Showing 20274 results

Fell, John; Bishop of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. Eldest son of Samuel Fell (qv) ; b. 23 Jun 1625 ; educ. Lord Williams’s School, Thame, and Christ Church, Oxford, Canoneer Student 25 May 1637 – expelled by the Parliamentary Visitors 15 May 1648 ; BA 1640 ; MA 1643 ; DD 1660 ; served as Ensign in Royalist garrison, Oxford ; ordained 1647 ; one of the group of clergy who regularly performed Church of England services in Oxford during the Commonwealth ; Canon of Christ Church 27 Jul 1660 – Nov 1660, Dean of Christ Church from 27 Nov 1660 ; Prebendary of Chichester 18 Aug 1660 – res Jan 1661/2 ; Vice-Chancellor, Oxford Univ. 1666-9 ; consecrated Bishop of Oxford 6 Feb 1675/6 ; Chaplain to Charles II ; raised the finance for new buildings at Christ Church, including Tom’s Tower designed by Sir Christopher Wren ; presented valuable type matrices to the University Press 1666 and established the first regular University type foundry 1667 ; author of biographies of Henry Hammond and of Thomas Fuller, and of editions of Suetonius and of Clement ; d.unm. 10 Jul 1686. ODNB.
In 1685 he provided £327 5s 6d out of a total of £527 5s 6d of the cost of purchase, jointly with Richard Hill (elected to Oxford 1640, qv), of certain fee farm rents. These were conveyed on trust to pay £20 to a reader of prayers in some parish church in the city of Oxford, and the residue to the Westminster Students of Christ Church.
According to E.G.W.Bill, Education at Christ Church Oxford 1660-1800, 1988, p.103 n.1, “The Fell and Hill Trust was established in 1685 for the benefit of two Westminster Students. The first appointments were not made until 1714 and the exhibitions were only worth £2-£3 a year”.

Goodman, Gabriel; Dean of Westminster. Second son of Edward Goodman, Ruthin, Denbighshire, mercer, and Cecily, dau. of Edward Thelwall, Plas-y-Ward, Llanynys, Denbighshire ; Jesus Coll., Cambridge, matr.sizar Mich.1546 ; BA 1550 ; Christ’s Coll.Cambridge ; Fellow 1552-4 ; MA 1553 ; migrated to St.John’s Coll.Cambridge ; DD 1564 ; ordained ; Chaplain to Sir William Cecil and tutor to his elder son (by 1554) ; Rector of South Luffenham, Rutland 1558 – Oct 1562 ; Rector of Waddesdon, Bucks., first portion, 1559, and second portion, 1569 ; Prebendary of St.Paul’s from 23 Oct 1559 ; Prebendary of Westminster 30 Jun 1560- Aug 1561, Dean of Westminster from 13 Aug 1561 (installed 23 Sep 1561) ; an Ecclesiastical Commissioner from 1562 ; benefactor to his native town of Ruthin, where he paid for the building of a new school house in 1574 and established an almshouse ; d. unm. 17 Jun 1601, aged 73. Buried St.Benedict’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey. ODNB.
While Prebendary of Chiswick in St.Paul’s Cathedral, by indenture dated 29 Jun 1570, he leased the manor house of Chiswick to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster as a place for the master and scholars and some of the chapter to retire to in case of pestilence or sickness. The lease was renewed from time to time, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, when they took over the estates of the Prebendaries of St.Paul’s, purchased the interest of the Dean and Chapter in the property. The purchase money was known as the Chiswick Fund, and subsequently reached the sum of £1160 Consols, the interest of which was used to pay for the medical attendance and care of the King’s Scholars. Dr Goodman endeavoured more than once to procure the royal assent to the statutes drawn up by Dr.Bill. He also tried to obtain the right for the School to the annual election of three scholars to Trinity College, Cambridge, instead of two every year and three every third year, an alteration which Dr.Whitgift when Master of Trinity obtained leave to make.
The endowment is now held in the School’s Chiswick Fund, under a governing document of 1864 (amended by scheme of 8 Nov.1965).

Cecil, Mildred, Lady Burghley; eldest daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke KB MP, Gidea Hall, Essex, tutor to Edward VI, and Anne, widow of Sir John Hawes Kt, and dau. of Sir William Fitzwilliam Kt, Gains Park, Essex, merchant ; b.1526 ; intellectual and Greek scholar ; m. 21 Dec 1545, as his second wife, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (below) ; d. 24 Apr 1589. Buried St.Nicholas’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey. ODNB.
During her lifetime she gave to the School a number of books now kept in the Busby Library.

Slade, Grace Annabella; Daughter of Richard Slade (adm.1721/2, qv) ; b. c.1769 ; d. unm. 13 Oct 1856.
To commemorate the education of her father Richard Slade and of her brothers Richard Slade and Samuel Slade at the School, she gave £1000 to fund an exhibition at Christ Church, Oxford, preference to be given, in the case of an equality of merit among the candidates, to a person educated at Westminster School. In addition, she gave, on 30 Mar 1846 £1000 to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, the interest on which was to be laid out in the purchase of books for prizes. By an order of the Chapter dated 21 Apr 1856, £10 of the income was to be applied to the purchase of prizes for a Latin essay or of Greek verses on a set subject, and the balance in the purchase of prizes to be given at the annual examinations.

Stelfox, Rosamund; b. c.1773 ; succeeded Mrs.Packharness as Dame of the Centre House on the Terrace (listed in Dean’s Yard in Boyle’s Court Guide 1821-9) ; first boarder admitted to house in her name 17 Sep 1819, last boarder admitted 4 Jun 1834 ; house closed in 1834 and boys distributed between Scott’s and Benthall’s (Town Boy Ledger 1834) ; “a charming woman, of more than the usual stature of her sex, but as tender hearted as the tiniest” (Dasent) ; latterly of 6 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Middlesex ; buried St Luke, Chelsea 20 Jun 1839, aged 66 (will proved PCC 9 Jul 1839) ; she was already a widow in 1829. Under her undated will she bequeathed her entire estate, including her holdings of “annuities” and “consolidated long annuities”, to her “dear niece” Margaret Bower, except for her holding of 3 ½% reduced annuities, purchased at a cost of £1584 on 23 Jul 1835, which she bequeathed to her “dear niece” Mary Bower. Although her parentage remains uncertain, she was the sister-in-law of Anthony Bower (died 1823), Minster Yard, Lincoln, civil engineer and surveyor, the father of Margaret and Mary Bower. She may therefore have been a sister of Anthony Bower’s wife, Mary Tayler.

By letters patent dated 17 December 1540 he reconstituted the suppressed Benedictine monastery of Westminster as a cathedral church, the Cathedral establishment consisting of a bishop, dean, twelve prebendaries and other officers. The patent for the endowment of the Dean and Chapter was not completed until 5 August 1542, when a large part of the estates of the dissolved monastery was assigned to them for their support. Attached to the cathedral was a grammar school of forty scholars under a master and an usher. In the original list of scholars, two are described as “late querister”, presumably boys from the choir school of the dissolved monastery.

Price, ---; Russell Barker and Stenning record that a Dame of this name kept a small boarding house 1746-51, 1768 and 1787 (for 1787 see The World, 29 Sep 1787, but this is almost certainly a retrospective statement about a boarding house no longer in operation). First of four recorded boarders in the period up to the beginning of 1753 adm. Jan 1748/9, last recorded boarder adm. Jun 1751.

Severne, ---; proprietor of boarding house in late 1780s and early 1790s (house “had only seven boys”) ; John Smith (qv) became house usher there about Sep 1789 and moved to become house usher with Mrs Clapham at Whitsun 1791.

Taylor, Rachel; daughter of Thomas Baker, Oxford, City Solicitor for Oxford, and Ann, dau. of John Skingley, Oxford ; sister of Mrs.Ann Playford, Dame (qv) ; Dame of a boarding house in Dean’s Yard by c.1736 ; first of thirteen recorded boarders adm. Jan 1735/6, last recorded boarder adm. Jun 1740 (sic) ; m. Rev.Edward Taylor (d.1699), Rector of Finningley, Notts. ; buried North Cloister, Westminster Abbey 2 Jun 1740, aged 65. Mother of Mrs.Anne Ludford, Dame (qv).

Playford, Anne; eldest daughter of Thomas Baker, City Solicitor for Oxford, and Ann, dau. of John Skingley, Oxford ; Dame of a boarding house in Little Dean’s Yard (on the north side of Little Dean’s Yard, between the Head Master’s House and Ashburnham House, and demolished in 1841) by 5 Jun 1719, retaining it to death ; first of eighteen recorded boarders adm. Sep 1735, last recorded boarder adm. May 1742 ; she may have handed over management of the house to her niece, Mrs Anne Ludford (Dame, above), in the autumn of 1742, for the first five of Mrs Ludford’s boarders were admitted between Oct 1742 and Apr 1743 ; m. 20 Dec 1688 Henry Playford (d.c.1709), music publisher ; d. 29 Jun 1743, aged 72 (will proved PCC 14 Jul 1743). Buried North Cloister, Westminster Abbey. Sister of Mrs.Rachel Taylor (Dame, below), and mother-in-law of Thomas Fitzgerald (qv, also Usher). [What had been Mrs Playford’s house is shown on an undated manuscript plan postdating 1740 as “on lease to Bromfield & Dampier”].