Wye College


The College of St Gregory and St Martin at Wye, commonly known as Wye College, was an education and research institution in the village of Wye, Kent. In 1447, Cardinal John Kempe founded his chantry there which also educated local children., it still includes a rare, complete example of medieval chantry college buildings.
After abolition in 1545, parts of the premises were variously occupied as mansion, grammar school, charity school, infant school and national school, before purchase by Kent and Surrey County Councils to provide men's technical education. For over a hundred years Wye became the school, then college, of London University most concerned with rural subjects, including agricultural sciences; business management; agriculture; horticulture, and agricultural economics. Chemist and Actonian Prize winner, Louis Wain developed synthetic auxin selective herbicides 2,4-DB, MCPB and Bromoxynil at Wye in the 1950s alongside his other research into insecticides, plant growth regulators and fungicides. Wain's colleague Gerald Wibberley championed alternative priorities for the college with an early emphasis on land use and the environment.
Following World War II and a 1947 merger with Swanley Horticultural College for women, Wye transformed itself from small agricultural college, providing local practical instruction, to university for a rapidly increasing number of national and international students. Successive phases of expansion developed the college's campus along Olantigh Road, [|Withersdane] [|Hall] the country's first post-war, purpose built university hall of residence, and accumulated an estate of nearly. However, after a difficult 2000 merger with Imperial College and controversial 2005 attempt to build 4,000 houses on its farmland, Imperial College at Wye closed in 2009.
, the pioneering postgraduate distance learning programme created at Wye College continued within SOAS. Many of the college buildings have been redeveloped, though some are retained for community use or occasional public access.

History

Chantry

Church leaders from the 14th century onwards were concerned by the influence of John Wyclif and his fellow Lollards on the Weald and Romney Marsh. They felt priests educated in Latin and theology, living in the community, would be better able to counter circulation of heretical translations and interpretation. Where these priests' persuasion failed, the alerted church authorities could punish committed dissenters, or even have them burnt as at Wye in 1557. Several chantries were established in the vicinity, at least in part for this purpose.
In 1432, John Kempe, then Archbishop of York and a native of adjoining Olantigh, was granted royal license by King Henry VI to found the College of Saints Gregory and Martin in the parish of Wye. In 1447 after protracted negotiation, he obtained about an acre of land, including dwellings known as Shalewell, Goldsmyth and Shank, from the Abbot and Convent of Battle who owned the Manor of Wye. Kempe constructed the [|Latin School], and buildings around a [|cloistered quadrangle] for the accommodation of secular priests. There were up to ten priests at any one time in his chantry. Kempe had also rebuilt adjoining Wye Church in 1447 and Archbishop of Canterbury, John Stafford granted its vicarship to the college. The priests acted as a college of canons for the now collegiate church; performed their chantry duties for the Kempes' souls, and included a teacher of grammar. The master had to be a scholar of theology and member of Kempe's alma mater, Merton College.
Kempe's statutes required the college to teach all scholars free, both rich and poor, though as a welcome seasonal exception grateful students could reward the schoolmaster with gifts of fowl and pennies on Saint Nicholas Day, confuetam galloram & denariorum Sancti Nicholai gratuitam oblationem.
The dedication to Saint Gregory and Saint Martin mirrors that of Kempe's adjoining church. An earlier 1290 Wye Church, on the site, had been solely named for Saint Gregory. The further reference, at both the college and church, to Saint Martin may have been to recognise the contribution of Battle Abbey, itself dedicated to him.
By 1450, Wye College had appropriated the pilgrim's church at Boughton Aluph, and acquired land in Canterbury, Wye, Boughton Aluph, Crundale, Godmersham, Bethersden and Postling. King Edward IV granted it the west Kent coast churches of Newington, Brenzett and Broomhill in 1465.
The rules were not universally upheld. In 1511, Master Goodhewe was
reported to Archbishop Warham for appointing himself, rather than other fellows, to the College's remunerated positions, and taking the entire benefit of its endowment to the neglect of divine service and the cure of souls. He failed to annually proclaim Kempe's statutes and maintained a relationship with a woman, in breach of them. Goodhewe also found time to be Rector of Staplehurst without papal dispensation to hold two incompatible benefices. But he was not removed from office for his misconduct.
By 1534 the college had annual gross income of £125 15s 4d, or over £94,000 at 2022 values.
Richard EwanAppointed 1448
Thomas GaugeIn post 1450, resigned 1462
Nicholas WrightAppointed 1462, in post 1470
John GoodheweAppointed 1500, ceased 1519
Richard Waltare / WalkerIn post 1525, 1534, 1535
Edward BowdenSurrendered the college 1545

Other partially surviving chantry colleges near Wye include the larger Maidstone, and smaller Cobham Colleges. Traces remain at Ashford.

After abolition

The college was surrendered in 1545 under the Abolition of Chantries Act of that year, its assets appropriated for the Court of Augmentations. An inventory was valued at £7 1s 1d plus a silver salt at £3; silver spoons at 27s 6d, and two old masters at 6s 8d.
Apart from its principal buildings the college owned nearby Perry Court, and Surrenden manors, together with the rectory and advowson of Broomhill on Romney Marsh. It was entitled to annual payments of 33s 4d from Westwell rectory, 10s from Hothfield rectory and 8s from Eastwell rectory. The college owned other land in Wye, Withersdane, Naccolt, Hinxhill, Godmersham, Crundale, Great Chart, Bethersden, Postling, Westbury and Broomhill.
These properties were alienated first to Catherine Parr's Secretary, Walter Buckler for £200, who promptly sold them in 1546 to his brother in law, and property speculator, Maurice Denys. Following Denys' disgrace the college was acquired by William Damsell in 1553, thence passing on death in 1582 to his four daughters.
As the seized lands passed from the Crown, and onwards, they did so subject to conditions, echoing Kempe's statutes, requiring the owners to "at all times provide and maintain a sufficient Schoolmaster capable of teaching boys and young lads in the art of Grammar, without fee or reward, in this parish". Those terms were met haphazardly in the coming years. In 1557, Archdeacon Harpsfield urged William Damsell be reminded of his obligations. Damsell had only been paying £9 of the £17 due each year, even though his former college lands in Wye alone gave him annual rents of £80. Harpsfield's treatment of Damsell was lenient by comparison to the two Protestants he ordered burnt to death at Wye that same year. By 1596 it was noted, during a Commission of Inquiry at Deptford, that payments to a Wye schoolmaster required under the college's original transfer to Buckler were no longer being made.
The college buildings were occupied as a substantial private residence in 1610 for the Twysden family, incorporating the extant, fine [|Jacobean staircase] and imposing fireplaces to the Hall and [|Parlour]. The family may have previously occupied it as tenants of lawyer Henry Haule.
In about 1626, King Charles I granted the forfeit former Wye College rectories of Boughton Aluph, Brenzett and Newington to reward his loyal supporter Robert Maxwell. The proviso was added Maxwell and his successors paid £16 per year, which reinstated the lapsed stipend for a Wye schoolmaster. Years later the sum would be diminished by inflation and several holders of the position faced short tenure and great financial hardship.
With salary back in place, the following year a grammar school for boys opened in part of the college though the southern range continued to be used as a private house in ownership of the Winchilsea Finch family from Eastwell. Restoration poet Ann Finch and her husband Heneage lived quietly at Wye College from 1690 to 1708 to avoid persecution at Court for their Jacobite sympathies. Several of her works refer directly or indirectly to the college and their time there, including reaction to a chimney fire in 1702.
Wye College's grammar school did not achieve the prominence of rival Eton College though its alumni included notables such as journalist Alaric Alexander Watts and Robert Plot, first keeper of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. In 1762 there were 40 boarders and 100-day pupils but during other periods considerably less, if any at all. Sometimes the position was treated as little more than a sinecure.
In 1868 the grammar school's position was bleak. Although teaching of classics was free, locals were concerned about increasing costs for tuition in other subjects. The school had only four boarders despite a capacity for 40. An alternative curriculum was considered and unless changes were made, an inspector concluded it would be hard to "keep a good master for £16 and half a house".
William CliftonIn office 1557, 1569, 1581
Isaac NichollsIn office 1602
Surety-on-High NichollsIn office 1642
Henry Bradshaw1640s
William FenbyIn office 1661
Jeremy DodsonIn office 1664
John Paris1665–1677
Robert WrentmoreIn office 1684
Samuel PrattIn office 1684
John WarhamIn office 1714
Thomas TurnerIn office 1717
Johnson Towers1754–1762
Philip Parsons1762–1812
W T Ellis1812–1815
Charles Knowles1815–1816
William Morris1817–1832
Robert Billing1834–1854
William Bell1854–1855
Samuel Cummings1855–1855
Edward Ollivant1855–1866
George Frederick Noade1866–1867
John Major1867–1870
Henry Holmes1870–1878