The Peter Bold English Prize by Paul Stevens, Repton Archivist

Peter Bold was a Repton pupil from 1667 to 1670 and he later became the Secretary of the Earl of Huntingdon, the Earl having been his patron while he was at School. Peter is, by far, the oldest Reptonian of whose life at the School we have significant details. His letters give us what is in all probability a unique account of the syllabus studied at a School like Repton in the seventeenth century.

Peter was first introduced into the Huntingdon household as a playmate to the very small child who had become the Earl at the age of five. This was the start of a long association between the two, with the young Earl soon paying for Peter’s education at Repton. Parents of today may note with some interest that in 1667 his ‘lodgings and diet’ at School were £12 per annum. However, then as now, there a few additional expenses along the way

Besides he must bring with him both his bed and furniture, his linens and woollens and six shillings as his entrance towards his firing (his heat.)

From Repton Peter wrote regularly to the Earl, usually requesting an inordinately large number of books to be bought for his education. At this stage the School was ten years away from having its first Library in the Garth Room and boys were expected to purchase all of the volumes that were necessary for their studies. These were still relatively expensive, but young Master Bold lived up to his name in tenaciously soliciting as many as possible from his wealthy patron. In total over the next two years he requests twenty-four books from the Earl, a tremendous number of books at that time for a Schoolboy to be wanting, or using, or asking for. Often one suspects that he is name-dropping authors in a grandly ostentatious manner in order to impress upon his patron that he has a voracious appetite for learning.

Upon Tuesday I received your lordship’s letter at Repton having been since that day a week there. My master not only doth teach us in the School but at noon and night both to construe Latin authors and cosmography. He hath placed me in the second form and put me into Greek, but I want several books: that is Perens, Justin, Lucius Florus, Epitome of the Roman Lives, Erasmus’ Adages, Tulley’s Orations, Sallust and Aesops Fables, Greek and Latin, which I desire your honour to help me to.

From this reading list we could infer that the School was solidly classical in its outlook. However, in his many letters Peter defends the School against criticism made of its curriculum and teaching methods which were considered to be too modern in comparison to other Schools. In a very spirited missive Peter contrasts for the Earl the methods and success of the former headmaster of Repton, Mr Ullock, with his successor Mr Sedgewick.

But I assure your lordship there is as great cause for its increase as can be, for since it was a School for what I can hear it was never better taught by the master, nor followed. For whereas formerly every form was heard once a day, or rarely twice, they’re duly taught now four times, and longer lessons by far; and I’m sure the boys who were under Mr. Ullock do say they have learnt more under Mr. Sedgwick this one year than they could have done under their former master in three. And for exercises, the head form makes a theme and eight or nine pair of verses a week; and the form I am in does the same for the theme but eight of the verses; and the two under-forms make Latin every night. Therefore I beseech your lordship judge what cause any person has either to despise or to raise slanders of our School which now have grown so common here in Derbyshire that I believe they have by this reached your Honour’s ears. My Lord, I beg your honour’s pardon for troubling your honour with this long ribble-rabble, but it is partly out of my great zeal to vindicate my master, to whom I am particularly obliged, from those strange reports that are spread abroad concerning this School and partly to give your honour an account of my time since I came to Repton which, my lord, I’ve endeavoured to employ so as not to throw away your great pains and cost, no more but only to redouble my thanks for that most excellent book of King James’ and for Sliden which when I have once more read I intend, God willing, to return.

Peter’s education at Repton ends rather abruptly in 1669, and when his father writes to thank the Earl for all his help, there is an inference that Peter has overstepped the mark in some way. There is a possibility that in a period when Repton was coming under close and hostile scrutiny he thought his son had been too undiplomatic in his defence of Sedgewick to the Earl, who as well as being his patron was a governor of the School. Whatever the reason for the departure of Peter Bold, his father gave the Earl of Huntingdon high praise at the end of the letter:

For you received him a little child, but return him a lusty man, not only improved in strength and stature but well polished and refined with knowledge both in books, manners and men.

After Repton, Peter Bold went to St. John’s College in Cambridge in 1670. He was made Deacon at Ely, and was ordained in Westminster by Bishop Thomas Spratt. He became a curate at Uppingdon and preached daily in the large hospital for the poor in nearby Stamford. In his latter years he became rector of Burton Petwardine and remained there for the rest of his life.

The Peter Bold English prize was founded in the 1980s by the author Lucyle Hook. Miss Hook, a professor at Columbia University, came to Repton in 1977 to deliver a series of lectures on her research into Peter Bold. She died in December 2003, aged 102. The prize should serve not only to commemorate Peter Bold and his love of books and letters, but also the Earl of Huntingdon who established the first Library in Repton School, and not least Miss Hook herself whose tireless enthusiasm for research has greatly illuminated our understanding of the School’s history.