after a long struggle Wratislaw won his case with costs , and Arnold had to accept the remaining Wratislaw and Gibb children even though they knew no Latin . however , no general attempt was made to restore the lost forms , and the local children who happened to attend in spite of the headmaster &apos;s displeasure had to be coached specially . the Wratislaw case of 1839 was the last of the individual protests . his social position was exceptional . as an acknowledged member of a foreign nobility he was the social superior of everyone locally in spite of his professional occupation . without the English tradition behind him he was able to question national and local opinions on a rational basis , and this independence of mind made him and his family radicals in a predominantly tory neighbourhood . the probe into his own rights was no doubt as much a reflection of his own position as a member of the first generation on foreign soil as a consequence of his experience as a solicitor and his ability to assess the legal position at first hand . after Wratislaw came the revolt of the traders . a few middle class sons were always to be found at Rugby School , but the numbers from Rugby itself were few . on the other hand acceptance of the sons of gentry and local professional men - doctors , bankers and solicitors - was a traditional practice , and , more important still , the sons of such parents were accepted or at least grudgingly tolerated by the boys . in the 1830s and 1840s these accepted groups sent numbers varying from five to seventeen in each year , while the total number of traders &apos; sons was only eleven for the same entire period of twenty years in spite of the large number of such children available . the trader &apos;s son had a very tough time . at the least he was ostracised and at the worst severely bullied , particularly in the lower forms . there is overwhelming evidence of this both from outside and inside the school , and enough of it was known locally to prevent the middle classes generally from risking their children . on the other hand there was no provision for middle class education in the town before 1840 apart from a special group at the lower class school , and the main mass went elsewhere - a few walked to Barnwell and Sheasby &apos;s School at Bilton , while others went as boarders to neighbouring towns , Daventry , Hinckley , Husbands Bosworth , Atherstone . this was expensive and even later , when a middle class day academy was set up , the cost varied from &amp;pound;6 to &amp;pound;10 p.a depending on the number of extras . over Rugby School the traders were in a dilemma for they were dependent on it for trade while the headmasters actively discouraged use of the school . the declaration of a shop out of bounds could bring ruin and there was no lack of precedence for this . the traders were torn in two directions . economy and their rights as townfolk and parents urged them to use the school , while economic survival forbade it . very few braved the consequences and sent sons , although in one or two cases like the Sale and Edmunds families there was a long tradition of usage . while the school prospered the traders had the satisfaction of sharing in the prosperity even if denied their birthright , yet , when adversity came under the headmastership of Goulburn from 1850 to 1857 they lost both ways : &amp;hellip; the reason why the inhabitants do not avail themselves of the privilege ( of educating their sons at Rugby School ) is their general apathy , supineness and dread of losing the patronage of the masters , who derive their income from the charity . even so four traders took courage and submitted sons ( 1855 ) , but the next year the number was down to one , and reduced again the next year . however , with a new headmaster , the situation changed dramatically . within months the prosperity of the town was restored and for two successive years they sent sons to the school in increasing numbers - five traders being involved in 1858 and twelve in 1859 . but that was the end . middle class initiative declined rapidly never to be renewed , and this was in effect , the last defiance of tradition by the local traders . the explanation of this episode is linked with the background of the new headmaster , Frederick Temple . he was knowledgable in the social sense by his association with the lower classes generally and the workhouse in particular through his principalship at Kneller Hall , a college designed to produce teachers of children in the workhouses of the country . it was reasonable to suppose that such a man &apos;s sympathies would be wide and not geared specifically to the upper classes . this view was strengthened by the fact that he had written only two years before a paper on national education , through which he had become one of the champions of middle class education . his scheme had involved a reassessment of the 704 grammar schools . while he felt that the great public schools were justified in clinging on to the classics , elsewhere it was a mistake . to the traders of Rugby his words must have sounded almost prophetic : they ( grammar schools ) were intended for the education of the whole community , but specially for that of the middle classes &amp;hellip; yet the schools were assuredly not intended for the gentry alone , but rather looked to poverty as a special qualification for admission . the middle classes were thus marked out as the chief objects of the goodwill of the founders . or again . these schools ( grammar schools ) were meant for the middle classes : they were meant to teach Greek and Latin . one must be sacrificed - either the persons or the things . can there be a doubt which ought to be sacrificed ? the whole trend of his writing emphasised the fact that his own school , Rugby , was not fulfilling its real object . Temple was embarrassed and could hardly object to the children of locals with the vigour of his predecessors . no wonder that traders &apos; children poured in during 1858 and 1859 . but the experiment was not successful . it was soon clear that Temple did not really welcome his new clients any more than the others had done . any idea of mixing the social classes appalled him . in a similar situation he was later to warn the middle classes of Rugby most forcibly that they would ruin any middle class school of their own if they allowed entry to lower class children . even so headmaster and school had a conscience , and we know that at one time the assistant masters formed a committee of their own to consider what could be done educationally for the town . so the second phase of local resistance faded . the arguments continued and at least one pamphlet was published , but as far as records indicate the locality was relatively quiet up to and during the national clamour that led to the setting up of the public schools commission . eventually , in 1864 , when this commission published its findings it advised that any wishes of the founder should be ignored since the modern town bore no resemblance to the Elizabethan counterpart and since Rugby School was in fact a long standing specialised boarding school and could not be altered . their recommendation was obvious : that the local qualification should , in course of time , cease to confer any advantage . in one way the argument was sound enough . when Lawrence Sheriff , the founder , made his will in 1567 , Rugby was a mere village of 350 people ; by 1800 it was a town of almost 1,500 . had he been able to penetrate two and a half centuries of time he would have recognised nothing , for not only had the town grown but it had changed , and the only link with the past was the name of one tavern - the hen and chickens . he would have found the people equally strange , not only in name but in habits , dress and manners . only if he had moved right away from the people and their town would he have seen something familiar in the lie of the land , the flow of the Avon , and his own tiny hamlet of Brownsover . the town of 1800 , however , bore no relation whatever to the Rugby of Lawrence Sheriff . but this was not the whole story and it is a big step from showing the weakness of an argument to assume that all claim is void and that a decision must be made in favour of the existing situation where indeed the argument was considerably weaker still . within the town itself the report produced a sensation . there was real cause for complaint since the Commissioners had not asked for the opinions of any of the townsfolk proper . from this point of view the report was very one-sided . the Commissioners had produced a very bulky document in four volumes but they were hardly neutral observers . of the seven members , four were in titled aristocratic families , four were at Eton or had close relatives there , one went to Westminster and was a governor of Charterhouse , while another was an old Rugbeian . as for the man who can not thus be classified , he was W H Thompson , Regius Professor of Greek and future Master of Trinity , already deeply concerned about the effects of reform on his own college at Cambridge . the report produced a third and co-operative phase in the town &apos;s fight for its rights . previously objection had come either from a single member of the community ( Wratislaw ) or from the trader group of the middle classes spurred on by such men as E Edmunds , T W Tipler and J Haswell . hitherto the local gentry and professional classes had held aloof for the school had accepted their sons readily enough . but now the ban was to apply to everyone , gentry as much as trader , while the town would no longer attract rich residents merely for the sake of the education . in the matter of justice and in terms of economics the town was threatened with starvation . among the first to react was the headmaster , Temple , himself . he suggested that &amp;pound;600 p.a of the income from the charity be spent in providing a separate school for the middle classes of the town . fifty local boys would be taught there free and seven boys a year would pass from this school into Rugby School proper . this lower school was to concentrate on a sound commercial education of English , writing , mathematics , French , Latin , but no Greek . unfortunately Temple had chosen the wrong moment and everyone condemned the scheme since the offered &amp;pound;600 did not begin to compare with the Sheriff income of &amp;pound;5,000 , while a cash settlement of the kind suggested appeared to some almost in the nature of a bribe for the surrender of the town &apos;s rights . the report of the public schools commission was followed by the public schools bill . under this free education at Rugby was to cease although the governing body was to use part of the income for the benefit of the town , perhaps in the form of a new school . this official proposal met with even more resistance than Temple&apos;s original plan . all classes except the lower joined together . a public meeting was called for 22nd March 1865 and a committee formed of the Rector , the brother of the Lord of the manor , other gentry , a banker , professional men and traders , with solicitors acting as secretaries and a backing of &amp;pound;652 to cover expenses . the campaign was off to a fine start but when a petition of protest was opened for the public to sign , only 200 in fact did so . in a population of 8,000 this is a very small number and represents less than a third of the gentry and middle class adults alone . the vast majority of the gentry and most of the trading classes held aloof . the lower classes were , as always , mere spectators . this small response was not entirely due to apathy for many of the traders were frightened of Temple&apos;s displeasure , and the gentry who had come to the town specially for the education had the welfare of their sons at the school as their prime and indeed only consideration . 