of England. The first Master was Baptist Pigott (or Pigot). Aged about thirty when he took the post he was educated at King’s School, Canterbury and Trinity College, Cambridge. When he died in 1657 he was buried in the South Transept of Ashford Church. The Latin inscription on his tomb reveals that he was married twice and that ‘he was a very loving husband and father and deserved well of his pupils and of the town albeit ungrateful. What had he done to upset them? Warren wrote in 1712 ‘I am sorry to find in the inscription such a charge of ingratitude’ but offered no explanation. It should however be remembered that, for much of the time Pigott was Head, the Country was being racked by troubles culminating in Civil War. Although Ashford was affected less than many places, feelings ran high and we know that in 1644 the Church was seriously defaced. There was locally a Puritan teacher, Repentence Nicholls, who some might have preferred as Master of Ashford Grammar School so it is not unreasonable that Pigott may have had his enemies. How did he live? He had as we have seen a private study attached to the school room. He obviously had a house close by where a few boarders would also have lived. His annuity of £30 was paid (originally at Easter and Michaelmas) on the Tombstone of Thomas Fitch. This is no longer there but was then on rising ground on the North side of the Church. It was well known as a place for settling bargains in the town. Apart from the rules for running the school, the Master’s behaviour was also well controlled by the Articles. He had to satisfy the Vicar that he was fit ‘both for his learning and dexterity in teaching and also for his honest life and conversation and public expression of God’s true religion’. He could not have ‘received Ministeriall orders or taken any facultie or licence to practise physicke’. He was not to wear ‘any indecent or unseemelie Apparel, nor commonly use gaming houses or haunt Taverns or Ale Houses, nor shall bee otherwise of scandalous life to evil example of his scholars’. If he was ill, he still received his pay provided he found a substitute but if he ‘fell into any contageous, infectious or incurable disease or sickenesse specially through his own default and evil behaviour …… he shall bee removed and put out from being schoolmaster’ The right of election of the Master went to the current owner of Mersham-le-Hatch. The trustees were to be helped in overseeing the school by the Vicar of Ashford and the Rectors of Aldington, Mersham and Chart Magna.
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