The prayer for Founders and Benefactors lists three MGS “founders” and eight “benefactors”. However, Edward Riley Langworthy was often described as the school’s “second founder” and the three founders could certainly be described as benefactors too.
The three founders were of course instrumental in the setting up of the School in 1515. Clearly the idea for a School sprang from Hugh Oldham himself. It is notable that Joan Bexwyke, as a woman, is listed as a founder of the School alongside her son, Hugh. She was Hugh Oldham’s sister and a widow at the time the School was founded.
Joan’s parents were Roger and Margery Oldham, and her father was wealthy enough to buy a substantial plot of land in Ancoats in 1462. Joan Bexwyke is listed on the School’s foundation deed alongside Hugh Oldham and Ralph Hulme as the owner of the corn mills and property in Ancoats. These properties were leased in order to pay the salaries of the Master and Usher. She married Robert Bexwyke, the son of Richard Bexwyke, a wealthy cloth merchant who had endowed the Jesus chantry chapel attached to the Manchester collegiate church (later to become Manchester Cathedral). The priests at the chantry chapel were instructed to pray for the souls of the family and also to teach the chapel’s choir boys Latin. When chantries were abolished in 1547, it was found that the priests working at the chantry chapel were still fulfilling their teaching role, but now at the Manchester Grammar School. It is often stated that the chantry school could be regarded as the forerunner of MGS. Therefore, Joan Bexwyke was influential in the development of MGS both through the Oldham family wealth and that of the Bexwyke’s.

Hugh Bexwyke’s signature, from a 1522 edition of Erasmus’ New Testament
Hugh Bexwyke was the son of Robert and Joan Bexwyke and therefore Hugh Oldham’s nephew. He is listed third in the School’s foundation deeds after Hugh Oldham and Thomas Longley and is described as a “chaplain. Bexwyke was part of the first governing body of MGS along with Oldham, Longley, Ralph Hulme and John the Abbot of St. Mary’s Whalley. Responsibilities included appointing the Master and the Usher and paying their stipends (£5 and £10 respectively). Bexwyke was also the individual who purchased the parcel of land next to the collegiate church for the first School buildings. He bought the plot for £5 from George and Margaret Trafford and the building was completed in 1518 with the cost of £218 covered by Hugh Oldham. The foundation deed lists the names of twenty seven individuals whose souls the Collegiate Church were to remember in an annual service, and Hugh and Joan Bexwyke are included in this list.
We are fortunate to have what we believe to be Hugh Bexwyke’s signature inside a 1522 edition of Erasmus’ translation of the New Testament. The Bexwyke family name lives on in several ways at MGS. Bexwyke Lodge currently houses part of the MGS Junior School, and the Bexwyke Lecture is held annually for pupils at primary schools across the region. The Bexwyke Society are a group of Old Mancunians and others who have donated money for a bursary place in perpetuity at MGS. It seems fitting that it is named after such important benefactors.
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