NINTH REPORT SCHOOLS founded by ERASMUS SMITH, ESQ. To His Grace CHARLES Duke of RICHMOND and LENOX, Lord Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland. The NINTH REPORT of the Commissioners for enquiring into the State of all Schools on PUBLIC or CHARITABLE Foundations, in Ireland. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE, WE E the undersigned Commissioners appointed, for enquiring into the several Funds and Revenues granted by public or private Donations for the purposes of Education, and into the state and condition of all Schools upon public or charitable Foundations in Ireland, beg leave to lay before your Grace our Report upon the Schools founded by Erasmus Smith, Esquire. Schools founded by E. Smith, Esq. The Governors of the Schools founded by Erasmus Smith, were erected into a CHARTER. Corporation by a Charter of Charles the Second, granted in the year 1669. The Charter recites that Erasmus Smith, Esq. had intended to erect Five Grammar Schools in Ireland, and endow them with convenient maintenance for Schoolmasters, and to make provisions for other charitable uses. That on due consideration of the necessity of settling a more liberal maintenance for the Schoolmasters, and making provision for clothing poor Children and binding them out Apprentices, he had thought fit to reduce the five intended Schools to three, but yet to continue and settle the same Lands and Tenements which were intended for the maintenance of five Schools and other charitable uses, to be a perpetual Revenue for maintaining three Schools, and for carrying on the charitable uses aforesaid. That a Bill for this purpose had been certified and transmitted to England under the Great Seal of Ireland, but had not yet passed into law. That in pursuance of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, certain Persons nominated in the latter as Trustees for the said Erasmus Smith, did, for him and on his behalf, in the year 1664, present their Petition to the Commissioners for executing the Act of Settlement, setting forth, that under the Act of Explanation they were entitled to the several Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments mentioned in their said Petition, under certain trusts and limitations, and praying an adjudication thereof, and a Certificate of the Commissioners, in order to their passing Patent for the same. That the Commissioners did accordingly certify and declare that the said Lands, &c. had been seized and sequestered, on account of the Rebellion in 1641, and thereby vested in the Crown; and that the same were assigned and set apart to the said Erasmus Smith, or those under whom he claimed, for their respective adventures, bonâ fide paid for Lands forfeited in Ireland, and did therefore adjudge and decree that the said Trustees were lawfully entitled to the said Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments, according to the tenor of two Acts of the 16th and 17th of Charles the First. That the said Trustees had, in consequence, obtained Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Ireland, granting to them the said Lands, &c. on the several trusts and intents therein mentioned, and among others, that they should receive the profits of said Lands, and employ them for the aforesaid charitable uses, until a Corporation should be legally erected and established, under the name of "The Governors of the Schools founded by LII 47. Erasmus Schools E. Smith, Esq. In the tenth year of George the First, an Act was passed "for the further application of the rents and profits of the Lands, &c. given by Erasmus Smith, founded by Esq. for charitable uses," which, after reciting the disposition of the said rents and profits made by the Charter of Charles the Second, and subsequently by the Governors in founding thirty-five exhibitions for poor Students of Trinity College, Act of the and that the said Lands now yielded a yearly surplus rent over and above the 10th year of sums thus annually paid thereout, enacts, first, that three new Fellowships shall George I. be established in the said College. Secondly, two public Lecturers, one of oratory and history, and the other of natural and experimental philosophy, with salaries of thirty-five pounds per annum. Thirdly, confines the foundation of the thirty-five exhibitions, and directs that they shall be continued to the Students holding the same till otherwise provided for, or till they are of the standing of A. M. Fourthly, empowers the Governors to apply the cash now in their Treasurer's hands to erect new buildings in the College. Fifthly, it confirms an agreement made by the Governors with the Governors of the Bluecoat Hospital in Dublin, to the following effect, "that, in consideration of the sum of three hundred pounds given by the Governors of the Schools to the Governors of the Hospital towards building an Infirmary, provision should be made in the Hospital for the reception of twenty Boys, to be placed therein by the Governors of the Schools, and maintained by them at the same rate with the other Boys, and to be apprenticed by them at their own expence, giving the same apprentice fee that is paid by the Governors of the Hospital with the Boys they apprentice; that the Lord Mayor, Recorder, and two Aldermen of the City of Dublin, to be chosen by the Governors of the Hospital, shall be standing Governors of the Schools, and that four of the Governors of the Schools by them to be chosen, of whom the Treasurer to be one, shall be standing Governors of the Hospital." Sixthly, it authorizes and empowers the Governors to apply any further or future overplus arising from any increase of the rents and profits of their Lands, towards some public work, or use in the College or Bluecoat Hospital, to the putting out more poor Children to School or Apprentices, and founding one or more English Schools whenever they shall think proper or convenient. In pursuance of the powers thus vested in them, the Governors have been enabled, by the successive rises in the value of the Lands conveyed to them, not only to found several English Schools in different parts of Ireland, but to increase the number of Grammar Schools to four, and to enlarge the appointments of the Masters and Ushers. The additional Grammar School is at Ennis, and the English Schools at present established are at Nenagh, Tarbert and Templederry, besides one on the Coombe in the city of Dublin, on a much larger scale, and maintained at a considerable expence. They have also added ten to the number of Boys maintained by them in the Bluecoat Hospital, endowed two new Professorships in Trinity College with liberal salaries, and a further allowance for Assistants, and increased the appointments of the Lecturers there established by the 10th of George the First; and a Charter School having been erected in the neighbourhood of their Lands, in the county of Sligo, they contribute two hundred and fifty pounds per annum towards the maintenance of that Establishment, besides prevailing with one of their Tenants to let the Master have fourteen acres of ground adjoining the School, at the same rent which he pays to the Governors.* It appears from the Rental of the Lands now in possession of the Governors, RENTAL, and which Lands are situate in the counties of Limerick, Galway, Tipperary, Westmeath and Sligo, (including a rent charge of one hundred pounds in the county of Clare, and a fee farm of twenty-five pounds per annum in the King's County) that the yearly rent payable thereout at May 1808, amounted to six thousand seven hundred and seventeen pounds one shilling; and that a rise in the county of Galway Estate was to commence from that period, amounting to eight hundred and sixty-seven pounds fifteen shillings per annum. It further appears by the return of the Register (which together with a copy of the Rental is herewith submitted to your Grace) that the stated annual expenditure of the Governors (exclusive of repairs and buildings and Treasurer and Agent's fees) amounts The Governors have also, in addition, given to this Charter School for several years past, seventeen acres of their Lands adjoining it, rent-free. Schools E. Smith, Esq. amounts at present to about four thousand pounds per annum. That, in consefounded by quence of this excess of income above the expenditure for a great number of years, and notwithstanding very considerable grants of money from time to time made for building and other uses to Trinity College and the Bluecoat Hospital, The Agent of SO great an overplus has accrued, that the Governors have purchased Government Stock to the amount of six thousand pounds, in the five per cents. and twenty-nine thousand pounds in the three and an half per cents. producing an annual income, at this time of thirteen hundred and fifteen pounds, besides in the Agent's hands, on the 1st of May 1809, a balance of the Gover nors of E. Smith has not yet been able to ascer tain this balance. SCHOOLS. DROGHEDA. The accumulation of so very large a surplus fund deserves, and has of late engaged the serious attention of the Governors, who are certainly called on to devise means of appropriating it, agreeably to the provisions and injunctions of the Charter and Act of tenth of George the First. Some of their plans for this purpose have been communicated to us by their Register, and by such of the Governors themselves as are Members of this Board. They have resolved on founding an additional number of English Schools, on a plan which bids fair to be generally and extensively useful, whenever any Proprietor of Land is desirous of having one established on his estate; provided the situation is otherwise eligible, the Governors agree, on his conveying to them in perpetuity a certain proportion of Land, not exceeding two acres, to contribute a sum not greater than three hundred pounds towards erecting a School-house thereon, and to grant an endowment to the Master of thirty pounds per annum. Eleven such Schools have been already approved of by the Governors, and applications for many more have been received, and may be expected, especially if an Act should be passed by the Legislature for enlarging the powers of persons under settlement to make conveyance of Land for the purpose of endowing Schools. They have also determined on building a new School-house at Galway, the plan and estimate for which have been approved of; and which, with the expence of inclosing the ground, and other necessary works, will not be completed for less than between five and six thousand pounds. It has also been proposed by the Treasurer, and is now under the consideration of the Governors, to grant a considerable sum to the Governors of the Bluecoat Hospital towards completing the plan of its buildings, and for the repair of those already erected. Another extensive English School is also to be immediately established in the city of Dublin, on the plan of that already mentioned. A plot of ground in St. Mark's parish has been taken for the purpose; and a plan of the building has been submitted to the Governors, but not yet approved of; and it is their intention to found one or two more, as soon as proper sites for them can be obtained, in the poorer and more populous districts of the City. The success of that which has now been carried on for some years on the Coombe, is such as to encourage them in the institution of such Establishments. Still, after all these proposed measures shall have been carried into effect, there will remain a large and increasing surplus of income, for which it is hoped the Governors will provide a timely and adequate application, so as to prevent its ever again accumulating to its present amount. PRESENT STATE OF THE SCHOOLS. 1st. Drogheda. It appeared from the examination of the Rev. Charles Crawford, taken on the 12th of July 1807, that he had been appointed Master of that School in 1789, previous to which time he stated the number of Scholars to have been about eighty, of whom about forty were Boarders with the Master, twenty with the Usher, and the rest were day Scholars, six or eight of whom were free. At the time of his examination there were but thirty-two Boys in the School, of whom eight were Boarders and the rest day Scholars, five of them free. His salary as Master was one hundred pounds per annum, in addition to which he had for some * One of these grants to Trinity College was of no less a sum than eight thousand pounds British, for the purchase of the Library of Mr. Fagel, Pensionary of Holland, who had removed it to London on the invasion of that country by the French in the year 1794. A separate apartment has been fitted up for its reception in the College Library, to which it forms a splendid and most valuable addition. Schools E. Smith, Esq. some years after his appointment (as had also his predecessor) received one hundred and fifty pounds per annum for the payment of two Assistants at his dis- founded by cretion. There had been also an Usher appointed by the Governors with a salary of sixty pounds per annum, and an house fit for the reception of Boarders. It appeared however, that in consequence of the great diminution of the number of his Scholars, the Governors had for the two last years discontinued the appointment of the Usher, and had allowed the Mastcr only fifty pounds for an Assistant; and since that time the School having continued to fall off, they have dismissed Mr. Crawford from his employment (with an annuity however of sixty pounds per annum) and appointed the Rev. Lancelot Dowdall in his place. On the oth of May 1809, Mr. (now Doctor) Dowdall appeared at our Board, and stated to us, that since his appointment in 1807, the number of Scholars had increased from little more than twenty (one of whom only was a Boarder) to ninety-eight, of whom sixty-six were Boarders and the rest day Scholars. His salary as Master continues one hundred pounds per annum, which (as he stated and we are of opinion) is scarcely adequate to the situation, considering that he is to keep the School-house in repair, and that there is no Land annexed to the endowment; he pays ten guineas per acre for ground near the town, which he must take for keeping milch cows. The Governors however have made him a liberal allowance for putting the whole of the buildings into complete repair; they have also re-established a Head Usher with a salary of one hundred pounds per annum, and repaired his house; and appointed a second Assistant at eighty pounds per annum, who resides in the Master's house. Mr. Dowdall pays a third classical Assistant thirty guineas per annum, who also resides in his house; Sixty pounds per annum to a French Teacher, and eighty pounds per annum to a Writing Master and English Assistant. The situation of this School is extremely favourable to its becoming a flourishing Seminary, as it formerly has been, and is likely to be again under the conduct of the present Master, who appears deserving of every encouragement. The School-house is spacious, and will accommodate one hundred Boarders. The Usher's house is also a very good one, and fit for the reception of thirty Boys. The School and Play-ground are well adapted for those numbers, the former being sixty feet in length and thirty in breadth, with a room over it for the Head Master's Scholars, and the latter consisting of near three roods. On the whole we have much satisfaction in reporting the improved condition of this School, and in expressing our hopes that it will soon recover and long maintain its former character and celebrity. 2d. Galway School. The Reverend Thomas Canham Wade, at his examination before the Board on the 16th of January 1807, stated that he was appointed Master of this School in December 1801, at the salary of one hundred pounds per annum, with the addition of a farm of thirty-three acres about a mile from the town, which he lets at four pounds per acre, (besides a field of three acres nearer the town allowed him by the Governors for grazing) the whole subject to a head rent to the Governors of seventeen pounds seven shillings per annum. He is also allowed to let the lower part of the School-house, which is situate in the High-street of Galway, for shops, the rent of which amounted at that time to ninety-six pounds fourteen shillings and sixpence; his appointments therefore may be estimated at more than three hundred and twenty pounds per annum. There is an Usher appointed by the Governors at forty pounds per annum. The Master is obliged to keep the house in repair, but it was put into complete order on his appointment at the expence of the Governors. It was stated by him to be capable of accommodating sixteen Boarders, but he never had had more than one. The number of Scholars then in his School was thirty-one, of whom fourteen were instructed in classics by the Usher, to whom he allowed the profits of their tuition, viz. four guineas per annum; the rest were English Scholars, and taught also by the Usher on the same terms, except in Writing and Accounts, in which the Master instructed all the Boys himself without any extra charge. Since his examination it appears, that the Usher has resigned and another been appointed by the Governors. Whether from that circumstance, or from the Master having paid more attention to classical instruction, the number of classical Scholars appears by the last return to the Governors (which is or ought to be made annually by all the Masters) to have : 47. M in m increased |