The school received no endowment from that company or from The Honourable The Irish Society (the body charged with the plantation of the County of Londonderry in the 17th century). There followed an ongoing dispute between the Irish Society and the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry as to who had the authority to appoint the headmaster. The former because one of its representatives had founded the school and the latter because it held the school to be one of the diocesan grammar schools provided for by statute. This was only resolved in the early 19th century by Act of Parliament.