Adams’ Grammar School, Newport, Shropshire, was founded during the Commonwealth in 1656 towards the end of the great impetus of founding such schools in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Despite many setbacks and threats to its existence it continues in the twenty first century as one of the 164 surviving grammar schools in the country. Luckily the founder, William Adams, a native of Newport who made his money as a haberdasher in London, entrusted the care of his school to the Haberdashers’ Company, one of the great London Livery Companies. Embedded in the minute books of the Company are numerous references...