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128 HISTORY OF EAST GRINSTEAD. |
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Thomas Moore, one of the Trustees, was son of the testator's kinsman, Eliot Moore, of Wivelsfield, an old family, whose monuments appear in their Parish Church.
For a long time the school was accommodated in the vestry of the Parish Church, and the number of scholars varied according to the rent received from the farm. In the year 1772 the school was closed for a time, as the Trustees could not procure a master able to teach Latin in addition to other subjects. Nearly three years later the following advertisement appeared in the Lewes Journal:—
Twenty pounds a year to teach ten boys. Apply to Elf red Staples, Esquire, East Grinstead.
Mr. Palmer, of Eastbourne, applied for and obtained the situation, and with the accumulated rent an additional free scholar was added, making the number eleven. Then came the destruction of the church, and consequently the school room, in 1785. After its re-building the vestry was reported to be ready for re-occupation by the school on September 24th, 1808. This vestry is no less than 30 feet high, it having been intended, when the church was built, to divide the space into two rooms, one to be used as a vestry, the other as a school room, but the lack of funds led to the combination of the two. In 1816 the school was associated with the National Society and removed to Sackville College, where it flourished until 1839, when, owing to no room being available, and to a quarrel which arose between the master and trustees, it was again suspended for about eight years. The average number of scholars was then 80, of whom 25 were admitted free at the expense of the Trust. The Charity Commissioners held an inquiry into the matter, and in the year 1842 the Court of Chancery approved of a scheme for the future conduct of the school, which led to bitter disputes between Churchmen and Nonconformists and the issue of strongly worded pamphlets by the Rev. Christopher Nevill, vicar of East Grinstead, on the one side, and the Rev. James Blomfield, pastor of the Countess of Huntingdon's Church, on the other. This scheme set forth that in lieu of the Greek and Latin languages there should |
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