Church Schools.—­St. Alban’s Schools were commenced in 1865.  Bishop Ryder’s Schools were opened in December 1860, and for girls in March 1866.  Christ Church Schools were built in 1837 at a cost of nearly L4,000 St. George’s Schools were built in 1842; St. John’s (Sparkhill) in 1884; St. Mary’s, Bath Street, in 1824, the present schools dating from January, 1847.  St. Martin’s Church Schools were opened Nov. 1, 1846, but were transferred to the School Board, July 9, 1879; St. Matthew’s, Lupin Street, October 20, 1841; St. Paul’s, December 18, 1845; the Legge Lane Schools being erected in 1869.  St. Anne’s School, Deritend, was opened May 31, 1870; St. Mary’s, Aston Brook, April 16, 1872.

King Edward the VIth’s Schools.—­For 300 years known as the Free Grammar School, having been founded in 1551, the fifth year of the reign of Edward VI., and endowed with part of the property taken by his reforming father Henry VIII., in 1536, from the religious foundation known as the “Guild of the Holy Cross.”  At the time the charter was granted (Jan. 2, 1552) these lands were valued at about L20 per annum, and so little was it imagined that Birmingham would ever be more than the small hamlet it then was, that a funny tale has come down to the effect that the good people of King’s Norton, when offered their choice of similar lands or a sum equal thereto, wisely as they thought chose the “bird in hand” and asked for the L20 per year for their school, leaving the Brums to make what they could out of the bare fields once belonging to the brotherhood of the Holy Cross.  Like the majority of so-called charity schools, this foundation was for many generations so managed that the funds went into almost any channel except the purpose for which it was designed—­the free education of the poor—­and even now it would be an interesting question to find out how many boys are receiving the advantages thereof whose parents are well able to pay for their learning elsewhere.  The property of the charity is widely scattered over the town, here a piece and there a piece, but it is rapidly increasing in value from the falling in of leases the rentals, which in 1827 were about L3,000 per annum, being in 1840 L8,400, in 1860 L12,600, and now L25,000; by the expiration of this century it will be at least L50,000.  The earliest existing statutes are dated October 20, 1676, one of the most comical being that the assistant masters were not to marry.  The head master’s salary in 1676 was fixed at L68 15s., with a house and land; in 1738 he was allowed L20 in lieu of the house, in 1788 the salary was increased to L150; in 1726 to L200; in 1816 to L400; and now it is about L1,200.  The second master at first received L34 6s. 8d.; in 1874 he received L300.  The first school was the old Guildhall of the Holy Cross, which was pulled down at the commencement of the 18th century, a new school being erected in 1707, and removed in 1833, to make way for the present edifice, which was erected in 1840, from the designs