Private tuition (1823)

Post date: Feb 28, 2012 11:23:26 AM

Advert in Morning Post. 9th January 1823

PRIVATE TUITION.— A Married and Beneficed Clergyman, taking eight or ten Pupils, who are treated in every respect as the Family, and prepared either for the Public Schools or the Universities, has TWO or THREE VACANCIES. The situation is generally admired, being in a most delightful and healthy part of Kent, five miles from Maidstone, and 31 from London, with which places there is a daily communication by coaches. Terms, 60 guineas per annum. Applications, post paid, and addressed to The Rev. R. Earle, Wateringbury, Tunbridge, Kent, will be duly attended to. References may also be made to the Rev. Dr. Foster Pigott, Mereworth, Kent; the Rev. Dr. Willis, Wateringbury and to G. E. Graham, Esq. 6, Berners-street, Oxford-street.

Rev Earle's school was on the north side of Tonbridge Road, between Love Lane and Mill Lane. The house was demolished. He is remembered as being a 'strict old-fashioned schoolmaster' ('Wateringbury Revisited' by George Newman, enlarged and edited by Dail Whiting) and a former pupil remembered 'his dextrously trenchant wielding of the cane' (Charles Whitehead) but thought the food was 'ample and excellent'.

The Times of 8th August 1820 records his marriage:

On 3rd inst. at Wateringbury, Kent by the Rev. J. Manley , the Rev. Robert Earle to Eliza, only daughter of the late Rev. Miles Cooper, of the same place.

In 1854 The Norfolk Chronicle reported:

Mr. William Earle, a Commoner of St. John's College, Oxford, son of the rector of Wateringbury, Kent, has been accidentally drowned. There was a sculling race on the among the members of the College, and Mr. Earle's skiff was overturned; being a fair swimmer, he immediately struck out for the shore; but, from some cause unexplained, he sunk deep water.

In late 1856 his daughter, Sarah, married at Wateringbury, and he was described in the London Standard of 1st January 1857 as Vicar of Minster Lovell:

On the 29th ult., at Wateringbury, William Buck, Esq., of Alston, Cumberland, to Sarah, only daughter of the Rev. Robert Earle, of Wateringbury, and Vicar of Minster Lovell, Oxon.

See Grammar school for what is likely to be the predecessor school of Earle's school -although with much lower fees.

See also Claremont House Prep School for another prep school in Wateringbury.