RUGBY a market-town of Warwickshire, is finely situated on a table-land rising from the southern bank of the Avon, at the junction of several railway lines, and near the Grand Junction Canal, 30 miles E.S.E. of Birmingham, and 20 S.S.W. of Leicester. It is a well-built town, with a large number of modern houses erected for private residences. It occupies C, gravel site, is well drained, and has a good supply of water. It owes its importance to the grammar school, built and endowed by Laurence Sheriff, a merchant grocer and servant to Queen Elizabeth, and a native of the neighbouring village of Brownsover. The endowment consisted of the parsonage of Brownsover, Sheriff’s mansion house in Rugby, and one-third (8 acres) of his estate in Middlesex, near the Foundling Hospital, London, which, being let on building leases, gradually increased to about £5000 a year. The full endowment was obtained in 1653. The school originally stood opposite the parish church, and was removed to its present site on the south side of the town between 1710 and 1750. In 1809 it was rebuilt from designs by Hake-will; the chapel, dedicated to St Lawrence, was added in 1820. At the tercentenary of the school in 1867 subscriptions were set on foot for founding scholarships, building additional schoolrooms, rebuilding or enlarging the chapel, and other objects. The chapel was rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1872. A swimming bath was erected in 1876; the Temple observatory, containing a fine equatorial refractor by Alvan Clark, was built in 1877, and the Temple reading room with the art museum in 1878. The workshops underneath the gymnasium were opened in 1880, and a new big school and class rooms were erected in 1885. There are three major and four minor exhibitions for students to any university in ...