Such was the custom and William Clapham evidently intended by his gift of 4_s._ 4_d._ to relieve the Master from the expense and allow the gifts to be pure profit. Unfortunately no record has been traced of any gifts though there are entries in the Minute-Books of payment of expenses on March 12, 1626, "charges this day vi_s._ vi_d._," which probably refer to the expenditure upon the scholars. Such mention is quite exceptional up till the close of the seventeenth century. The usual accounts are much briefer, giving no details of expenditure but mentioning the balance only _e.g._ "their remaineth in the hands of John Banks fifty-eight pounds eighteen shillings sixpence." In time Clapham's bequest increased in value and was reckoned in the Exhibition Account. Certainly from 1767 the Exhibition Account gave something towards the cost of the Potation. In 1767 it was £1 7_s._ 0_d._, in 1770, 11_s._ 3_d._ In 1782 it becomes a fixed sum of £1 10_s._ 4_d._ and the Governors make up the rest from another account. In one year 1769 it was regarded as a joint expenditure by the Governors and Masters. During the last twenty years of the eighteenth century the expenditure averaged £2 10_s._ 0_d._ In 1814 it was £8 1_s._ 2_d._, thus proving independently that the numbers of the School must have increased considerably. In 1839 figs and bread are mentioned as having been bought and the Charity Commissioners' Report of 1825 says that beer had ceased to be provided. The figs and bread continued to be distributed till 1861, after which the practice ceased. The Scholarship to "some colledge in Cambridge" was gradually merged with other gifts in a general Exhibition Account and it is only rarely possible to distinguish a holder of the Clapham Exhibition. Indeed £4 was not a luxurious sum as time went on.