His arrangements for the

bution of

ride on the first Tuesday in May, and the same distance. back again on the following evening; and it was not unlikely that to some of the visitors such an exertion would be neither a pleasure nor a holiday, but two hard days' work. For these reasons, probably, he left a sum more than three times the amount of that left by Sir Andrew Judde for the same purpose.

The business-like way in which Sir Thomas went to work is worthy of all praise. Thus, having made his will, he proceeds to add, that as bequests are frequently mistaken, and not carried out according to the real purpose and wish right distri- of the donor, therefore on the 1st day of May, after making his gifts. his will, he would deliver yearly to the Company of Skinners during his lifetime the above-mentioned sums, to be expended as directed. Besides this, he was probably aware that a small school of perhaps thirty or forty boys could not all at once send up six "towardly" and fit scholars to the Universities; therefore, for the first year, one scholar only was to be chosen; for the second, two; and so on, till the full number of six was completed.

The Visita

tion Sermon

preached

in 1620.

In the first year of his gift, May, 1620, Thomas Gataker, B.D., then vicar of Rotherhithe, a famous preacher and before him one of the most learned men of his time, delivered the annual Visitation Sermon at the parish church of Tonbridge. It was addressed to Sir Thomas Smythe in his presence; and Gataker, in his discourse, forcibly grasped the peculiarly good point in Sir Thomas's benefaction in the following words :-"The School," said he, was first erected and endowed by your pious ancestor. And you have worthily built upon his foundation, and added liberally to his

1 Gataker's Sermons were published in 1637.

66

gift; so that, through your munificence, it is very likely to flourish, and not come behind some of those that be of chief note. Your bounty herein, and in other works of the like nature, is the rather to be regarded for that you do not (as is the manner of the most, unwilling to part with aught till they must needs leave all) defer wholly your welldoing to your death's bed or your dying day, but bend yourself thereunto, while you may yet, surviving your own donation, yourself see things settled in due course, and receive comfort by view of the fruit that may thereby redound both to church and commonwealth."

Again, speaking of Sir Thomas, he added, he "hath given a large and liberal exhibition for the maintenance of seven scholars in one of the Universities to be chosen successively each year from your school." Besides these charities, Sir Thomas bequeathed the surplus of his property to be distributed among certain different parishes-as bread to the poor of Tonbridge and clothes to almsmen.

nues from

Skinners'

more effec

were un

The amount of revenue from Sir Thomas's property was, The reveabout 1789, 1401. per annum; in 1820, 1527.; since then his pro3407. per annum; and in 1867, 600l. The Skinners' Com-perty; the pany recently applied to the Court of Chancery for per- Company mission to increase the amount of the Exhibitions; they utilize it were not, however, successful in this application, but were tually, but refused on the ground that the surplus was already willed able to do to these parishes. It is clear that, by this decision, the donor's purpose is defeated; since the value of his gift to the School is depreciated by the fact that no one can hold a Smythe Exhibition together with a Judde one: the consequence is, that as there are four of the latter and six of the former, the Smythe Exhibitions are frequently vacant

So.

through want of applicants, as the School does not send up an average of ten boys a year to the Universities. The advantage to the parishes is simply that it relieves them. in some degree from the duty of taking care of themselves, and pays a portion of their poor-rates.

HENRY FISHER

SIR

Fisher

Founder's

IR ANDREW JUDDE having bought property to found the School, and having completed the act of foundation, intended during his lifetime to have handed it over formally to the Skinners' Company. But, in purchasing the property, Sir Andrew "of trust" joined with himself Henry Henry Fisher, his servant. Sir Andrew dying before the completion conveys the of the conveyance of this property, Henry Fisher completed it according to the founder's well-known intentions, the ComIn addition to this, he himself made a gift to the Company makes a of several houses, out of the rents of which they were to them, annually to pay a certain sum (now twenty pounds) for a scholarship at Brazenose College, Oxford, the residue remaining with the Company.

This gift, like that of Sir Thomas Smythe, was also made during the donor's lifetime; and the purpose of it was, that "whereas Henry Fisher had placed one John Wheland, some time a scholar of the School at Tunbridge, at Brazen

property to

pany, and

donation

had to

provide a

scholarship.

nose College, Oxford, the Company of Skinners should pay From for ever to Wheland and his successors (appointed by which they Fisher while alive, and after his death by the Company) the yearly sum of 2l. 13s. 4d.; to his tutor, 13s. 4d.; and to the College itself, 17. 13s. 4d.; to the end they might be good to such scholar as should be there from time to time found and placed, and to the end they might be aiding and assisting to the said Masters, Wardens, and commonalty in choosing and providing a meet and convenient schoolmaster and usher to the said School of Tunbridge when need should be required, and they thereunto require."