# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stanbridge, John

1904 Errata appended.
​STANBRIDGE, JOHN (1463–1510), grammarian, was born at Heyford in Northamptonshire in 1463. In 1475, at the age of twelve, he was admitted scholar of Winchester school (Kirby, p. 83). He then entered New College, Oxford, and was admitted fellow, after two years' probation, in 1481. Thence he was appointed usher of the newly founded school of St. Mary Magdalen, of which John Anwykyll was the first headmaster; and on Anwykyll's death, in the winter of 1487, Stanbridge succeeded him in his office. This he held till 1494. Among his scholars was Robert Whittington or Whitinton [q. v.] On 22 April 1501, being then M.A. and in holy orders, he was collated by Bishop William Smith [q. v.] of Lincoln to the mastership of the hospital of St. John at Banbury, of the grammar school of which place his brother, or near relative, Thomas Stanbridge, who was B.A. 1511 and M.A. 1518, was about this time master. On 8 Feb. 1507 he was instituted to the rectory of Winwick, near Gainsborough, and on 3 Aug. (so Le Neve; Bloxam says 30 Aug.) 1509 he was collated to the prebend of Botolph in the cathedral of Lincoln. He died in the autumn of 1510. Wood's statement that he survived till 1522, or later, may perhaps be due to a confusion between him and Thomas Stanbridge. A curious print of John Stanbridge, from the Gulston collection, is reproduced in Beesley's ‘History of Banbury.’ A portrait, which Bromley styles ‘imaginary,’ is prefixed to the ‘Vocabularium Metricum’ (1552).
The wide reputation of John Stanbridge's grammars, and of the method of teaching in Banbury school, where Sir Thomas Pope (1507?–1559) [q. v.] was a scholar, is shown by the directions for their imitation given in many ancient school statutes, notably in those of the Merchant Taylors' school, and of Cuckfield, Sussex.
Stanbridge wrote: 1. ‘Vocabula;’ numerous editions were printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1500 and onwards), Pynson, John Byddell, and others (Ames, Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, 1785, pp. 136 sqq.); revised and enlarged by later editors, notably by Thomas Newton in 1615, and by John Brinsley in 1630; it was known under the new titles of ‘Vocabularium Metricum,’ ‘Embrion,’ ‘Embryon Relimatum.’ 2. ‘Vulgaria,’ of which there is an edition by Wynkyn de Worde, dated 1508. It consists of only four leaves. The contents are lists of Latin words, names of the parts of the body, &c., arranged in the form of Latin hexameters, for committal to memory, with the English equivalents in smaller type above. 3. ‘Sum, es, fui, of Stanbridge.’ There is an edition by Pynson, in eight leaves, undated, but about 1515. The contents are the same as those of 4. 4. ‘Gradus cōparationū cū verbis anormalis;’ an undated edition by Wynkyn de Worde is extant in eight leaves (1525?); and the dates of others are given by Herbert. It is in English, in the form of question and answer. 5. ‘Accidentia.’ An edition by Wynkyn de Worde, of sixteen leaves, is undated, but conjectured in the British Museum Catalogue to be of 1530. It is a catechism in English on the parts of Latin speech, and has at the end a few rules, also in English, for Latin composition. This last seems to have been expanded into (6) ‘Paruulorum Institutio,’ of which there is an edition printed by John Butler, but without date. It begins, ‘What is to be done whan an Englyshe is gyuen to be made in Latyn?’
[Wood's Athenæ, vol. i. col. 39; Bloxam's Register of Magdalen College, iii. 10–15; Beesley's Hist. of Banbury, 1841, pp. 194–6; Bridges's History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, ii. 524; Reg. Univ. Oxon. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) i. 70 (for Thomas Stanbridge); Le Neve's Fasti, ii. 114; Lansdowne MS. 978, f. 126. Some specimens of Stanbridge's grammars are given in W. Carew Hazlitt's Schools … and Schoolmasters, 1888, pp. 53–9.]
J. H. L.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.256 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 470 | i | 2 f.e. | Stanbridge, John: after Stanbridge, insert who was B.A. 1511 and M.A. 1518 |
| | ii | 8 | omit one |
| | | 9-10 | omit who was B.A. 1511 and M.A. 1518 |