DISPUTED HONOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19437, 24 October 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)

DISPUTED HONOUR

ENGLAND’S OLDEST SCHOOL. “Which is the oldest of England’s famous public schools!” Eaton College was founded by Henry VI in 1440. Rugby dates from 1567, and Harrow from 1571. The three are beaten by Winchester, which was founded by William of Wykeham in 1373. The record for antiquity appears to lie between Winchester and Westminster. Canon Westlake, the historian of Westminster Abbey and School, believed at one time that the first undoubted reference to a school at Westminster appeared in a record for the year ending 1371, but he has now discovered in the Chamberlain’s Rolls for the year 1339-1340 the entry of a payment of 9s 8d to one John Payn for finding scholars for the school. The evidence suffices to prove that the school existed at least thirty years earlier than the Canon previously supposed. There are many schools older than Rugby, Harrow, or Charterhouse. Jedbergh, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, has just celebrated its 400th anniversary. A school w r as founded at St Albans about 948, and in 1195, when Warine de Cambridge was Abbot, it was the biggest in the kingdom. There is, however, no proof that St. Albans Grammar School of to-day, founded in 1553, had even a sentimental relation with tho old monastery school of the twelfth century.