The Free School continued to flourish and attract further endowments.
Henry Gill, the younger son of Edward, was now living at The Oakes and his only daughter, Elizabeth, married Richard Bagshawe of Castleton, who bought the school premises and the right of appointment of the schoolmaster, together with the land endowed by Nicholas Stones.
A further gift of £140 from William Scriven of the Herdings, the son of a former church warden at Norton, was left in trust to Thomas Stones, Richard Bagshawe and Stephen Offley, then Lord of the Manor of Norton. The interest was to be used to teach 6 poor children to read English, write and cast accounts and to 'put out the said poor children, to trade from time to time as they should become eligible.'
Richard Bagshawe the younger was the son of the first Bagshawe at The Oakes, and left £20 in trust to his brothers William and John Bagshawe. The interest was to be used to teach 2 poor boys of the parish to read English.
Storie Wingfield of Hazelbarrow Hall, (demolished circa 1810) left all his lands and tenements in the parishes of Norton and Dronfield to trustees who were required to pay £5 yearly to the master of the Free School at Norton for the teaching of 10 poor boys until they were fourteen.
Robert Newton, of Norton House, left £105 in trust and the interest was to be used to teach poor children of the parish to read and write. He directed especially 'that the master should attend to their morals, that they should be instructed how heinous the vices of swearing and lying are, and the threatenings and punishments against swearers and liars in their Bibles, and that they should be punished severely if guilty thereof after a second admonition and, if they should not be reclaimed by frequent admonition and correction, that such children should be turned out of school.'
A further 19th Century endowment was made to the school by Isaac Shepherd. In his will he gave £80 to the trustees of Norton School and the interest from its investment was to be used for the instruction of poor children of Greenhill in the parish of Norton.
The wills of William Scriven and Storie Wingfield (1774 and 1775) contain the earliest evidence we have been able to find, that Norton Free School was known by that name in the early days of its foundation.
It also interesting to note that the original endowments provided education for girls as well as boys which was unusual at that time.
It appears that the original school-room must have fallen into disrepair in the latter half of the 18th Century because the Charity. Commissioners, in their list of the assets of Norton Free School mention 'A schoolroom at Maugerhay in the parish of Norton with a small strip of ground adjoining thereto. This building is stated to have been erected by subscription about forty years ago. upon the site of an old school and is now in good repair
A stone bearing the inscription This School Rebuilt and Enlarged in 1787', was above the door of the second school and is now built into the wall of the entrance hall in the present Norton Free School building. The Charity Commissioners' reports were published in 1839 but they were in preparation for almost 20 years so it seems certain that the rebuilding referred to by the reports and commemorated by the stone were one and the same.
This was the total of the annual endowments of Norton Free School at the time of the Charity Commissioners' Reports
| Leonard Gill's gift, rent of lands | £ 49 1s 0d |
| Edward Gill's gift, rent charge | £ 3 6s 8d |
| Storie's gift, rent charge | £ 5 0s 0d |
| Scriven's gift, interest on £60 @ 4% | £ 2 8s 0d |
| Wingfield's gift, rent charge | £ 5.0s 0d |
| Bagshawe's gift, interest on £20 | £1 0s 0d |
| Newton's gift, interest on £105 | £ 5 5s 0d |
| Shepherd's gift, interest on £80 | £ 4 0s 0d |
| Total | £ 75 0s 8d |
Richard Bagshawe the younger died in 1776 and was succeeded by his son John who was the last Bagshawe in the male line to live at the Oakes. He died childless in 1801 and left the property to his cousin William Chambers Darling M.D. whose mother, Elizabeth, was a grand-daughter of Richard, the first Bagshawe to own the Oakes, and his wife, Elizabeth Gill. William assumed the name of Bagshawe on 14th December and he was knighted in March 1806. Sir William Chambers Bagshawe then became responsible for Gill's, Stones', Scriven's, Bagshawe's and Shepherd's charities. Storie Wingfield's charity was administered by the Rev. Henry Pearson, Vicar of Norton from 1812 to 1844, and Newton's charity by Samuel Shore, the Lord of the Manor of Norton, who is thought to have been a relative of Florence Nightingale.
A table giving details of the charities, the numbers of children taught and the subjects in which these children were instructed is as follows - again according to the Charity Commissioners' Reports of 1839.
| Charities | Appointed by | Number | Instructed in |
| Leonard Gill | Sir W C Bagshawe | 15 | Reading, writing and accounts |
| Edward Gill | Sir W C Bagshawe | 5 | Reading, writing and accounts |
| Nicholas Stones | Sir W C Bagshawe | 7 | Reading, writing and accounts |
| William Scriven | Sir W C Bagshawe | 6 | Reading, writing and accounts |
| Storie Wingfield | The Rev. H. Pearson as lecturer | 10 | Reading |
| Richard Bagshawe | Sir W C Bagshawe | 2 | Reading, writing and accounts |
| Robert Newton | Samuel Shore | 8 | Reading and writing |
| Isaac Shepherd | Sir W C Bagshawe | 6 | Reading |
Records show that Sir W.C. Bagshawe added 10 children to Leonard Gill's charity in 1835, making 25 in all.
The ages of the children taught have been recorded from 1784 to 1803 and they range from 5 to 14. They had varying periods of schooling, for instance one boy, who was the son of a widow, whose address was given as the Workhouse, attended Norton Free School for 3 years, from the age of 6 to 8 years.