve. The position had been so unenviable that with the temporary vacancy in the freehold of the Usher, the Governors and the Headmaster began to consider seriously the alteration of the Scheme of Management. The Charity Commissioners had been approached first in 1862, by Mr. Blakiston, and, after he had been supported by the Governing Body, the matter received official attention. An Inspector was sent down in the early part of 1863, and taking advantage of a reconciliation between the Master and Usher, he refused to discuss or enquire into the personal aspect of the matter.

His report described the financial resources of the School, which consisted of 732 acres of land, and produced a yearly income of over £1,120. There was also an increasing surplus of revenue over expenditure, which three years later amounted to little less than £800. The average number of boys during the years 1846-1860 had been eighty-three, and the highest point had been ninety-six. This according to the testimony of those, who had the longest associations with the School, was a considerably larger number than had ever been reached at any previous period. In 1860 the number had dropped to fifty-six, and at the time of the Inspector's visit was fifty-one. Ten of these were boarders, of whom nine lived in the Usher's House, one with the Headmaster. There was one day boarder; nine lodged with strangers, four more with relatives, the rest, twenty-seven in all, were home boarders or boys coming to School from their homes in the neighbourhood. The education was mainly Classical, although some boys who were intended for a commercial career were excused Greek and Latin Verse, while almost all learned both French and German.

The chief difficulty under which the School was labouring, was the class of boy from which it drew. The whole education was given free and this tempted many parents to send their sons, who in reality were not fitted to take advantage of the curriculum provided. There were exceptions, and some boys of humble parentage had distinguished themselves in an intellectual sphere, but their proportion was not great. It was therefore suggested that tuition fees should be imposed. Such a charge was revolutionary and was stoutly condemned by all the inhabitants living around. It formed the battlefield for ten years. Face to face with the Inspector, the Governors gave their consent to the change, but presently local pressure became so strong that they withheld it. But the short Scheme of 1864 which enabled members of the Governing Body to be chosen from a wider area, and the consequent appointment of Sir James Kay Shuttleworth gave a great impetus to reform. There was now no faintness of heart. The increased efficiency of the School became a dominating idea, and the principle of capitation fees was accepted. But it was impossible to carry through such a principle without the consent of the neighbourhood. Their enthusiasm could hardly be looked for, but their goodwill was indispensable. In 1865 their hostility was lessened to the extent that a compromise was suggested, by which fifty boys should always be admitted free of capitation fee, and that ability to read and write should be deemed sufficient to gain admittance. The School had never within living memory educated more than ninety-six boys, and at this time the numbers were down to thirty-seven, in 1864 they had been thirty-four, so that the suggested number of free boys was perhaps somewhat an exaggerated number. The Governors replied by suggesting twenty-five boys drawn from a radius of eight miles. This would probably have sufficed for as many as would be likely to benefit in the limited area, and the limitation in area was only a return to the original desire of the founder to educate boys who were sons of parents in the neighbourhood.

In October, 1865, Mr. J. G. Fitch inspected the School as an Assistant Commissioner, under the Schools Enquiry Commission. There were only twenty-two boys in the higher classes learning Latin, and the Sixth Form consisted of one, while only eight boys in all were able to read a simple passage from a Latin Author. He noticed several disadvantages under which the School was labouring, and consequent upon which it had declined. One of them was the narrow and local character of the Governing Body, but this had been recently amended by the Scheme of 1864. Another was the obvious one of the impossibility of having two masters, one nominally subordinate to the other, and yet each enjoying a freehold. Lastly, he pointed out that there was no effective supervision by the Governors over the boarding arrangements, and he condemned the gratuitous character of the instruction, which attracted boys for whom the education at the National School would have been sufficient.

The Report was issued and negotiations went forward with regard to capitation fees. The inhabitants of the Parish of Giggleswick were quite open to compromise within a limited extent. They were willing to reduce the number of free Scholars, but they could hardly be expected to waive their rights altogether. Instead of fifty they suggested thirty-five as a suitable number and the Governors agreed to accept thirty but no longer wished them to be chosen from a limited area. Limitation of area was however a very important point in the eyes of the Parish and they could not accept the offer. A deadlock arose. Sir James Shuttleworth saw the danger of jeopardizing the whole Scheme by their inability to agree upon one point and he boldly proposed to omit the clause altogether and allow it to stand over, while the rest of the Scheme was carried through. The Commissioners were asked to give their consent to this omission, and they were only very reluctantly persuaded to do so, for they had considered it to be a very important clause.

Even so a further difficulty arose. The freehold of the Usher was in abeyance, and Mr. Blakiston for the sake of the promised prosperity of the School had been willing to waive his rights but, when the question of capitation fees was wholly dropped, he changed his mind and proposed to retain his former position. The whole Scheme was in danger, until the Governors decided to point out to Mr. Blakiston that his refusal would in no way impede some of the essentials of the change but that, as they could not intrude upon his privileges, he would, while he retained the Mastership, continue to labour under all the disadvantages, which had for seven years made his position so irksome. He would still be unable to appoint or dismiss his Assistants and his power over the Scholars would not be changed for the better. The Master's decision was unaltered, but in March, 1866, he determined to accept an appointment as a Government Inspector of Schools and so the difficulty was at an end.

The following May the Commissioners promulgated the new Scheme and it will be as well to discuss it at this point. All boys were to be admitted who could read and write and were not afflicted with any contagious disorder. The Headmaster was to receive a salary of not less than £250 a year and was to be appointed by the Governors subject to the approval of the Bishop of Ripon, the Visitor of the School. He could be dismissed by a two-thirds majority of the Governors, without any cause being assigned. A house was provided for him and he could both appoint and dismiss all the Assistant Masters and have complete and sole control over the supervision and discipline of the boys. These regulations were a great step forward and the power of the Headmaster became a real power. Scholarships were also to be given to deserving boys, and they were to be tenable at the School. This was a new departure and had been suggested by the desire to impose capitation fees, which would in particular cases be excused. The Scholarships under the amended Scheme would be spent in part payment of the boarding fees. Leaving Exhibitions were also to be awarded and were intended to supplement the various moneys massed under the heading of Burton Rents.

The year 1865 was marked also by another equally notable enquiry. At the half-yearly meeting a Committee was appointed to enquire into the advisability of extending the boarding accommodation. The present arrangements were not satisfactory. The Usher's house could not accommodate more than ten boys, the Master's not so many. Any other boys from a distance were compelled to live with anyone in the village, who was willing to take them. The boys would be under no proper supervision and frequently the conditions would be not even sanitary. There was a clear need for an enlarged building, where as many boys could live, as were attracted to a school, which had many natural advantages.

The Committee issued their report in October and proposed that a Boarding-house should be built and a level piece of ground provided in its vicinity for Football and Cricket. The Boarding-house was to provide a dining-hall, rooms for preparatory studies and dormitories for fifty boys, together with apartments for a Master in charge. The Trust Funds were not sufficient to build the School up afresh, with new Boarding-houses and new Class-rooms and it was a debateable question what site they should choose. The first proposal was to use the recently built School and convert the upper room into a dormitory and so increase the accommodation with a minimum of expense. But the close proximity of the Churchyard gave a suggestion of insanitariness to the site and the absence of playing fields made it impossible. There was a further choice. Near Craven Bank was a certain amount of land belonging to Mr. Robinson and also a field of five acres. Other sites were suggested including one between the Workhouse and the Station but finally in January, 1866, the plot of land near Craven Bank was bought for £375. Mr. Ingram's house—at the present time occupied by the Headmaster—was offered to the Governors for £2,600 subject to Mrs. Kempson's life interest, but it was not accepted. There was a further question of the lines on which the Boarding-house should be run. The alternatives were, to let the buildings to the Master on a rent of six per cent. on the total outlay and allow him to make what money he could out of the pupils, or to adopt what was called the Hostel System. The Master would then have a limited control over the internal discipline of the boys, but the other responsibilities would rest with the Governors. All profit could then be appropriated by them with a view to the adoption of a Sinking Fund and an Exhibition Fund. Finally the Hostel System was decided upon. In March, 1866, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, Mr. Carr and Mr. Morrison were appointed as a Committee to obtain plans for the erection of a Boarding-house and to prepare a scheme of management for it.

Mr. Blakiston's resignation was accepted at the same meeting, and Mr. Thomas Bramley was appointed as his temporary successor. He had already been acting as an Assistant in the place of the Usher, and his salary was now raised to £250 a year, and he was liable to supersession at three months' notice; he had no freehold, and was only intended to act as Master for a limited period. Before closing the Chapter on Mr. Blakiston's career at Giggleswick it will be well to recapitulate briefly some of the excellent work that he had accomplished. He had come in a time of transition. Education throughout England was in the melting-pot. Giggleswick itself had very considerable opportunities of expanding into one of the foremost Schools in the North of England. The population was growing rapidly. New industries were springing up on every hand. A generation was coming to manhood, whose needs were as yet a matter for speculation. But Giggleswick had a traditional hold upon the minds of the North, it had also a rich endowment. Was it prepared to meet the necessities of the hour, or was it to continue in the same self-centred policy that had served well enough in the past? Mr. Blakiston answered the question at once. He was young, he was ambitious, he was a scholar. He was also in his ideas a revolutionary. It is not difficult to picture the result. Thrown into the midst of a slow-moving machinery, alone in his estimate of the potential greatness of the School, supremely conscious of his mission, he found himself a solitary. There are two methods of progress. One to oil the old cog-wheels and pray for progression. Another to point out the clogging nature of the machinery and propose a new device. He chose the latter method. It was bold and dangerous. But he went through with it courageously. The numbers dropped rapidly, the fame of the School suffered a relapse, but in the end the victory was his. Before he retired, one new scheme had been adopted, another and a better one was awaiting confirmation, the suggestion of a new Boarding-house was being pressed forward, and the field was clear for the great and revolutionary change—the adoption of a system of capitation fees. The subsequent prosperity of the School owed much of its swift development to the Headmastership of Mr. Blakiston, and it is a grateful task to record it.

Chapter X.