270
NOTES AND QUERIES.
i. APRIL 2, 190*.
bishops, and that it has a fairly continuous
record from 1259 till the last head master of
the City or Archbishop's School became the
first head master of the King's School. Its
precedence over York is established by a
mention in Bede, a propos of Sigebert, King
of the East Angles 631-44. The recantation
in favour of Canterbury, and the evidence
for it, were set out in the Times, 1 September,
1897, and Guardian, 12 and 19 January,
1898.
Whence R. F.-J. S. gets the date of 1042 for Warwick I am at a loss to conceive. It certainly has no warrant in documentary evidence. Warwick School does rejoice in a piece of conclusive evidence of its continuity from the days of Edward the Confessor, which, though only in a fifteenth-century chartulary, is no doubt authentic. It is a writ of Henry 1. addressed to Earl Roger of Warwick, followed by a deed of the same earl in 1123. I published a translation and account of this and other early documents as to the school in the Westminster Gazette, 26 July, 1894. This document does not make Warwick " our oldest school," and I carefully headed the article ' One of our Oldest Schools.' The fact is that the question of the relative antiquity of the schools mentioned is a fairly simple one. A "public" school is only a grammar school which has acquired a certain status of reputation. The proper name of Winchester and of Eton is "the Grammar School of the College of Our Blessed Lady of" Winchester and Eton respectively. Every secular cathedral and collegiate church of the "old foundation" was bound to maintain such a grammar school as an essential part of its foundation, and if the cathedral was monastic, the bishop, and not the chapter, maintained, or at least looked after, the school. So, if the relative antiquity of the churches or the bishoprics can be settled, the relative antiquity of the schools is settled also. So Canterbury comes before York, St. Paul's before Hereford ; and if the collegiate church of Warwick was founded, as I con jecture, by Ethelfleda, then its school come before that of Beverley, founded by Athelstan , while Ottery St. Mary's, founded 1334, comes before Winchester, 1382 ; and Higham Ferrers 1422, before Eton, 1442, and so on.
If the relative antiquity were to be determined by the earliest mention of any school or schoolmaster, still Canterbury hold; the field, followed by York and St. Paul's while Warwick still comes before Beverley It must not be understood that the names mentioned are a complete list in order oi seniority, since other schools come in before
Warwick, and scores of others before Win-
hester and Eton. Apart from collegiate
stablishments, the question of priority
Becomes a matter of chance reference. I
xmnd Kingston casually mentioned in a Prior's
Register at Canterbury while looking for
^nterbury School. Whole crops of schools
turn up in the first half of the fourteenth
century. Some Yorkshire examples are given
in 'Early Yorkshire Schools,' 1899 and 1903 ;
while a Lincolnshire batch in 1327 appears in
- he list in ' English Schools at the Reforma-
tion,' 1896. ARTHUR F. LEACH. 34, Elm Park Gardens, S.W.
CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN (10 th S. i. 227).
The question of MR. S. L. PETTY very much
interests me, and at the same time gives me
an opportunity of correcting a widespread
rror.
The condition under which what is now the Society of Apothecaries of London was granted the freehold named has long since been fully complied with, and if MR. PETTY will communicate with me, I will send him much further information direct. What more concerns me, and the Society of Apothecaries of London particularly, is the very prevalent opinion that it was Sir Hans Sloane who originally granted this freehold. Such, how- ever, is not the case. Many ' N. &, Q.' readers know that I am the Secretary of the Associa- tion of the Assistant Licentiates of the Apothecaries' Halls, London and Dublin, and that I have made myself thoroughly conver- sant with the history of both bodies. This is neither the place nor the time to discuss this matter ; but such as are interested should look up ' Old and New London ' and the ' Middlesex ' volumes of the ' Beauties of England and Wales,' 1816. In the mean- time one quotation from the latter work will show that Sir Hans was not the original benefactor to the then Apothecaries' Com- pany (vide vol. x. p. 84, under ' Chelsea') :
" As an institution connected with the advance- ment of useful knowledge, the Apothecaries' Garden must be considered one of the most desirable orna- ments of this village. This is situate on the margin of the Thames, and comprises between three and four acres. In the year 1673 Charles Cheyne, Esq., then lord of the manor of Chelsea, demised to the Company of Apothecaries this plot of ground, for a lease of sixty-one years ; and the garden was soon stocked with a satisfactory variety of medicinal plants. It was here that Sir Hans Sloane studied, at an early period, his favourite science ; and, at the expiration of the original lease, that eminent person granted the freehold of the premises to the Company of Apothecaries, on certain salutary con- ditions, &c.
Later in the same article we learn :
