EDUCATION.
A schoolmaster was recorded at
Minchinhampton in 1572, (fn. 98) and in 1594 the curate
was teaching a school; (fn. 99) in 1651 a school was being
taught in the chancel of the church. (fn. 1) Two charity
schools for boys were founded in the parish in 1699
and another, for girls, in 1759.
St. Loe (or St. Chloe) school was founded by
Nathaniel Cambridge, described as a merchant of
Hamburg, who left £1,000 which was used in 1698
to purchase the Seinckley manor estate; in the following year the estate was settled on trustees who were
to convert St. Loe's House as a master's residence
and schoolroom, where boys between the ages of 6
and 16, drawn from Woodchester parish and
Rodborough tithing in Minchinhampton parish,
were to be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic or
accounting. (fn. 2) A further bequest was left to the school
by John Yeats as described below, and Richard
Cambridge, a London merchant, (fn. 3) by will dated 1702
left £100 for use of the school. No benefit was
apparently received from Richard Cambridge's
bequest until 1759 when his representatives gave
£49 to the school; part of the sum was lost by the
insolvency of a man to whom it was loaned and a rent
of 18s. was charged on land to answer for the
residue. (fn. 4) The Revd. Richard Bond, the nominee
of the founder, became the first master of St. Loe
school in 1699 (fn. 5) and his son, evidently the Revd.
Nathaniel Bond of St. Loe who died in 1758,
succeeded him; Joseph Hort, who succeeded the son,
remained master until his death in 1813. (fn. 6) In 1794
the trustees asked Hort to reduce the large number
of fee-paying boarders that he was taking to supplement his income, and Sir George Paul took advantage
of the vacancy of Hort's death to persuade his
fellow-trustees to bring in a restriction on the number
of private pupils, as well as to introduce the Bell
system and extend the course of instruction to include
practical mathematics. (fn. 7) The annual income from the
school's property was £110 10s. (including the 18s.
for Richard Cambridge's charity) in 1826 when c. 30
boys were taught. (fn. 8) The school was reorganized by a
Scheme of 1888 which instituted the payment of
tuition fees by all the pupils with the exception of 10
scholarship boys, of whom half were to be drawn from
the original catchment area. (fn. 9) In 1908 the school was
closed and the income applied to apprenticeships,
the maintenance of libraries and reading rooms, and
to exhibitions at local secondary schools. (fn. 10)
In 1699 Ursula Tooke settled 20 a. of land and
£80 in cash in trust to produce after her death an
income of £8 for teaching six poor boys of Minchinhampton parish reading, writing, accounting, and
the doctrine of the established church. (fn. 11) By his will
dated 1699 Henry King left the residue of his
personal estate, after various legacies, to the parishes
of Minchinhampton and Rodborough in equal
moieties. (fn. 12) Most of the £250 thus accruing to
Minchinhampton was laid out in land in Randwick,
which in 1721 was settled for teaching poor children,
and another 1 a. of land at Hyde was purchased with
the charity funds c. 1765. (fn. 13) The Tooke and King
charities were used to support a school known as the
endowed school, where in 1818 c. 14 boys and c. 8
girls were taught; the school then received £28 12s.
from the Tooke charity, £32 from the King charity,
and £23 from charities founded by John Yeats and
Benjamin Cambridge. (fn. 14) In 1826 the school was
teaching 14 children, 8 supported by the King
charity and the 6 boys supported by the Tooke
charity. (fn. 15) The school apparently continued to function until the opening of a new National school in the
town in 1868.
The Yeats and Cambridge charities which were
being applied to the endowed school in 1818 derived
from the gifts of John Yeats, clothier, who by will
dated 1698 left £100 to St. Loe school for apprenticeships, and Benjamin Cambridge, clothier, who
by will dated 1703 left £100 to the parish for the
same purpose; (fn. 16) the two bequests were used in 1736
to buy land in King's Stanley and later the trustees
bought an annuity of £2 which Ursula Tooke had
given to the trustees of her charity in 1699. (fn. 17) In
1826 the £23 income from the Yeats and Cambridge
charities was being applied to apprentice boys from
St. Loe school and from the town schools. (fn. 18)
In 1759 Rebecca Vick of Clifton settled a rentcharge of £5 4s. to pay a poor woman to teach 15
poor girls of Minchinhampton town to read. (fn. 19) The
charity was being applied as intended in 1826 (fn. 20) but
it is not known how long the school survived.
In 1816 a school on the Lancastrian system was
started at the market-house by David Ricardo who
supported it until his death in 1823. (fn. 21) About 250
boys and girls were taught in 1818, (fn. 22) when the system
in the girls' section was changed to that advocated by
the National Society. (fn. 23) The school had 270 pupils in
1833 when it was supported partly by school pence. (fn. 24)
In 1835 the boys' section was moved to Tetbury
Street. (fn. 25) In 1848, when the girls' section applied for
a grant, the greater part of its income was provided
by the younger David Ricardo and the rector Charles
Whateley. (fn. 26) Both sections of the school were apparently replaced by the new National school.
The National school was built in 1868 on the site
of the old manor-house west of the church. In 1885
it had an average attendance of 290 mixed and infant
pupils, including 14 boys and 15 girls supported out
of the proceeds of the parish educational charities. (fn. 27)
In 1911, as the Minchinhampton Parochial school it
had an average attendance of 269, falling steadily to
180 by 1936. (fn. 28) In 1973 the school, for which a new
building was opened in 1969, had an attendance of
422. (fn. 29)
David Ricardo started a school at Amberley in
1836 in schoolrooms in the basement of the new
church. (fn. 30) In 1847 it had an attendance of 422 boys
and girls and was supported by pence, subscriptions,
and collections, (fn. 31) but in 1871, when it applied for a
grant, the school was teaching only 89. (fn. 32) A new
building was built for it north of the church as a
Jubilee memorial in 1887. (fn. 33) In 1911, as the Amberley
Parochial school, it had an average attendance of 113,
falling to 65 by 1936. (fn. 34) In 1973 it had an attendance
of 100. (fn. 35)
At Brimscombe Ricardo established another
church school in 1840. It was supported by local
subscriptions, collections, and pence in 1852 when it
applied for a grant. (fn. 36) In 1885 it had an average
attendance of 120 boys and girls. (fn. 37) In 1911, called
the Brimscombe C. of E. school, it was teaching 107
mixed and infant pupils and it maintained its size at
115 in 1936. (fn. 38) In 1973 it had an attendance of
80. (fn. 39)
An infant school supported by voluntary contributions was started in the parish in 1826, and in 1833
was teaching 57 children. (fn. 40) There was an infant
school at Littleworth in 1870, (fn. 41) and one opened at
Box in 1878 had an average attendance of 28 in 1885
but apparently closed soon afterwards. (fn. 42) A church
Sunday school had been started by 1786, (fn. 43) and in
1817 the parish bought a house adjoining the churchyard for the use of the school and as a vestry room; (fn. 44)
the school had an attendance of 210 in 1833. (fn. 45) A dissenting Sunday school with over 100 children had
been started by 1818, (fn. 46) and by 1833 there were three
dissenting Sunday schools; two of them, with 185
and 160 children respectively, were run by the
Wesleyans of Brimscombe and Littleworth, and the
other was run by the Baptists and had 170 children. (fn. 47)
In 1838 it was thought that the congregations were
too poor to support a dissenting day-school (fn. 48) and
none was apparently ever established in the parish.