"In 1618 John Slaney, lord of Marsh, built a school on Barrow hill, which he maintained during his life and endowed by will proved in 1632: he left the school a £30 rent charge (bought from John Weld) on Willey manor and left lands in Astley Abbots and at the Hem (in Linley) to Slaney's nephew John Slaney (d. c. 1654), charged in perpetuity with a rent to maintain the school. The master, preferably to be a 'preaching minister', was to have £10 a year and the school house; a great part of 6 a. nearby and free coals were also assigned to the school. The master might take private pupils, but to earn his full salary he was to teach, free of charge, 20 poor boys to read and write, fitting them for apprenticeship. In 1671 the master was a clergyman and in 1716 and 1819 minister of Barrow; in 1819 he received the £10 but an usher taught the boys. The owners of the Hem continued to maintain the school until, in 1816, John Stephens gave it and adjoining land to Cecil Weld-Forester in exchange for a site near the church where WeldForester built a new school c. 1819. Pupils from Barrow and Willey, chosen by the master under Weld-Forester's 'sanction', usually left before they were 11.: Barrow', A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 10: Munslow Hundred (part), The Liberty and Borough of Wenlock (1998), pp. 221-233. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22872&strquery=barrow shropshire school Date accessed: 29 November 2008. >