Coleshill, John Goldsmith, and William att Slowe, all of Birmingham,
obtained a patent from the crown to erect a building upon the spot where
the Free School now stands in New-street, to be called _The Gild of the
Holy Cross_; to endow it with lands in Birmingham and Edgbaston, of the
annual value of twenty marks, for the maintenance of two priests, who
were to perform divine service to the honor of God, our blessed Lady his
Mother, the Holy Cross, St. Thomas, and St. Catharine.

The fashion seemed to take with the inhabitants, many of whom wished to
join the four happy men, who had obtained the patent for so pious a
work; so that, in 1393, a second patent was procured by the bailiff and
inhabitants of Birmingham, for confirming the gild, and making the
addition of a brotherhood in honor of the Holy Cross, consisting of both
sexes, with power to constitute a master and wardens, and also to erect
a chantry of priests to celebrate divine service in the chapel of the
gild, for the souls of the founders, and all the fraternity; for whose
support there were given, by divers persons, eighteen messuages, three
tofts, (pieces of ground) six acres of land, and forty shillings rent,
lying in Birmingham and Edgbaston aforesaid.

But, in the 27th of Henry the Eighth, 1536, when it was the fashion of
that day, to multiply destruction against the religious, and their
habitations, the annual income of the gild was valued, by the King's
random visitors, at the sum of 31_l_. 2s. 10d. out of which, three
priests who sung mass, had 5_l_. 6s. 8d. each; an organist, 3_l_. 13s.
4d. the common midwife, 4s. the bell-man, 6s. 8d. with other salaries of
inferior note.

These lands continued in the crown 'till 1552, the fifth of Edward the
Sixth, when, at the humble suit of the inhabitants, they were