which arrests the eye on Castle Gates, was founded by Edward VI., on the 18th of February, 1552, who named it the “Free Grammar School”—a title about the meaning of which there has been a good deal of philological disputation. On the south window is a Latin inscription, which runs as follows:—“At the supplication of Hugh Edwards and Richard Whittaker, King Edward the Sixth laid the foundation of a Shrewsbury School.” The supplication was induced by the fact that there was no public institution for the education of Salopian youth. This want was represented to the king in 1551 by Hugh Edwards, a mercer in London, and afterwards of the Shrewsbury college, and by Richard Whittaker, then bailiff of the town. They solicited for the maintenance of a Free Grammar School a considerable portion of the estates of the dissolved colleges of St. Mary and St. Chad. The king readily granted their request; and the tithes of Astley, Sansaw, Clive, Leaton and Almond Park, the property of St. Mary’s, with those of Frankwell, Betton, Woodcote, Horton, Bicton, Calcott, Shelton, Whitty, and Welbeck, belonging to St. Chad’s—the whole then valued at the handsome sum of £20 per annum—were given for the endowment of the school. Two masters were appointed by the bailiffs and burgesses who were nominated governors, and who, with the Bishop of Lichfield, were empowered to make statutes and ordinances. The appointment of head and second masters now rests with the Fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge. The first master was the Rev. Thomas Ashton who is called by Camden “the excellent and worthie,” and who had “the best filled school in all England.” He had 290 scholars, among whom were some of the aristocracy of the county, heirs of the gentry of North Wales, and representatives of the greatest families of the kingdom. He laid the foundation of that brilliant fame which the school has always maintained. From a Latin inscription on the south window we learn that “at the instance of Thomas Ashton, a man pious, learned, and prudent, within these walls ever to be revered, Queen Elizabeth augmented this foundation.” She did so by adding to it on the 23rd of May, 1571, the entire rectory of Chirbury, with further tithes and estates in the parish of St. Mary. The tithes new produce about £3,000 per annum, a portion of which is paid in stipends to the clergy of St. Mary’s, Chirbury, Clive, and Astley parishes.