A history of Rugby School Author:W. H. D. Rouse Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II EARLY DAYS Edward Rolston, M.A., about 1574-1580—Richard Seale, B.A., 1580-1581—Nicholas Gbeenhill, 1581-1604. Although, as we have seen, Lawrence Sh... more »eriffe during his lifetime had possession of a good deal of land, his will specifies three parcels of land only. The first of these was the Mansion House built by him in Rugby, together with the land round it, being altogether one rood thirty poles or thereabouts. This house was built on the site of certain ancient cottages, and carried with it the cottage rights over the common land in Rugby which those cottages originally had. Secondly, the parsonage of Brownsover, with one yard of glebe land, more or less, and the tithes. Thirdly, the field hard by Holborn, some half mile outside the city of London, commonly called Conduit Close or Conduit Mead. The first two of these were left for the use of Rugby School; and of the last, one-third part was so left, the other two-thirds being bequeathed to his family. With these two-thirds we have no present concern; and those who are curious in the matter may see from his will how they were apportioned. But it is necessary to examine the way in which the school property was tied up. It was no great institution which the Founder had planned; and it did not occur to him to create a body of Trustees such as that which now manages the Trust. To Lawrence Sheriffe it seemed natural to put the matter into the hands of persons whom he loved and trusted; and for this purpose he chose two " dear friends," George Harrison, of London, gentleman, and Barnard Field, of London, grocer. The third part of Conduit Close, together with all the property in Warwickshire, was " bargained and sold "1 to them and to their heirs for ever, upon such trusts and to such purposes as were specif1ed in the wi...« less