Shropshire Routes to Roots - Shropshire places - Wem
by Samuel Garbet
THOMAS DICKIN was elected in 1650, and taught till the great fire in 1617, and sometime after. But then abandoning himself to drunkenness, he was dismissed from the school, and died very poor, being buried at Wem, December 29th, 1687.
CARTWRIGHT, curate first of Newtown, afterwards of Edstaston. He was a mean preacher, and yet not despised. One of his scholars remembers that he was an old thick broad-set man.
THOMAS MOOR, a dissenter from the established church. He had been a glover, but having quitted his trade, he taught a petty school in the Noble-street. After his election, he brought his scholars into the free school, where having taught about five years, he died of the palsy, and was buried at Wem, April 5th, 1690.
JOHN ADAMS, son of Richard Adams, of Northwood, yeoman, a relation of the founder, was elected 1690. He had been brought up to the law in the city of London, but not meeting with encouragement as an attorney, he undertook the harder province of a schoolmaster. He was a comely, jolly, genteel man; soon cut off by death; for he was buried at Wem, June 19th, 1694.
SAMUEL BARNES, a native of Wem, was elected September 18th, 1694. He had once a good estate, but being by misfortunes reduced, he accepted of this employment, and five years after was chosen parish clerk of Wem, in the room of Thomas Smith, who was forced to fly upon a charge of sacrilege. Samuel Barnes died in the sixty-first year of his age, and was buried at Wem, December 24th, 1701.
JOSEPH HIGGINSON, born at Wem, and educated in the free school there, was elected in 1702. Having acquired a great command of his pen, he taught to write, as well as to read, but falling into a consumption, he died in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and was buried at Wem, June 19th, 1706.
THOMAS JONES was elected March 14th, 1707. Besides his proper business, he taught writing and arithmetic, but having disobliged Mr. Williams, he was dismissed by the feoffees, July 4th, 1710. There was a vacancy for near two years, in order with the salary of the third master, to discharge a debt Contracted by building the chief master's house.
JOHN BARNES, born at Wem, son of Samuel Barnes above mentioned, was elected April 14th, 1712. He served an apprenticeship to a shoemaker, but left off that trade upon his being chosen parish clerk at the death of his father. He was a sensible, genteel, comely man; admired as a clerk; and would have been so as a master, if too many avocations had not diverted him from his business. He kept a public house, married a Yorkshire woman, by whom he had several children, and died of a fever on the 17th of July, 1744.
Page created 7 September 2003 and last updated 22 June 2007
