Dent Grammar School

Description

Dent Grammar School MYD34779 (c) YDNPA, 2023

Dent Grammar School was founded in 1605 through the generosity of various local benefactors who left the rentals from land and farms for that purpose. There had actually been a school long before this one, financed from a very old source of funding set up to keep the church repaired or for other “publick and commonwealth causes”. Further generosity and the settling through arbitration of a long running dispute over the use of the various funds between Garsdale and Dent, led to the foundation of the ‘Free Grammar School of King James, Dent’. It survived for almost three hundred years before finally closing in 1897. The governors could not compete with the cheaper schooling being offered at the ‘National’ elementary school opened in Dent in 1845.

Thankfully, the generosity of the early benefactors has not been for nothing. The Dent Grammar School Educational Foundation took on responsibility for administering the various endowments. It now supplies top-up funding to local children going on to further education and also gives grants to Dent Primary School. The old Grammar School building was converted into flats for local people to rent on long leases.

Source:

Boulton, David (1997) ‘A Publick and Commonwealth Cause’ The Story of Dent Grammar School. Dent: Dales Historical Monographs