 Up to the end of the sixteenth century Leeds may be looked upon as existing in semi-feudalism.There is no mention of education in Leeds until 1552, when one William Sheafield, who seems to have been a chantry priest of St. Catherine in Leeds, left property in the
town for the establishment of a learned school-master who should teach freely for ever such scholars, youths, and children as should resort to him, with the wise proviso that the Leeds folk themselves should find a suitable building and make up the master's salary to ten pounds a year.Here is the origin of Leeds Grammar School which, first housed in the Calls, and subsequently—through the beneficence of John Harrison—in Lady Lane, had by the end of that century become an institution of vast importance.