Sedbergh School

Sedbergh School is an independent school (a fee paying private boarding and day school) in Sedbergh, Cumbria. The school's history can be traced back to 1525, when it was founded as a chantry (religious) and grammar school, by Roger Lupton, Provost of Eton College, who was born at Cautley in the Parish of Sedbergh. In 1551 it became Free Grammar School of King Edward VI. The Old Grammar School building of 1716, is now the School's library. Under a new scheme of governance, it became an independent boarding school for boys in 1874. The school became coeducational, with the fist girls admitted in September 2001.

The free grammar school was originally founded by Roger Lupton, D.D., provost of Eton College in the reign of Henry VII.; and the lands with which it was endowed having been sequestrated by Henry VIII., the school was refounded by Edward VI., who endowed it with the estates belonging to several dissolved chantries. The management of the property is vested in twelve governors, who reside in the township, and by whom the whole of the rents, about £600 per annum, are paid to the head master, the usher receiving out of them £100 yearly. The school is free to boys from any parish on the payment of entrance fees and "cockpennies." The appointment of the master belongs to the Master and Fellows of St. John's College, Cambridge, where are three fellowships and ten scholarships appropriated to students from this school; there is an exhibition to either of the universities, for natives of the township, and the school sends a candidate for Lady Hastings' exhibitions. The present head master [in 1848] is the Rev. J. H. Evans, M. A.

Extract from: A Topographical Dictionary of England comprising the several counties, cities, boroughs, corporate and market towns, parishes, and townships..... 7th Edition, by Samuel Lewis, London, 1848.