The following article is quoted from 'Bye Gones relating to Wales and the Border Countries', May 1885 issue:-
A MASTER OF RUTHIN SCHOOL
This old school has done good service in its day; but the signs of the times portend that, before very long, it will come under the revisional eye of the public authority, who has to do with eduactional reformations of our own time. The school was founded some three hundred years ago by Gabriel Goodman, D. D., a native of Ruthin, who was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and became in 1560 a Prebendary of Westminster, and in the following year Dean of that Church. He died on the 17th of June, 1601, aged 73; but before his death he had appointed three Wardens in Ruthin; first, his kinsman, Eubule Thelwall; second, his successor, John Pryce; and third, Jasper Griffith, who survived the founder for something like five years, and thenceforward the wardens would be appointed in accordance with the provisions of his will.
The Masters of the School evidently occupied a distinct position, on the establishment, from the Warden; and in 1739, the Rev. Thomas Hughes, Ll. B. of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, filled the post, in succession to Thomas Vaughan, who had just died. Mr. Hughes had been the master of a school at Hanmer, before he went to Ruthin; and Mr Archdeacon Hanmer says that 'he carried this (Ruthin) school to a degree of celebrity it had not before obtained.' He stands out, therefore, as the Master, who secured for the School a famous name, and we naturally desire to know something of the man's history, and of his belongings. As to his personal history I am quite in the dark, except that it is said 'he was removed to the Rectory of Llanfwrog about 1755,' but I cannot reconcile that with the fact that in 1767 he wrote to the Rev. Mr. Gale about Ruthin School affairs, just as if he was still connected with it as of yore.
His surroundings cannot fail to be interesting to the readers of Bye-Gones, because they show his connection with the old Welsh family of the Salusburies of Lleweni, and with His Honour Judge Thomas Hughes, the famous author of 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'. This is how I have worked that out, subject of course to correction:-
Roger Salusbury, D. C. L., of Jesus College, Oxford, was the sixth son of Sir John Salusbury of Lleweni; he married Catherine, daughter of Sir Richard Clough, by Catherine of Berain, and so became possessed of Bachegraig, and the founder of the family of his own name at that place. Their son -
John Salusbury, married Elizabeth, daughter of John Ravenscroft of Bretton, in Flintshire, and dying in 1685 he left a son, and successor -
John Salusbury, of Bachegraig, who married Elizabeth Norreys [This is incorrect. Her name was Margaret Norris.] of Speke, in Lancashire, and grand-daughter, I rather think, of the unhappy Thomas Salusbury, who was executed for the share he took in the Babbington conspiracy. Their son -
Thomas Salusbury, married Anne, daughter of Thomas Percival of North-Weston, who dying in 1700, left a second son - a man of some scholarly mark -
Norfolk Salusbury, who married Elizabeth Williams of Ty-Newydd, in Denbighshire, by whome he had, among other children, a daughter -
Elizabeth Salusbury, who married the Rev. Thomas Hughes, of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and of Donnington Priory, and 'who served in the Welsh Church, as incumbent of Llanfwrog and Llantysilio', so that there can be no doubt as to his being the gentleman already alluded to as Master of Ruthin School. His son-
Thomas Hughes, D. D., was partly educated at Ruthin; he became Canon Residentiary at St. Paul's, and Deputy Clerk of the Church; and also, Preceptor to the Dukes of Cumberland, Sussex and Cambridge. He married Anne, daughter of the Rev. George Watts, and had a son -
John Hughes (of Donnington Priory) who was also partly educated at Ruthin, and afterwards at Oriel College, Oxford. He is well known to the public as the accomplished author of the 'Boscobel Tracts', published in 1857. He married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Wilkinson of Stokesley Castle, Yorkshire, and His Honour Mr. Judge Thomas Hughes is, I believe, a younger son of that match.
The careful student of genealogical history is often perplexed with cross-matches between persons of the same names, but in lines as divergent as possible when they come to examine them. I have met with one of these instances in my researches after the Master of Ruthin School, and oddly enough, the Bachegraig family, and another descendant of Mr. Hughes's, became united under -
Thelwall Salusbury, Ll. B., son of Robert Salusbury of Cotton Hall, Denbigh [he was the elder son of Norfolk Salusbury, shown above], by Gwendolen, daughter of Ellis Davies of Nantyrwhaidd, Merionethshire, married Elizabeth Offley, and had -
Thelwall Salusbury, Vicar of Offley, Herts, who married Elizabeth Anne, daughter of Ffollet Powel of Temperford Hall, and their daughter -
Anne Salusbury, married Samuel Steward of London, leaving at her death, an only daughter, Anne Salusbury Steward of Offley Place, Herts. As I make it out, this lady married George Hughes, an elder brother of Mr. Judge Thomas Hughes, and whose beautiful character has been so charmingly displayed in the life memorials the latter gentleman published of his brother for the use of his children.
There is in this way a strain of the old Clwydian blood brought back to that 'Hertfordshire Home', which Mrs. Piozzi [See the Dictionary of National Biography] has so lovingly depicted in her autobiography; none the less pleasing to us, when we can also trace it back to the Rev. Thomas Hughes, whose name will be reverenced by every reader of Gabriel Goodman's Memoirs, as a renowned Master of Ruthin School, and the ancestor of men who have done good service to their country.
GLADWYN