The School learnt and sang with the Choir Walmisley's Evening Service in D minor in C. S. Lang's arrangement. The Choir Supper took place at 7-0 p.m. on Wednesday, 15th March, in the old School House Dining Room. It was a great disappointment to those who enjoyed an evening which started with an excellent supper, continued with some part songs sung by the "lay members" of the Choir, and concluded with some hearty mass singing, that the Headmaster was at the last moment prevented from attending, as were some members of the Choir for various reasons.
ANTIQUARIAN ITEMS The Rev. Angelo Raine, the author of the History of St. Peter's School, has recently put at our disposal new material bearing on the School's past. Some of these items may be of interest to readers of The Peterite. In his History Mr. Raine comments (p. 105) on a letter of Laurence
Sterne dissuading the Rev. John Blake, who was Headmaster of the i School from 1757 to 1784, from marrying a certain Margaret Ash, of York. The lady, Sterne warned him, was a scheming fortune-hunter. Blake, we are told, took the advice and did not marry Margaret Ash. Instead he married a Miss Place. An entry in a Precedent Book of the Dean and Chapter has now given us the sequel to this marriage. From this it would seem that the Rev. John Blake was an indifferent husband, and that Margaret Ash was to be congratulated on her escape :"Ann, wife of the Rev. John Blake, clerk, of the parish of St. Michael Belfrey, against her husband. On 20 February, 1769, she, then Ann Place, and John Blake were married in the Church of Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, by the Rev. Edward Place. They have a girl and two boys and lived in the parish of St. Saviour's. In 1774, on a misunderstanding, he insisted on her leaving his home, which she was obliged to do. John Blake says that, instead of sending her away, on 7 February, 1774, when he was absent, she sent for a coach and without his knowledge or consent left the house, taking her 3 children, 3 servants, and leaving the doors unlocked and windows open, went to the George Inn [Coney Street] and since has lodged in one place and another. Mrs. Blake's witness says that for months together, day after day, Mr. Blake's behaviour was violently abusive and threatening, knocking one of her children down, vapouring, and shaking a stick over his wife's head the day before she left. He introduced a bullying fellow into the house, bade him to seek out the blunderbuss, and talked on swords and fire-arms so much that it affrighted his wife so that she durst not stay. He has sent her a guinea a week, which is too little."
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