John Banks

John Banks BD FSA
Born	1765
Died	1842 (aged 78) Spilsby
Roles	Headmaster
Years at BGS	1790-1825
Home town	Crosthwaite
Predecessor	Obadiah Bell
Successor	Thomas Homer
Spouse	Mary Hunnings
Parents	John Banks; Elizabeth Grisdale

John Banks was appointed as headmaster of Boston Grammar School on 26 July 1790, and served until 1825.

Most of this article is extracted from Floreat Bostona (book).

Before BGS

Banks' parents were John and Elizabeth Grisdale Banks. They were married 11 June 1764 at Crosthwaite, where John was baptised on 23 April 1765.

John Banks was unanimously elected to take over the "almost entirely lost" school. He was a Cumbrian native and non-graduate clergyman. Educated at Keswick, he did not go direct from school to college. Instead, he became a "ten-year man", availing himself of a peculiar arrangement of the period whereby, through keeping his name on the books of a college for ten years, he obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree without first graduating BA. Thus, at 23, as "a literate person", he was ordained deacon and licensed to the curacy of Surfleet on 21 September 1788, worth £20 per annum. The next year found him admitted sizar at Christ's College, and also ordained priest, and he now took over the £50-a-year curacy of Wigtoft and Quadring on 20 September 1789.

Appointment

1790 brought Banks' election as BGS head, but it was not until a decade after that he gained his BD degree. Reporting his appointment, the Stamford Mercury described him as "the Rev John Banks, of Christ's College, Cambridge". The press announcement that the school had reopened under his direction after the summer holiday on Monday 2 August added:

Several very respectable Boarding Houses are ready to receive young Gentlemen upon reasonable Terms. Ten or Twelve Parlour Boarders may be accommodated in the House with the Master at Sixteen Guineas per Annum, and One Guinea Entrance. The Terms for Latin and Greek, to those who are not free of the School, Four Guineas per Annum, and One Guinea Entrance.

Banks and Partridge

Banks followed Samuel Partridge (vicar of Boston) in being admitted a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1805. They were involved in a number of joint ventures. In June 1814 the Wide Bargate property Banks had bought that year to accommodate boarders, and Partridge's vicarage, where occasional boarders were also received, were among the many Boston premises to mark the end of the Napoleonic wars; the transparency Banks exhibited represented Fortitude, Faith and Britannia, the last named holding a roll signifying a treaty of peace, while her other hand pointed to "the crown of the Bourbons as an emblem of their happy return".

On Banks' retirement his Wide Bargate property became a "Ladies' boarding school". This announcement appeared in the Boston Gazette, 27 September 1825: "Miss Green, having entered upon a large and commodious House, in Wide Bargate, lately occupied by the Rev J Banks, has a vacancy for Two Parlour Boarders. NB The Tow Houses in Grove Street lately occupied by Miss G are to Let".

On at least one occasion Partridge acted as external examiner for BGS, of which his only son became a pupil. The advertisement announcing that the school would reopen after the Christmas vacation on monday, 24 January 1802, added:

At the Request of the Masters (the Rev J Banks, BS, and the Rev J Gaunt, MA) the Vicar of Boston examined the Scholars on several Days preceding the Vacation, and he will be happy in giving account of the Proficiency of the young Gentlemen in their Learning, and of the Method by which they are instructed, to any Gentlemen who may apply to him either personally or by Letter.

Early days

On appointment as master, Banks had entered into a bond not to accept any curacy without the corporation's licence, but two months later he successfully petitioned to be allowed to retain the curacy of Sutterton which he had acquired.

His BGS election coincided with the setting up of a council committee "to view the Seats in the Church appropriated for the Scholars of the Free Grammar School, and also the Garden in the School yard, and Banks was invited to take part in "the intended view". The outcome was that directions were given that "the three Seats or Pews... belonging to the Scholers" should be "repaired and made of equal Dimensions", and "that part of the schoolyard which is a root yard" was to be "levelled and sown with Grass Seeds". Certain amendments which Banks suggested should be made to the "Orders and Rules heretofore established for the good government" of the school were also approved: the changes are not specified in the minutes.

Marriage

Banks married Mary Hunnings on 21 May 1796 at St Peter-in-Eastgate, Lincoln. She was the daughter of Butter Hunnings, that year's mayor of Lincoln, whose elder son, Edward, only just completed a second term as mayor of Boston in 1819 when he was obliged to sell his High Street home and old-established grocery business to satisfy creditors. Banks' marriage lasted sixteen years, until Mary's death at 46. mary, granddaughter of Boston solicitor Samuel Tunnard of Frampton was buried at Moulton on 9 January 1813.

Early success

The early years of Banks' mastership found BGS soundly developing as a boarding, as well as a day school. A prospectus issued in 1803 - which the master termed a "Plan of Instruction and Management at Boston School, conducted by the Reverend John Banks, BD, with the Assistance of well-qualified Masters" - stated:

The boys are not allowed to go into the Town without particular Leave; and the younger ones are never suffered to walk near any Place of Danger; the Head master walks out with the Boarders when the weather is fine. One of the masters or Housekeeper visits every room soon after the Boarders have retired to Rest; and the Head Master goes round to the different Apartments at such Times as he supposes himself to be least likely to be expected by the Boys. With regard to their manners and good order it may be justly asserted that they are much praised in the Town and neighbourhood of the School as regular and well-behaved young gentlemen.

The number of pupils rose to at least eighty four, of whom forty eight were boarders, a figure never later exceeded. In 1803 both Banks and the usher were granted salary increases - an additional twenty pounds for the head, bringing his total to £100 per annum, and an extra ten pounds for the second master.

The school's decline

In 1803 Banks defended the Mart Yard from the threatened development of a theatre adjacent to it. The theatre was never built from around this time a material decline set in at BGS. Perhaps the theatre episode had dispirited Banks?

Though Banks was not personally blamed by his civic masters for the dramatic falling off in pupil numbers, it cannot be overlooked that this coincided with the period when he turned his attention to procuring a plethora of church posts, which he held simultaneously. Over thirteen years he was appointed successively as curate of Sibsey (27 July 1803), vicar of Dalby (25 August 1808), rector of Bratoft (24 January 1809), vicar of Cammeringham (7 December 1813), and curate of Benington (6 January 1816).

Banks had frequent licences for non-residence at Dalby, Bratoft and Cammeringham, issued on the ground that there was no fit house available. The Sibsey curacy was worth forty pounds a year and that at Benington fifty pounds plus various fees and offerings. The benefice of Bratoft was said to be of the annual value of £290, and that of Cammeringham £137. Most, if not all, of these offices he retained until his death, aged 78, at Spilsby in 1842.

Nicholas Carlisle's 1818 "A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales" contained material obtained by sending a questionnaire to the headmasters of all the country's grammar schools. About Banks he says:

The Gentleman resides in a large and commodious dwelling in a very open and healthy part of the Town. He receives into his house a small number of young Gentlemen, his terms, for the Board and Education of each pupil, being only Thirty-Four Pounds per annum. For the greater advantage of the youth intrusted to his care, he retains in his house a Writing-Master, who constantly attends the School. The present system of Education in this Grammar School is such as to prepare the Pupils for the great Public Schools, the Universities, and for Commercial Business; and every regard is shown to their Morals and religious Principles. The Eton Latin and Greek Grammars have for many years been generally used here. There is, however, no particular system of Education prescribed by the Statutes, the master being left to his own discretion in adopting such methods, and using such books, as may appear to him to be the best calculated to promote improvement of his pupils.

Whatever the real cause for the much reduced public support for BGS as the years went by, the fact remains that by 1824 there were "scarcely any" boarders left, and the school had only twenty four boys in all. Of these just ten were learning Latin. The borough council became sufficiently concerned to appoint a committee "to inquire into the present state of the Grammar School and the best means of making the same beneficial to the town".

At the very first meeting of the "Improvement Committee", as it came to be known, members agreed that they did not "wish to impute any blame to the master, the decline of the school appearing to have arisen from circumstances over which he had no control". Indeed when Banks eventually resigned, one of the finalists for the post was told: "At one time the present master had forty boarders and there has been 100 boys. Unfortunately for the school, the Conduct of one of the Ushers caused the reduction". Even more damning is the phrase used in the notes prepared for the committee meeting: it refers to the Usher's "gross misconduct".

Meeting for the first time on 17 August 1824, with Benjamin Bowlin Kelsey presiding as mayor, the committee showed a commendable sense of urgency. They called upon Banks to answer a series of questions, and Henry Rogers, the town clerk, asked him to do so "on or before Monday next". The figures he supplied of the number of boys at the school since his appointment in 1790, when considered at the next meeting, prompted the committee to report that "from the year 1803 the school appears to have gradually declined and the actual number of boys at present in the school learning Latin is reduced to ten". After reiterating that they did not wish to impute any blame to Banks, they added:

The committee are at a loss to suggest the best means of making the school more beneficial to the town, but are very apprehensive that during the continuance of the present master no material improvement of the school can be expected to take place. That it appears from the admission of the Master that the under master, Mr Grice, has been absent keeping his terms at Colledge, during the time he was receiving a Salary from the Corporation as such under Master, of which the Committee cannot but highly disapprove.

Banks took the hint and, considering their report "as intimating a Wish for me to retire from the Situation of Headmaster", he wrote to members of the corporation "in Common Hall assembled" on 18 November 1824 saying he had

no Disposition to raise any Obstacles, or to occasion on my Part any unnecessary Delay, to the full Accomplishment of such Plans as the mayor and Corporation may now have in View respecting the school.

It would, he added, be "a great sacrifice" to relinquish his "long accustomed Employments, together with the Benefit which I might be enabled to derive from the Scholars, the present number of which is Twenty four".

I trust however that, whether I shall resign immediately or within a few months, the Hall will, after my faithful, diligent and long Services - during so extended a Period as nearly thirty five years - be induced to grant me such liberal terms as I may, with Justice to my numerous Family, be able most respectfully and gratefully to accept.

The "Hall" did take a generous view, enabling the Stamford Mercury to report on 25 February 1825 that the corporation had "granted him the liberal sum of £80 per annum". In writing to express his gratitude for this pension, Banks asked to be allowed "sufficient Time to make, before I depart hence, suitable Arrangements here, and proper previous Preparations for my going to reside at some other Place". This, also, was forthcoming. Banks later indicated he intended to resign on 30 July following, "being at the Expiration of thirty five Years from the Commencement of my Attendance on the Duties of that Office".

In submitting his formal resignation, Banks offered "the humble Tribute of my best Congratulations upon your Choice of New Master", and addressed the mayor, John Skinner Baily in these terms:

I entreat you to accept my sincere Gratitude for your having so long honoured me with your Confidence and Patronage. Under that Patronage your Grammar School was advanced to the Number of Eighty four Scholars, Forty eight of them being Boarders in the Master's House; when an Expenditure in this Town was thereby occasioned amounting to Three Thousand Pounds per Annum for several Years - besides other Sums not going through the Master's Hands, but caused to be expended in Boston by the then flourishing State of his School.

He added that, for his pension and

for many Obligations which I have experienced from your Worships, I feel impressed with lasting Gratitude towards you as a Body Corporate; and I can also truly say that for each and every one of you, as Individuals, I entertain much respect. In those Regrets which naturally and deeply affect my mind on leaving a situation endeared to me by daily Habits and local Attachments, contracted during the very extended Period of Thirty five years, it affords me a high Degree of Consolation to find in my Successor, the Revd Mr Homer, a Gentleman so ably qualified, and so anxiously disposed, to restore your School to its highest State of Repute and Prosperity.

After years of inertia and lethargy to which it had been condemned in the second half of the eighteenth century, BGS undoubtedly enjoyed a burst of new, vigorous life during the first decade or so of Banks' mastership. But the new century was scarce begun when his personal ambitions for clerical preferments endangered, and ultimately largely mitigated, the progress made. One result of the early rapid growth of pupil numbers was tha, virtually throughout the whole of Banks' headship, the school had a staff of three teachers, at least nominally, rather than the just the traditional master and usher. The equally rapid profusion of his other interests undoubtedly secured Banks a goodly income; but, at least in part as a result of the problems arising from his inattention to the needs of the school, staff changes were fairly frequent. This was a contributory factor in the run-down of the school, which so swiftly followed the early blossoming. A mastership of great initial promise thus ended in sorry disappointment.

See Also

• Boston Grammar School Staff