To put it into some historical perspective, the foundation was during the aftermath of the Civil War, the period of the Roundhead Commonwealth, when Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector of England.
During the struggle between the Stuart Kings and Parliament, Sheffield was going through a period of great political and social unrest. Sheffield and Rotherham were loyal to the Parliamentary cause but, in 1643, the Earl of Newcastle at the head of a Royalist army took Rotherham by storm.
After a few days he set out to repeat his victory in Sheffield. His reputation had preceded him and so terrified the defenders of the castle and the town that they fled into Derbyshire, leaving Sheffield undefended. The Earl and his army took command of the town and he won many of the townsfolk round to his cause.
Early in the Spring of 1644, the tide of war turned and the victorious Parliamentary armies marched south from Marston Moor and captured Sheffield Castle. When the troops left, Colonel John Bright was appointed governor of the castle, to be followed by Captain Edward Gill. He was the head of an old Sheffield family of wealthy landowners who, according to Joseph Hunter in his book 'Hallamshire', 'in the reign of Queen Elizabeth had removed themselves from the smoke of the town to the fresher and purer air of Norton'. The family home was Norton House which stood in an estate of more than 40 acres.
In 1648, the Civil War ended and the demolition of Sheffield Castle commenced by order of Parliament. In 1653 Captain Gill became one of the Members of Parliament for the West Riding in Cromwell's Long Parliament.
According to the Parish Registers, at this time many Sheffield children were brought to Norton to be baptised perhaps as a result of the conditions in the town and it seems reasonable to assume that, during these troubled times, the population of all the villages surrounding Sheffield would have increased.
There was little educational provision for the children of the poor in 17th Century England, but Oliver Cromwell and his Parliament were well disposed towards educational provision for all sections of the community and made the first government grant for this purpose. Slowly, the English language began to replace Latin as the accepted medium for instruction and it became fashionable for wealthy landowners and philanthropists to provide money for the setting up of charity schools for the poor. Some of these were known as 'Free Schools.'
In 1654, Edward Gill's father, Leonard, died and in his will left in trust, a house and garden in Maugherhay (the present School Lane) to Roland Morewood, his son-in-law, of The Oakes, Nicholas Stones, a wealthy merchant of Hemsworth and William Bullock, the Lord of the Manor of Norton, to be used as a school for the poor children of the parish. The children had to be born within the parish and their parents unable to afford any education for them. The parish was much more extensive than it is today, covering Norton Lees, Gleadless, Hemsworth, Jordanthorpe, Greenhill, Woodseats, Beauchief and Bradway.
Edward Gill and his heirs were given the responsibility of appointing the schoolmaster, but if the post were left vacant for more than 3 months, the power of appointment was to pass to the vicar, churchwardens or overseers of the poor.
In addition to the school premises, Leonard Gill left a certain amount of income in the form of rents from property in Ecclesall and profits from 2 scythe wheels, also in Ecclesall, for the maintenance of the school and the schoolmaster. The yearly amount to be paid to the schoolmaster for each pupil was 13s.4d. (67p) so the number of pupils depended on the amount of rent and profits which he received.
The first schoolmaster may have been William Roades who is described as 'schoolmaster of Norton' in the parish register which gives his date of death as 28th March, 1676. John Bartram of Hemsworth may have succeeded him - he died in August 1712. followed by John Staniland B.A. who died in 1717.
In addition to carrying out his father's wishes, Edward Gill granted further income to the school in the form of rent from a piece of land called the Birkes, in Brimington. This was to be paid yearly to the schoolmaster for the free teaching of 5 more poor children who had been bom and were living in Norton. They were to be taught the reading and writing of English and also grammar.
Nicholas Stones died in 1676 and one of the bequests in his will was that the rents from certain lands, amounting to £14 or thereabouts should be distributed yearly on Christmas Day by his sons Joseph and Nicholas as follows:- £5 to the Vicar of Norton and his successors, £5 to the schoolmaster and his successors, and the remainder should be used to apprentice a poor boy of the parish to some manual trade.