Letters of Richard Radcliffe and John James of Queen's College, Oxford, 1755-83 : with additions, notes, and appendices / edited by Margaret Evans.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters of Richard Radcliffe and John James of Queen's College, Oxford, 1755-83 : with additions, notes, and appendices / edited by Margaret Evans. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    acted as village schoolmaster. He picked up what learning he could, in the intervals of farm-labouring, at Bromfield and Wigton schools, and ‘ before I was twelve years old,’ he says, ‘ I had resolved I would not pass through life like the boors around me.’ At sixteen he had already begun to keep school for himself with thirty-two boys at ten shillings each per annum; his own board in Wigton, he says, came to per annum. A year later he went to Workington in order to learn mathe- matics. ‘ I boarded,’ he says, ‘ at the Rev. Mr. Ritson’s, who was to instruct me; and I was to pay, for board and education, at the rate of a guinea a mouth. Here I went thro’ all the practical branches of navigation; and also land-surveying, in which I had much practice. It was an odd com- bination, and seemed ominous of my being afterwards to compass land and sea in quest of a little bread. This Mr. Ritson was a character, and thought so, even in a part of the world that is fruitful in characters. He was bred a shoemaker, and had, long after he was married, worked at his trade, in a very low way, in a low village. But, he had a thinking head, and a strong turn to mathematical investigations ; and, having taught himself, he next attempted to teach others. This he did with such success and reputation that, at forty years of age, Mr. Stanley, of Workington, gave him a title ; and he went into orders. Not long after, he was appointed schoolmaster at Workington, and minister of a chapel at Clifton, both of which, together, did not bring him in £40 a year; with his private pupils he made it about £50, and on this he not only brought up his family, but saved £1000 or up- wards. I remember, indeed, our diet was both ordinary and scanty: for a month or more, that I was surveying land every day, and in very severe weather, we worked from sun to sun, without eating or drinking; and I do not remember ever to have dined at his house when there was not salmon and potatoes mashed, or when there was anything else.’ Mr. Boucher remained here till, as we have already seen, he became Dr. James’ usher at St. Bees in 1756. In 1759 he left Dr. James to go out to Port Royal in Virginia as a private tutor. Two years later he was offered the Rectory of Hanover in King George s county,and, there being no bishops in America, had to return to England to take orders. He subsequently held three or four other livings in turn in America, where he