1685
Mary Jaxon -- pd all for ye yeare 1685, and fower shillings and one penny towards another.
| s. | d. | |
| Imp's | 4 | 1 |
| Att Slaitburne fayre | 0 | 6 |
| shows (shoes) mending | 0 | 6 |
| att three severall times | 0 | 3 |
| in bone and clasps | 0 | 3 |
| wascoat cloth | 1 | 11 |
| wascoate making | 0 | 4 |
1686
June the 8th, Upon the day aforesaid there was a payne laid (By the grand Inquest of the Court of Leete att Hornby) that none should get sods torfes of flaws upon whick more within seven yardes of the horse or foote ways leading from High Winder unto Hornby upon the payne of 10s. Christopher Marsh was the foreman when the payne was laid.
1687
| s. | d. | |
| My Preest wage at Winder | 2 | 10 |
| At Lower Salter | 0 | 5 |
(The mention of Richard Pooley, alias Marshall, and Ellen Pooley, widow, opens up an interesting question in connection with the foundation of Wray School. As much as was known at the time about the school and its founder was published in the Observer in May, 1886, in a long and interesting account of the opening of the rebuilt school, and it is not much that I have to add thereto, though the addition is not unimportant.
The vicar of Wray, the Rev. C.L. Reynolds, has devoted much time to the investigation of this subject, and I have been favoured with some of the results of his researches. To what has already appeared in the columns of this paper I may make the following additions:-
Captain Richard Pooley, the founder of Wray schools, was buried at Melling Church on March 7, 1683-4. At that time, and down to 1752, the year was reckoned in this country from the 25th March. As we reckon the year now, the foregoing date would be given as March 7, 1684. The entry in the Melling Church register describes the deceased Captain as Richardus Pooley de Wray. That he was a person of some position may be inferred from the fact that he was buried in the church, "in lesia," and moreover wrapped in linen -- "Lintio Involut" -- and not in wool, a breach of the law then in operation, involving a fine which only well-to-do families could afford to pay.
Among the papers in the school box at Wray is a copy of an old document in which Richard Pooley's will is mentioned as "bearing date on or about the eighteenth day of February, in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of King Charles the Second." Using dates according to the style of that period, we find that Charles I was executed January 30, 1648-9. The Prince of Wales was proclaimed Charles II at Edinburgh, February 3, 1648-9; he took the title himself at the Hague February 7, 1648-9. Charles Second died, February 6, 1684-5, in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. It will therefore be seen that a will made in February 1683-4 (as in Richard Pooley's case) would be properly described as bearing date in the thirty sixth year of Charles the Second's reign.
About five weeks after the making of Richard Pooley's will, and a little more than a fortnight after his death, a fresh year began 1684-5, and in this way we get at the practical accuracy of the date (1684) on the stone built in the school. There has been considerable confusion on this point by reason of it being stated in the report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the Charities upwards of sixty years ago, that Richard Pooley by will dated 18th February, 1685, bequeathed "&c; and in a letter, preserved among the school papers, dated November 5, 1846, written by the late Mr. John Sharp of Lancaster, to the late Mr. Pudsey Dawson of Hornby Castle (one of the trustees of Wray School) giving certain particulars concerning Pooley's will, the date of the will is stated exactly as it appears in the Charity Commissioners' Report. How this latter date came to be given I cannot pretend to say, but there can be no doubt now that it is incorrect.
It seems probable that the Ellen Pooley mentioned in Thomas Dowbiggin's grant to his son Gilbert in 1695, was the widow of Captain Richard Pooley; and "Richard Pooley, alias Marshall," may have been the Captain's son or stepson. The Melling Church register appears to shew that Richard Pooley's wife was named Ellen.
"Thomas filius Richardi Pooley et Helenae uxoris ejus de Wray" was baptised on December 31, 1665, and the same Thomas again described as the son of Richard Pooley and his wife Helen, was buried on July 5 in the following year. The burial of Richard Pooley's widow, in the year 1690, is recorded in the register as follows:- Helena Pooley, vid. sepult 28 May de Wray."
Whether the John Coultherst mentioned in one of Thomas Dowbiggin's memoranda was ever master of Wray school I have not been able to ascertain. It will be remembered that, writing from London to Thomas Dowbiggin's widow, in 1719, Christopher Dowbiggin, whose letter I gave in full in a previous chapter, described himself as having been in his earlier years "a little poor schoolmaster" in Roeburndale, and it is quite possible he may have been at Wray School.
According to an old native, the mill at Wray was once occupied by a person named Dowbiggin. With regard to the mention of "Richard Pooley, alias Marshall," it may be stated that the signature of Thomas Marshall is appended to an inventory (preserved at Somerset House) of goods and chattels of Elizabeth Pooley, dated about 1613. In the register at Melling Church the entry occurs - "Robert Mayer, schoolmaster of Wray, buried the 11th day of April, 1735." And this I believe is the earliest mention of a "schoolmaster of Wray" by name that has ever been discovered.)
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