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In and for [March 1686 - September 1689] you the said Josiah Young have been and are a person of a very scandalous life, an immoderate drinker of strong drink, a great frequenter of alehouses. You have so unhappily and sottishly in the said months and years given yourself over to the sin of drunkenness, and idleness, that you have totally and miserably neglected and been careless of your school, and the instruction of those scholars committed to your care and charge, so that several persons in the neighbourhood have been and are constrained to take their children away from you and the said school and send them elsewhere for their education to their great expense and the destruction of the aforesaid School [West Kirby Grammar School], so well founded. For such you have been for the time aforesaid, and are within the parish of West Kirby and places adjacent commonly reputed, accounted, and taken... At such times as you have been drinking and tippling in alehouses, and thereby neglecting the School and the education and instruction of the scholars therein, you have been earnestly moved and desired (nay even by those that sold you strong drink) to leave that sottish and careless sort of life, and betake your self to the business of your school, to which good and seasonable advice you would have returned this answer (I know my own business)... In Bishop Pearson's time, you Josiah Yonge was complained on to his Lordship, by the parishioners of West Kirby for your neglect of the school, and were upon proofs then made before his Lordship, personally admonished to be more careful and diligent in your duty, notwithstanding you Josiah Yonge have ever since persisted in your neglect.