All Reptonians and visitors to Repton know the two pillars, and low wall which divide the School yard into two, almost equal, parts. Bigsby and others believe that the wall is the boundary of the two Manors of Repton.

In the year 1896 I found, in the School muniment chest, among a lot of musty, fusty documents, deeds, &c., two rolled-up folios, lawyers’ briefs, with interrogations, depositions, &c. On the back of one of the briefs is a very rough pen and ink sketch-plan of the School buildings, &c. This has served to identify the various portions occupied by the School and the Thackers, described in the last chapter, and also gives the reason why the wall was built. It appears that during the life-time of Godfrey Thacker, grandson of Gilbert, the destroyer of the Priory, the “schollers” of Repton School used to annoy him, while working in his study, by playing too near his house, many rows ensued. These went on till the days of Godfrey’s son Gilbert: he determined either to put an end to the annoyances, or to the School, he did not care which, as we shall see.

In 1652, soon after he succeeded to the estates, he commenced a suit against the School. Gilbert Thacker, plaintiff, John Jennings, Master of Etwall Hospital, William Ullock, Headmaster of Repton School, and others, defendants.

“Plaintiff declared that the defendants the 1st day of December, 1651, with force and armes the close of the said Gilbert, called the greate or broade court (the School yard) at Repton did breake and enter and his grasse there lately growing to the value of one hundred shillings with their feete walkinge did treade downe and consume to the damage of £40.”

Defendants pleaded not guilty, and produced twelve witnesses, O.R.s and others, who proved that “the scholemasters used to walke up and downe the broade court at their pleasures, and the schollers have used to play there.... That some scholemasters that kept cowes have used to turne there cowes into the yard. (Mr. Watson stalled them in a room in the Priory itself!) That Thacker’s father (Godfrey) was a barrister-at-law, and never questioned it although continually used.”

The matter was settled “out of court,” by the appointment of two arbitrators, Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., and Sir Samuel Sleigh, Knt., (O.R.s), with Gervase Bennett, as referee. They pronounced “theire award by word of mouth about the yeare 1653.” Thacker was to build a wall across the Court, beyond which the boys were not allowed to pass. This he refused to do, so the alleged trespass, and annoyances went on for another twelve years, when, owing to the conduct of Gilbert, the School brought an action against him. “The schollers with threats of smites and blows were affrighted, many of them were assaulted and beaten, many to avoyd effusion of blood and expenses have absented themselves for a week together, thro’ fear of arrest, some have withdrawn to other schooles. If theire hats blew over the “Causey” (the entrance to the School) they durst not fetch them, if Mr. Thacker was in the way.”

He also employed one Godfrey Kinton, a carpenter, to set up “stoopes and rayles (post and rails) from the Chancell nooke to the nooke of the nether School House chinney below the door,” but alas! boys were boys even then, for we read when “he set up one stoope, and went for more, before he returned, the stoope was pulled up, and earth thrown into the hole by the schollers!”

Gilbert also tried in a more offensive way to make the occupants of the Schoole House “weary of being there.” Down the School yard “uppon a sudden rush of raine there was usually a water-course through the Courtyard into Mr. Thacker’s inner court ... and soe under the dogg kennell to the river.” This course he stopped “with stones and clodds, and caused the water to run into the School House! twenty-seven or eight pales-full of water had been ladled out.” When Mr. Ullock (the Headmaster) complained, and requested that the stones and clods might be taken away, he was bidden “to take them away himself if he durst, this the schollers did more than once.”

Mrs. Ullock came in for a share of the “smites and blows.” For, we read, “one day Gilbert Thacker furiously assaulted Mrs. Ullock as she stood at her own door, and flung her into the house, followed her and strucke her.” His wife joined in the fray, “she strucke Mrs. Ullock, and tore her own gorgett upon a neale.”... “Ann Heyne, being by, interceded for her mistress, whereupon Gilbert strucke her and felled her to the grounde, and gave her a foule pinch by the arm, and again strucke Mrs. Ullacke,” then Mrs. Thacker and her son “ran up to Mr. Ullock’s studdy and told him that his wife had abused her husband!” So we are not surprised to hear that the School brought an action against the Thackers. The High Court of Chancery appointed four gentlemen, as Commissioners, to try the case. William Bullock (O.R.), Daniel Watson, Esquires, Thomas Charnells, and Robert Bennett, gentlemen. They met “at the house of Alderman Hugh Newton, at Derby, there being at the signe of the George.”

There they summoned witnesses to attend; fifty did so, twenty-five a side. Their depositions, in answer to interrogatories, were taken on April 15th, 1663, and fill sixty pages of folio. As before mentioned, they consist of two folios, one for the School and one for Thacker. The chief questions administered to the witnesses for the School, referred to their knowledge of the School buildings, Schoolmasters and boys, Thacker’s ancestors, rights of way, award of Sir Francis Burdett, and Sir Samuel Sleigh, former suits at law, the Thackers’ conduct, the value of the land, as grass land, and the use of the yard for recreation by the boys, &c. For Thacker, the questions asked referred to their knowledge of prohibitions by his ancestors and himself, and complaints made to the Schoolmasters, &c.

The depositions are most interesting, as the knowledge of witnesses extended back to within forty years of the founding of the School.

The number of Schoolmasters varied—in Watson’s time two, in Whitehead’s three, Schoolmaster, Middle Master, and Usher. The number of boys also varied from 60 to 200, with “7 or 8 poor schollers.” Among the boys mentioned were four sons of Philip, first Earl of Chesterfield, Philip, Charles, George and Ferdinando Stanhope; Michael Folliott, son of Henry Folyot, Foleott or Ffoliott, Baron of Ballyshannon, Ireland; Wingfield, Thomas, Vere Essex, and Oliver Cromwell, the four sons of Thomas Cromwell, first Earl of Ardglass, besides the sons of divers knights and gentlemen, Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., Sir Samuel Sleigh, Knt., Godfrey Meynell, Thomas Sanders, William Bullock, &c., &c., most of whom had gone to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge. (See Repton School Register)

The “Court yard” (School yard) had been used by the boys to recreate themselves in, without let or hindrance from the defendant’s ancestors. The award was well known, and agreed to at the time, 1653, but the defendant had refused to comply with it, and had stopped several ways, and blocked up a door leading to the brook, from the north-east corner of the Schoolmaster’s garden.

The evidence of Ann Heyne, &c., referred to above, proved that the defendant’s conduct had “caused many brawls, and many schollers to be affrighted and absent themselves from schoole.” The value of the land was worth from 2d. to 6d. per annum!

The defendant’s witnesses agreed about most of the points in dispute, but they said the boys had no right to play in the great court yard without permission, and some of them remembered having been whipped by Godfrey Thacker and Schoolemaster Watson for so doing, and others remember playing in “the Staineyard,” by orders of the Schoolemasters Watson and Whitehead. Defendant also objected to the disposal of ashes, which the Headmaster used to have placed on a mound opposite his front door, and the Usher at the back of the Causey (i.e. the way between the stone walls, leading into the old big school) instead of in the garden at the back of the School, as they used to be put, as one witness said “he had seen them carried by Mr. Schoolemaster Watson’s daughter!”

The Commissioners “recommended the differences between the two parties to the Right Honourable Philipp, Earl of Chesterfield, to call the said parties before him, and to hear and finally determine the said differences between them if his Worship so can.” Gilbert Thacker again failed to carryout the terms agreed upon, so on the 11th day of January, in the 18th year of the reign of Charles II., King, a writ was issued against him for contempt of court. The writ is in the Muniment Chest, and it is a rare specimen of a legal document in Latin, written short, full of abbreviations, very difficult to decipher, as Thacker pleaded in his answer, “it was written in short lattin, some of the words written very short, he did not well understand it, nor could say if it was a true Coppy,” when Mr. Motteram (counsel for the School) delivered it to him, and read it over to him, but he was wise enough to understand and obey it eventually, so his contempt was pardoned, and in the following year a final agreement was made between him and the School.

A receipt for £14. 19s. 0d., half the cost of building the wall, signed by Wm. Jordan, proves the wall, and pillars were built, or finished in May, 1670, and the long continued disputes ceased.

In Dr. Sleath’s time the gates were removed, and the wall, which at first was nearly level with the capitals of the pillars, was taken down on the west side, and lowered on the east, as it is now. This is the history of the pillars and wall, as recorded in the deeds, &c., lately discovered in the Muniment Chest, which may contain other interesting details of events long ago forgotten in the history of Repton School, and may be unearthed (literally) out of the dust of ages!