Hawtreys

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Hawtreys Preparatory School was an independent boys school in Slough, later in Oswestry, and still later near Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, and in its early years was known as St Michael's School.

In the 1990s, the school merged with Cheam School, near Newbury, Berkshire.

[edit] History

The school was founded in 1869 by the Reverend John Hawtrey. He had been a boy at Eton, from the age of eight. In later life he became a master at Eton and was offered his own house of boys. He decided to remove all of the younger boys from the school. With the permission of Eton College, he took the lowest two forms out to a separate school in Slough and housed them in what is now St Bernard's Catholic Grammar School, Slough. This was known as St Michael's School, and was opened on St Michael's day, 1869. John Hawtrey's son, Edward, removed the school to Westgate-on-Sea early in the twentieth century. When Edward Hawtrey died, the name of the school was changed to Hawtreys. The school buildings were requisitioned during the Second World War and the school moved to Oswestry, to the home of Sir William Wynn-Williams. In 1946 it moved to Tottenham House, a large Palladian country house near the village of Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, in the heart of the Savernake Forest. Throughout the history of the school, a close connection was maintained with Eton College to which most boys moved at the age of thirteen. In the 1990s, the school merged with Cheam School, near Newbury, Berkshire, which is formally called Cheam Hawtreys, but generally known simply as Cheam.

[edit] References

• Henry VIII Houses
• Cheam School - official site

[edit] Wiltshire Schools