Education (Tudor and Stuart)
Not many children went to school in the Tudor and Stuart periods. Most children had to
work, helping their family out in the fields or working for money in the towns. Girls would
hardly ever go to school and would be taught by their mothers at home.
Schools
Before Henry VIII shut down the monasteries, many of them were schools for local boys.
However, it appears that none of the monasteries in Buckinghamshire were in very good
condition in the early Tudor period and were not fulfilling this service.
After the monasteries were shut down, there were calls on the king to use the money to
open schools to replace some of what people had lost. Do a search on the Unlocking
Buckinghamshire’s Past website to find all the schools set up in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
There were three schools for boys in Buckinghamshire in the sixteenth century. The old
chantry chapel in Buckingham had been converted to a school in the 1540s with help from
Edward VI; St John’s Hospital in High Wycombe was converted by Elizabeth I to a Royal
Grammar School in 1562 and there was Eton College, a purpose-built school established in
1440 by Henry VI, though this is no longer in Buckinghamshire.
Figure 1: Chantry Chapel, Buckingham (left) and the remains of St John’s Hospital, High Wycombe (right)
Education (Tudor and Stuart)
Do some research on the Internet and in books and find out the answers to these questions
about Eton:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
How many boys were welcomed when the college was first set up?
Did the parents have to pay a fee?
At what age did the boys start school?
At what age did they leave?
Did boys live at the school or just go there for the day?
When did the school day start?
When did it finish?
What was the main language the boys had to know?
The schools in Buckingham and High Wycombe were similar but smaller. So, there were only
three schools in the county to attend by the late sixteenth century, each taking less than
100 boys at a time. Not many would have the opportunity to go to school. At least the
education was mainly free, however, and poor boys were taken in as long as they were clever
enough. They would do reading, writing, arithmetic and Latin. They worked very long hours
and six days a week!
Figure 2: Former Aylesbury Grammar School at Buckinghamshire County Museum
All the early schools had to have support from the monarch. In the seventeenth century,
other rich people were able to establish schools. Aylesbury Grammar School was set up with
money from Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley before 1687; Chaloners in Steeple Claydon was
founded by Sir Thomas Chaloner in 1656; Dr Challoners Grammar School in Amersham was
founded in 1624; the Old Latin School in Beachampton was established with money from the
will of William Elmer in 1648; Tippings School in Stokenchurch was founded by Bartholomew
Tipping in 1675 and Sir William Borlase’s School in Marlow was founded in 1624.
Sir William Borlase gave his school £12 a year for a schoolmaster to teach 24 poor boys in
writing, reading and doing accounts and after two years at school 40s to set them up in an
Education (Tudor and Stuart)
apprenticeship. 24 girls were to be taught sewing, spinning and lace-making, the first school
for girls in the county!
What kind of men do you think the founders of these schools were? Why would they want
to found schools?
Apprenticeship
Many boys went straight into an apprenticeship rather than going to school. Girls could take
up apprenticeships too. Apprenticeships tended to start between 9 and 18 and lasted for
seven years. Parents often had to buy apprenticeships from tradesmen because keeping an
apprentice was expensive and troublesome. Each child would learn the trade from a master
or mistress, stay in their house and be fed. They wouldn’t generally earn their own money.
When they had finished their apprenticeship they became a journeyman. After more years
working for other people, by now being able to earn money, they may get up to the rank of
master in their trade and be able to set up business by themselves. Some apprenticeships
cost more than others because some trades earned more than others.
Here are some of the trades people could be apprenticed to:
Boys
Tailor
Duties
Making clothes
Girls
Seamstress
Blacksmith
Stapler
Joiner
Ironworking
Buying and selling wool
Making chairs and tables
Limner
Lace-maker
Servant
Mercer
Cooper
Buying and selling cloth
Making barrels
Duties
Making underwear and
mending clothes
Painting
Making lace
Dressing, serving food, taking
messages for your mistress
Which trade would you prefer to go into?
It probably didn’t take seven years to learn all the skills of the trade. Apprenticeships were
also ways of controlling who was practising in a trade so that those who were already in it
wouldn’t have much competition. Oliver Cromwell tried to ban apprenticeships in High
Wycombe in 1657 but the townspeople were still very keen to keep business to themselves.
Education (Tudor and Stuart)
Tutoring
Sons, and sometimes daughters, of rich landowners would be taught at home. Tutors from
Oxford or Cambridge universities or from the church would be employed to teach maths,
reading, writing, Latin, Greek, French, rhetoric, dancing and other subjects considered
proper for gentlemen. The gentry and nobility got a much more extensive education than
anyone going to school.
Books
Figure 3: Claydon House: the Verney family who lived there probably had tutors
More people were able to read in the Tudor and Stuart periods, partly because of the free
schools and also the availability of printed books. There were lots of books giving advice on
good behaviour or for learning maths or foreign languages. Here is some advice from Booke
of Nurture by Hugh Rhodes, published in 1577. Read it and write it out in modern language.
At dinner, press not thyself too high; sit in the place appointed thee.
Sup not loud of thy pottage.
Dip not thy meat in the saltcellar, but take it with a knife.
Belch near no man's face with a corrupt fumosity.
Eat small morsels of meat; eat softly, and drink mannerly.
Corrupt not thy lips with eating, as a pig doth.
Scratch not thy head with thy fingers, nor spit you over the table.
If your teeth be putrefied, it is not right to touch meat that others eat.
Wipe thy mouth on thy napkin only, not on the table cloth.
Blow not your nose in the napkin where ye wipe your hand.
Try to solve this sixteenth century maths problem:
“There is a cat at the foot of a tree the length of 300 feet. This cat goeth upwards
each day 17 feet and descendeth each night 12 feet.” How long until it reaches the top?
www.buckscc.gov.uk/archaeology