Rugby, a town in Warwickshire, England; 83 miles N.W. of London and 30 E.S.E. of Birmingham. At the foot of the hill on which it stands the river Swift gave Wyclif's ashes to the Avon; close by at Ashby and at Dunchurch the Gunpowder Plot was hatched; the battlefield of Naseby was viewed by Carlyle from its school house in 1842, a few days before Arnold's death; it is within a drive of Stratford-on-Avon, Coventry, Kenilworth. It is at once the center of a great hunting district and the seat of a world-famous public school. This probably accounts for the large number of residential houses there. The school was founded in 1567 by Lawrence Sheriff, a grocer and a staunch supporter of Queen Elizabeth, by a gift of property in Manchester Square, London. After maintaining its position for some time as a good school for the Warwickshire gentry and a few others, specially under Dr. James and Dr. Wool, it became of national reputation under Dr. Arnold, who in raising his school raised at the same time the dignity of his whole profession. Since his time the school has never lacked able teachers, remarkable for independence of mind.
Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia,
1912.