Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/480

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. DEC. 9, 1011.

Jadis, and obtained 1,0001. damages ; he also obtained a divorce in the Consistory Court, and his marriage was dissolved by Act of Parliament.

WILLIAM BRAD BROOK.

JOHN WORSLEY, SCHOOLMASTER AT HERT- FORD (US. iv. 368). Turner, in his ' History of Hertford,' says that Mr. Edward Cox of Cheshunt erected a tenement, which he called " The Tower House," upon that part of the Castle wall where a round tower, pointing towards Castle Street, anciently stood. " The Tower House " was for many years occupied as a school. It was conducted by a Mr. Worsley, under whom the celebrated John Wilkes and Howard the philanthropist received the rudiments of a classical educa- tion. This house, to which there was an ascent up the moat by a flight of steps, was pulled down several years ago.

A writer in The Universal Magazine (vol. Ixxxvi. p. 170, 1790) says :

" The father of John Howard being a Protestant Dissenter, sent his son to a Grammar school at Hertford, the master of which was Mr. Worsley, a gentleman of the same religious principles and of considerable learning. He was the author of ' A Translation of the New Testament ' and a Latin grammar."

Allibone ('Dictionary of English and American Authors ') makes brief reference to him and these two works.

W. B. GERISH.

Another of John Worsley' s pupil* was John Howard the philanthropist (1726-90). Howard's experience of the school was un- fortunate, due apparently as much to his own weakly constitution as to his master's incompetence. Dr. Aikin, in his memoirs, says that Howard in after life was wont to speak with greater heat on the point of his early schooling than on almost any other, and to declare that he left school, after seven years' tuition, " not fairly taught one thing." On the other hand, the ' D.N.B.' speaks of Worsley as " for fifty years a suc- cessful schoolmaster at Hertford " ; while Wilkes' s rapid progress in his studies must to a certain extent be placed to his tutor's credit.

To pedagogy Worsley added authorship. The works from his pen are :

1. " Prosodia Alvariana auota et emendata, in qua syllabarum quantitas plene breviter et perspicufe docetur. Accedit hue appendix de patronymicis." London, 1735. 8vo.

2. " UtvaKtdia TrerpayXwaaa, or, Tables of the Greek, Latin, English, and French Verbs, declin'd throughout. London, 1736." 8vo.

3. "Tables of French Verbs. Second edition. London, 1745." 8vo.

He also prepared an able translation of ' The New Testament .... from the Greek accord- ing to the present idiom of the English tongue. With notes and references,' which was published after his death (1770, London, 8vo), by subscription, under the joint editor- ship of his son, Samuel Worsley, and Matthew Bradshaw.

In 1693 he registered a place of meeting for Protestant Dissenters at Ware, Herts. His death took place on 16 December, 1767.

One of his sons, also named John, con- tinued to carry on the school at Hertford for thirty years. It is strange that it should be this master whom the 'D.N.B.' describes as unsuccessful, being too easy a disci- plinarian. He published a Latin Grammar (1771, 8vo), and died at High Wycombe, Bucks, in 1807. He may perhaps be identi- fied with the minister whose name appears in a list of preachers for the benefit of the Charity School at St. Albans, under date 1775, when the amount collected was 20Z.

The son Samuel mentioned above was educated at Daventry under Dr. Ashworth, and was pastor of the Independent Church at Cheshunt, Herts, from 1765 until his death in 1800, at the age of 59. He was interred in Cheshunt churchyard.

At the same period there was a John Worsley, a surgeon, at Ware, Herts, who died 24 November, 1776. He had a wife Grace, and three children, John, Grace, and Sarah.

In the churchyard of St. Andrew, Hert- ford, is an inscription to Mary Worsley, who died 20 May, 1793, aged 55. Her three children, who died very young, are also commemorated.

Israel Worsley, Unitarian minister, born at Hertford in 1768, was the grandson of the first schoolmaster and son of the second. The ' D.N.B.' gives a full account of his life and writings. T. B. S.

" RYDYNG ABOUTE OF VICTORY," &c. (11 S. iv. 408). Under-paid schoolmasters in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nine- teenth centuries augmented their incomes by the receipt of " Victor penny " from their pupils. This was apparently paid for the privilege of celebrating the result of a con- test in cock-fighting or throwing at cocks by some sort of procession, in which the owner of the victorious bird in the one case, or the most successful thrower in the other, 'was conducted from the scene of battle in triumph : this practice is called " rydyng aboute of victory " in Dean Colet's ' Statutes for St. Paul's School.'