“The wisest of our countrymen in those days, men who could at once see before them, and gather wisdom from the past, seem to have discerned the movement when as yet the mass was hardly stirred, and it was their care to provide means to foster and direct it. Kings and Cardinals and Prelates led the way; Knights and Gentlemen and Yeomen followed. By the munificence of Wolsey and King Henry, the noblest Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge were established:—Edward VI. placed Grammar Schools in all his principal towns; as Shrewsbury, and Birmingham, and Bath:—and with the same object John Lyon, (yeoman of Harrow), Lawrence Sheriffe, (grocer of London), Sir John Porte, (Knight of the Bath), founded their schools,”[1] at Harrow, Rugby and Repton. The founder of Repton School was descended from a long line of merchants who lived at Chester, then called West Chester, to distinguish it from Manchester. His father was a student in the Middle Temple, and, after being called to the Bar, filled many offices at it. In the year 1525 he was raised to a Judgeship of the King’s Bench, and was knighted. He married twice, (1) Margery, daughter of Sir Edward Trafford, and (2) Joan, daughter of John Fitzherbert, of Etwall, by whom he had a son, John. After the dissolution of the Monasteries, King Henry VIII. granted to him the Manor, together with the impropriate Rectory and advowson of the Vicarage of Etwall. He is said to have taken some part in the foundation of Brasenose College, Oxford, and, with John Williamson, provided “stipends for two sufficient and able persons to read and teach openly in the hall, the one philosophy, the other humanity.”