Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/536

516 charitable grants, founded and endowed a free school at Drayton, in Shropshire. Sir Andrew Judd, his successor in 1550, 'erected a notable free school at Tunbridge,' built a cluster of almshouses for poor men there, and left lands in trust to find a master and undermaster, and the necessary supplies for the pensioners; and the example was followed widely elsewhere.

More remarkable, because implying a vigorous originating understanding, was an attempt, commenced in London by William Cholmley, to create work on a large scale for the men whom the grazing sj^stem had thrown out of employment. Accepting the new condition of things, and assuming that thenceforward sheepfarming and cloth-making would form the chief occupations of the country, he set himself to turn the change to advantage with the instinct of a political economist.

English cloth had hitherto been carried to Holland and Belgium to be dyed, and hundreds of thousands of Flemings found lucrative employment in completing the manufacture before it was shipped from Antwerp for other parts of the world. Cholmley having found by experiment that Thames water was as good for dyeing purposes as the water of the Low Countries, imported Flemish workmen to teach his own English servants. Having mastered their secret, he offered his discovery, through the Government, as a free gift to his countrymen; and, in urging the council to take advantage of