The Parish of Hawkshead in the County of -- Lancashire --

Hawkshead was formerly a chapelry to the vicarage of Dalton, was constituted a parish in the reign of Elizabeth, by Archbishop Sandys.

The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Richmond, and diocese of Chester, and in the patronage of the King, as Duke of Lancaster.

The church, dedicated to St. Michael, and supposed to have been founded about the time of the Conquest, was repaired and modernised by Archbishop Sandys, in the reign of Elizabeth.

The grammar school was founded in 1585, by the same archbishop who endowed it with houses and lands producing about £150 per annum; it is free to all sons of parishioners, who pay a certain sum per quarter for writing and arithmetic, and open to sons of persons not residing in the parish on payment to the master of four guineas per annum and two guineas entrance; the management is vested in trustees, who appoint the master, subject to the approval of the Bishop of Chester.

There is also a sum of about £60 per annum, arising from divers benefactions, which is appropriated to boarding and clothing a proportionate number. The Rev. Thomas Sandys, in 1717, bequeathed a collection of books for the use of the school; and in 1816 the Rev. William Wilson left £100, the interest of which is annually distributed in prizes to the scholars. The Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, received the rudiments of his education in this school.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England, Vol. 2, page 343, London, 1833.

Entered here 1 December 2005 by Lynn Ransom Burton.