John Mattock executed a foundation deed which established that the rents and profits of the lands he had assigned to trustees in 1632 should be applied 'to the maintenance of an able and learned school-master for instructing the children of the inhabitants of Hitchin in good literature and virtuous education for the avoiding of idleness, the mother of all vice and wickedness'.
He then appointed Edward Thornhill, John Skynner, Symon Lucas, Thomas Huckle, Robert Papworth, Lawrence Tristram, John Hurst, Francis Spencer, William Myttten, Edward Hurst and Henry Kingsley to be the Trustees of his foundation.