24 June 1720. When John went to the Charterhouse he suffered less from the hardships of school life than many who had been reared in the lap of luxury. Nevertheless, from the Epworth home to the cheerless Charterhouse must have been a trying experience even for a boy like John, who was not yet eleven years old. The school of the Charterhouse celebrated its one hundredth anniversary the year that little John Wesley came to live within its walls, but its buildings were much more ancient, having beep a part of a great Carthusian monastery. Sir Thomas Sutton, one of the merchant princes of Queen Elizabeth's reign, had bought the buildings and established in them a school and a home for old men.
Tradition says that it had been the refectory of the lay brothers of the monastery.
I believe this was so far from hurting me that it laid the foundation of lasting health. A little farther away, in the corner near the pulpit, sat, in a similar pepper box, Andrew Tooke, usher, or second master. Searching, he found them all assembled in the schoolroom around my uncle, who was amusing them with instructive tales, to which they listened rather than follow their accustomed sports. The master expressed much approbation toward them and John Wesley, and he wished him to repeat this entertainment as often as he could obtain auditors and so well employ his time. Wesley himself gives us a glimpse.