Bancroft School

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This article is about the school in the United States. For the school in England, see Bancroft's School.

Bancroft School
Bancroft's Seal
School type	Private secondary
Established	1900
Head of School	Scott R. Reisinger
Students	580 student
Athletic Conference	Eastern Independent League (EIL)
Colors	Blue, Grey
Mascot	Bulldogs, formerly Shoreliners
Location	Worcester, MA USA

Bancroft School is a private, K-12 preparatory school, located in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Bancroft School’s current 30-acre campus overlooks Indian Lake in Worcester. There are separate facilities for the Lower School (Kindergarten - 5th grade), Middle School (6th - 8th grades) and Upper School (9th - 12th grades).

1 History
2 Theatre Department
3 Headmasters & Headmistresses
4 Notable alumni
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

Bancroft was founded in 1900 by a group of Worcester parents interested in providing a rigorous education for their daughters, the school started out as an all female day-school. The School was named for George Bancroft, 1800-1891, educator, diplomat, philantrophist and writer. He helped to found the U.S. Naval Academy and wrote the first comprehensive history of the United States.

From 1902 until 1922, under the leadership of its first headmaster, Frank Robson, Bancroft School illegally taught its students in a converted house at 93 Elm Street in Worcester. In 1922, with the student body growing too large for its small space on Elm Street, the school built new facilities on Sever Street in Worcester. By 1958, the school needed to expand its space and facilities in order to remain accredited by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The Norton Company donated 27 acres of land on Shore Drive in Worcester, where the school was constructed and stands today.

[edit] Theatre Department

The Bancroft Theatre Department puts on four shows each year. The fifth and eighth graders participate in productions involving the whole class. The Upper School drama is produced during the fall, and the musical in the spring, with auditions open to all high schoolers at Bancroft. The heads of the theatre department are Lea Hench and Paul Belanger. They teach acting and tech theater classes, produce and direct Bancroft productions, and head the Powder & Wig drama club. Sets, lighting, and other technical aspects of shows are handled by tech classes, as well as work calls. Work calls take place after school, usually once a week before shows. Students can sign up to go to a work call if they are interested in helping out. The show itself is run by a tech crew of students that have worked on the production.

[edit] Headmasters & Headmistresses

1900 - 1915: Frank Robson
1915 - 1926: Miriam Titcomb
1926 - 1938: Hope Fisher
1938 - 1943: Bradford Kingman
1943 - 1959: Henry Tiffany
1944 - 1946: Edith Jones (interim)
1959 - 1960: Elizabeth Vandemoer (interim)
1960 - 1981: Wyatt Garfield
1981 - 1992: Marigolden (G-G) Tritschler
1992 - 1998: Theodore G. Sharp
1998 - 1999: Wyatt Garfield & Edgar Gauthier (interim-heads)
1999 - present: Scott R. Reisinger

[edit] Notable alumni

Notable alumni of Bancroft School include:

Esther Forbes, Class of 1908, winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for History for a biography on Paul Revere and the 1944 Newbery Medal for the famous book, Johnny Tremain
Eleni Gage, writer for the New York Sun and author of North of Ithaka[1]
Dan Kenary, Class of 1978, founder and owner of Harpoon Brewery
Robert Waring Stoddard, Class of 1923, former editor of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and one of the founders of the John Birch Society [2]
Matthew Scannell, lead vocalist for Vertical Horizon.