JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORD, L. L. D. F. S. A. RECORDER OF THE BOROUGH, &c. &c. MY LORD Duke, THE kind and liberal feeling at all times evinced by your Grace towards the Town and County of Bedford, and the intimate and friendly connection which has ever subsisted between yourself and its inhabitants, have induced me to dedicate he following pages to your Grace's protection; well knowing that the urbanity of your Grace's disposition, the ready and steady support which all Charitable Institutions receive, and the firm opposition which all abuses in their administration encounter, at your hands, render it impossible to select a more fit patron of a work relating chiefly to the extensive Charities of the Town of Bedford. I have the honour to be, With the highest respect, MY LORD DUKE, Your Grace's most obedient, most obliged and most humble servant, RALPH B. HANKIN. BEDFORD, OCT. 1827. THE to th Schoo liam 1 divest legal trusting ments, that inf acquire Statute, thus re obscure has take mation h and he ha which the tradition. An offic of Edwa PREFACE. THE Author of the present work begs to present to the Public the Laws and Regulations of the Schools, and other Charities founded by Sir William Harpur, Knight, arranged systematically, and divested, in a great measure, of the verbiage and legal phrases incidental to an Act of Parliament; trusting, that a classification of its various enactments, under separate heads, will afford immediately that information which could otherwise only be acquired by a tedious search through a long Statute, and that the absence of technicalities will thus render intelligible, what might be otherwise obscure to the generality of readers. The Author has taken the utmost care not to omit any information he could obtain relating to these subjects, and he has guarded against introducing matter for which there is no sufficient authority, or probable tradition. An official Copy of the original Letters Patent of Edward VI. granting Licence for the on of the Harpur Schools and Charities, n procured and added to the work by way endix, with a literal translation. brief account of Hawes's, Alderman Newton's, other public Charities, including the Dissen, and a description of the Town of Bedford, Buildings, and Institutions, have been added, in e hope of their being received as no unsuitable accompaniment. S a Dut So Exam XIV. Exhil |