Stephen Perse

He was probably educated at Norwich School, and took his B.A. degree at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1569, where he was elected to a fellowship.{{acad|id=PRS565S|name= Pearse, Stephen}} Ordained in May 1573, as a Church of England priest and deacon, he was subsequently permitted to change his fellowship to "physick" and took the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1581.{{acad|id=PRS565S|name= Pearse, Stephen}}

Perse amassed a fortune of around £10,000, probably from profits on business loans.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} He gave money to the University Library, for the establishment of the road now known as Maid's Causeway, and for the public water supply from the springs at Nine Wells to Cambridge along the stream known as Hobson's Conduit.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}}

The grave of Stephen Perse is commemorated by a memorial in the Caius College chapel[https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21238 Find-a-grave - Dr Stephen Perse]{{better source needed|date=May 2023}} and he is remembered at the College's annual Perse Feast. His epitaph there reads:

{{poemquote

|Christian surnamde Stephan Perse I hight

Sole life with God alone, my crowne my light

With living God eternall life I live

This now my song: to sole God praise I give

This epitaph by me Perse was devizd

To none else my thoughts better were comprizd.}}

{{citation needed|date=August 2019}}

File:Stephen Perse MD (Cambridge).jpg in Free School Lane, Cambridge]]

In his will, Perse gave a significant sum of money for the establishment of "a Grammar Free Schoole", and adjoining almhouses for six poor widows. The school was to teach five score scholars born in Cambridge, Barnwell, Chesterton or Trumpington, with some of the boys able to proceed to scholarships at Gonville and Caius College."Perse: A History of the Perse School 1615-1976", S.J.D. Mitchell, Oleander Press, Cambridge 1976.

"A History of the Perse School, Cambridge", J.M. Gray, Bowes and Bowes, Cambridge 1921.

In 1615 the Perse School was founded in Cambridge.[http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/aboutthemuseum/history/ The original Perse School (now the Whipple Museum)] His foundation is commemorated by a blue plaque at its original site (now the Whipple Museum) in Free School Lane.[http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/ccm/content/google-maps/blue-plaques-map.en Cambridge Blue Plaques] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090426123025/http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/ccm/content/google-maps/blue-plaques-map.en |date=26 April 2009 }} The school motto is Qui facit per alium facit per se, usually taken to mean "He who does things for others does them for himself"; the Latin sentence ends "per se" in a word play on the founder's name. In 1881, the Perse School for Girls was established, now part of the Stephen Perse Foundation.

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Category:1548 births

Category:1615 deaths

Category:People educated at Norwich School

Category:Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Category:Founders of English schools and colleges

Category:Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Category:16th-century English writers

Category:16th-century English male writers

Category:17th-century English writers

Category:17th-century English male writers

Category:English philanthropists

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