ABSTRACT
The greater boarding schools of the eighteenth century were in many ways little better than the smaller endowed grammar schools. Their curriculum was equally limited to Latin and Greek, though some French might be taught in a small way, as at Rugby school. The schools were often poorly staffed and conditions for the pupils were primitive, with food scarce and ill-prepared and beating a common means of punishment. Schoolboy revolts were frequent. Winchester, Rugby, Eton and Harrow all had their rebellions and so serious was the rebellion at Rugby in 1797 that the army was called in to quell it.
