Daily AncestorSchoolmaster
A schoolmaster was a male schoolteacher, often the man in charge of a small school with one or two rooms.
The title arose in England in the late Middle Ages, when most schools had only one or two teachers, the master and perhaps an assistant schoolmaster. In England the master was usually a university graduate, and Latin was the core subject of the grammar school.
Wiktionary defines a schoolmaster simply as a male teacher, and the title survives in British private and grammar schools. A woman in the same post was a schoolmistress.
As seen in a recordTown meeting and school district records, 1700s and early 1800s
Paid to Elias Ward, Schoolmaster, for keeping the school 4 months
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Schoolmaster." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/schoolmaster. Last checked 2026-10-10.