Gresham's School

Gresham's School
Greshams-arms.gif
Motto Al Worship Be to God Only
Established 1555
Type Independent
Religious affiliation Church of England
Headmaster Philip John BA[1]
Chairman of Governors Mr A.N.G. Duckworth-Chad OBE, DL
Founder Sir John Gresham
Location Holt
Norfolk
NR25 6EA
England Flag of England
Staff 90 (approx.)
Students 790 (approx.)
Gender Co-educational
Ages 4 to 18
Houses Howson's (1903), Woodlands (1905), Farfield (1911), Tallis (1961), Oakeley (1971), Edinburgh (1984), and Britten (1992)
School colours Black and white
Former pupils Old Greshamians
Patron H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Affiliations Worshipful Company of Fishmongers and HMC
Website greshams.com

Gresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school at Holt in North Norfolk, England, founded in the year 1555, a member of the HMC.

Contents

History

Big School, 1903, architect Sir John Simpson

The School

Gresham's School at Holt was founded by Sir John Gresham by letters patent of 1555, during the reign of Queen Mary I.[2] For its home he gave the school his manor house at Holt, which he had bought in 1546 from his elder brother Sir William Gresham.[3]

The founding of Gresham's was connected to King Henry VIII's suppression of the Priory of Augustinian canons at Beeston Regis in June 1539. The priory, established in 1216, had operated a school which John Gresham and his brothers probably attended, but the school came to an end with the priory, leaving no provision for education in the vicinity of Holt.[2]

The new school opened and was granted a Royal Charter in 1562.[2] By the letters patent of 1555, the school was called in full 'The Free Grammar School of Sir John Gresham, knight, citizen and alderman of London'.[3] The founder endowed Gresham's generously, placing its property in trust with the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers of London, and full estate records dating from the school's foundation are held at the Guildhall Library.[2] Sir John Gresham's endowments included his freehold property in Holt and Letheringsett, his wood and land called Prior's Grove, his manors of Pereers and Holt Hales, "with all and singular to the same belonging, situate in Holt, Sherington, Letheringsett, Bodham, Kellinge, Wayborne, Semlingham, Stodrye, Bantrye, and West Wickham, in the said county of Norfolk", and also tenements called 'The White Hind' and 'The Peacock' in the parish of St Giles's Without, Cripplegate, in the City of London.[3][4] Close links with the Fishmongers' Company continue to this day.[5]

By his Will of 1601, Leonard Smith, a fishmonger of London, left £120 and all his goods to establish a fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and in 1604 'Mr Smith's Fellowship' was confirmed by the College, with the provision that "scholars from the Grammar School of Holt, in Norfolk" were to have preference.[6]

The School Library contains the Foundation Library, a collection of books and manuscripts provided at the school's establishment in 1555 and later.[7]

On Christmas Day 1650, the Reverend Thomas Cooper, MA, a former usher of Gresham's, was hanged for his part in a Royalist rebellion on behalf of Charles II. His body was left hanging on a gibbet in Holt's Market Place.

For three hundred and fifty years, the School was based in what is now called the Old School House, or "Osh", the former manor house of Holt overlooking the Market Place in the town centre. In 1708, the school escaped a major fire which destroyed most of the rest of the mediaeval town of Holt. This resulted in most of the buildings now to be seen in the town centre belonging to the eighteenth century.[2]

In 1729, the Fishmongers' Company presented the school with "...a valuable and useful library, not only of the best editions of the Classics and Lexicographers, but also with some books of Antiquities, Chronology, and Geography, together with a suitable pair of globes".[8] By the eighteenth century, references to fish were hard to find in the court minutes of the Fishmongers' Company, and the company's main business had become managing its extensive property and administering its charities and trusts, such as the school at Holt and St Peter's Hospital, an almshouse at Newington in Surrey.[9]

One of the school's 18th century heads was John Holmes, appointed at the age of twenty-seven, a prolific writer of educational textbooks who led the school between 1730 and his death in 1760.[2][10]

In 1823, the expenditure of the Fishmongers' Company on the school was £367, of which £158 10s was for the Master's salary, allowances and gratuities, £80 for the Usher's salary, board and lodging, £52 11s 6d for repairs, £22 12s 6d for taxes, £15 15s 6d for poor rates, £12 10s for coals, £9 13s 4d for two-thirds of the cost of the school books, and £6 6s for a School Feast which took place in June.[4]

In 1836, 'The Wardens and Commonalty of the Art and Mystery of Fishmongers of the City of London' held an insurance policy for 'Other property or occupiers: Free Grammar School Holt Norfolk (Rev Benn. Pulleyn)' with the Sun Fire Office.[11]

In his History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London (1836), William Herbert says of the school:

GRESHAM'S. - At Holt, in Norfolk. For fifty free scholars, chosen from the town of Holt and neighbourhood, and admitted at six and seven years old. The nomination is in the Fishmongers' Company, in whom also is left the patronage and government of the school.[3]

The Old School was rebuilt and converted in 1859.[2]

In 1880, a Commission was appointed to enquire into the City of London Livery Companies. When it published its first reports in 1881 the following formed part of a 'Supplementary Statement on behalf of the Fishmongers' Company' included in Volume 1:

In the case of Sir John Gresham's Grammar School at Holt, in Norfolk, the Company have from time to time supplemented the trust funds, especially for the purposes of rebuilding and repairs, the amount in which the trust was indebted to the Company, at a not very distant date, having been over 10,000£., and this notwithstanding the constant warnings of the Charity Commissioners that the Company were doing this at their own risk, and that they could in no case be permitted to apply any part of the capital of the trust funds in repayment of their advances; nor any part of the trust income, except within a period of 30 years.[12]

In the early 1900s, under an ambitious headmaster called George Howson (who had moved to Gresham's from Uppingham), the school expanded onto a new campus of some two hundred acres at the eastern edge of the town,[13] while keeping the Old School House as one of its houses.[2] When Howson arrived at Gresham's, he found it in numbers much as it had been when founded in 1555: in 1900 there were only forty Holt Scholars, plus seven boarders.[2]

The New School (by the architect Sir John Simpson) was opened by Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood on 30 September, 1903.[2] This consisted of School House (renamed Howson's in 1919) and the Main Building, including Big School. Woodlands was acquired and opened as a new house in 1905, the school's first swimming pool was opened in 1907,[14] and Farfield was built in 1911. The School Chapel was completed in 1916, during the Great War, during which one hundred Old Greshamians were killed.[15]

The school was evacuated to Newquay in Cornwall during the Second World War, between June 1940 and March 1944.[2]

Under the long headship of Logie Bruce Lockhart (1955-1982), there was a further period of change and expansion. Tallis, a new boys' house named after John Tallis, Master of the school for more than thirty tears in the first half of the seventeenth century, was built and opened in 1961. Oakeley became the first girls' house in 1971, when girls were first admitted to the Sixth Form only.[2] The school became fully co-educational in the early 1980s.[2]

There are now four boarding houses for boys and three for girls (see "Houses" section below), as well as a wide range of buildings. These include Big School, the School Chapel, the Auden Theatre, the Cairns Centre, the School Library, the Music Centre, the Central Block, the Thatched Classrooms, the Reith Laboratories, the Biology Building, the Armoury, and others.

In February, 2005, Gresham's School's 450th anniversary was marked by a service at Norwich Cathedral attended by the school's Patron, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and 1,500 past and present Greshamians. In July, 2005, the Eastern Daily Press called it "a school which changed the world."[16]

Headmasters

See List of Masters of Gresham's School.

Old Greshamians

See List of Old Greshamians.

Houses

Farfield

Most Gresham's students are boarders and live in one of the school's seven houses. Four of these are for boys: Howson's (1903), Woodlands (1905), Farfield (1911), and Tallis (1961). Three houses are for girls: Oakeley (1971), Edinburgh (1984), and Britten (1992).

Each house has a house-master or house-mistress and a house-tutor and matron. There are house teams for team sports, as well as other house activities, such as evening prayers, "prep", and dramatic productions. Most houses are around seventy strong.[17]

Senior boys and girls may be appointed as house prefects. Some of those are then chosen as school prefects, and one in each house as House Captain.

The Old School House was previously the whole school, then from 1905 to 1936 the Junior House, then from 1936 to 1993 a boarding house of the Senior School and is now the home of the Gresham's pre-preparatory school.[2]

Junior Schools

The Old School House and new war memorial, 1921

The former Junior School of Gresham's was reorganized into a Preparatory School and a Pre-Preparatory School in 1984,[2] both on their own sites at Holt, with their own heads and staff. Like the Senior School, both are fully co-educational.

The Preparatory school has over two hundred children between the ages of eight and thirteen and takes full and weekly boarders as well as day pupils. Many continue into the Senior School. The school's Kenwyn House was once a house of the Senior School called Bengal Lodge.

The Pre-Preparatory School is housed in the Old School House and is a day school for one hundred boys and girls between the ages of three and eight.

Admission to the school

In most cases, admission to the senior school of Gresham's depends on success at the Common Entrance Examination, usually taken between the ages of eleven and thirteen. Common Entrance has three compulsory core subjects, English, Maths and Science, and other papers can be chosen from French, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Geography, History, and Religious Studies.

The school also has its own entrance examination for candidates from maintained schools.

Curriculum

The school teaches most subjects of the mainstream humanistic curriculum. While only limited choices between courses need to be made for GCSE, in the Sixth form at A-level pupils choose three or four subjects, and most combinations are possible.[17]

The school has been an International Baccalaureate World School (IB code 003433), offering the IB Diploma Programme, since February 2007.[17][18]

The aim of the school is to give a good all-round education and to prepare pupils for university entry and for other careers, such as the armed forces[17] . Most Greshamians move on to top British universities, such as Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Bristol, Durham and Edinburgh.

School terms

The school's year is divided into three terms, Michaelmas (early September to mid December), Lent (early January to the Easter holiday) and Summer (the Easter holiday to mid July). In the middle of each term there is a half-term holiday, usually a week long. For boarders, there are also other home weekends.

The academic year begins with the Michaelmas term and ends with the Summer term, so starts at the end of the summer holiday.

School sports

Gresham's School bronze medal for sports, dated 1900

Apart from its sports grounds for cricket, rugby football, hockey, and soccer, the school has its own indoor swimming pool, squash, tennis and badminton courts, gymnasium and extensive school woods. It owns a boat-house at Barton Broad and a shooting lodge at Bisley, as well as a shooting range at the school.

The principal school sports for boys are rugby (Michaelmas Term), hockey (Lent Term), and cricket (Summer Term). There is a wide range of other school sports, including tennis, badminton, soccer, squash, golf, martial arts, swimming, riding, sailing, cross-country running, shooting and canoeing. As an alternative to formal sports, Gresham's students may take part in 'School Works', chiefly forestry activities in the woodland attached to the main school campus.

An Old Greshamian, Richard Leman, was a member of the gold-medal winning British hockey squad at the 1988 Summer Olympics and of the bronze-medal winning team at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Another OG, Gawain Briars, was the British number one squash player and now heads the world Professional Squash Association. Brother and sister Ralph and Natasha Firman are both racing drivers, and Natasha was the winner of the inaugural Formula Woman championship in 2004. Giles Baring and Andrew Corran were first-class cricketers, and Andy Mulligan and Nick Youngs played rugby for England. In rifle-shooting, Gresham's has been one of the top ten schools in England for about sixty years, and Glyn Barnett won a shooting Gold Medal in the 2006 Commonwealth Games at Melbourne. In the field of winter sports, the 11th Earl of Northesk took an Olympic medal for toboganning (then called 'skeleton') in 1928. Notable mountaineers have included Tom Bourdillon, Percy Wyn-Harris, Peter Lloyd and Matthew Dickinson.

Religion

Gresham's is a Church of England foundation, but the school is open to all denominations and religions.[17] Services are a focal point of the School's life, with a morning assembly in Chapel on four mornings of the week and in Big School on the other three. The Saturday morning service is a choral practice, and Holy Communion may be taken on Sundays. There are also formal prayers in each boarding house in the evenings.

Non-Anglicans are excused communion services on Sundays, and Roman Catholics attend mass on Sunday at the church of Our Lady and St Joseph in Sheringham.

If wished, boys and girls may be prepared at the School for Confirmation into the Church of England, which is usually conducted by the Bishop of Norwich or one of his suffragan Bishops.

The school was designated as having a Church of England religious character by the Designation of Schools Having a Religious Character (Independent Schools) (England) Order 2004 (No 72).[19]

The tune called Woodlands, the usual setting for the hymn Lift Up Your Hearts!, was composed for the school in 1916 by Walter Greatorex, a Gresham's music master.

The foundation stone of the Chapel was laid by the chairman of governors, Sir Edward Busk, on 8 June 1912.[20] The Chapel bell, cast in Whitechapel in 1915, is inscribed with the words Ring in the Christ that is to be, which are the last line of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem Ring Out, Wild Bells (1850).[2]

Old Greshamians include several bishops, David Hand, Archbishop of Papua New Guinea, and John Bradburne, a candidate for canonization.

Out of school activities

Love's Labour's Lost by Gresham's, c. 1914

There is a School Orchestra, a School Choir, a Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme (more than five hundred Gold Awards have been achieved since its inception in 1972), and a large number of school clubs, such as the Debating Society, the Natural History Society, the Sailing Club, and the Chess Club.

North Norfolk Divers, a branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club, is based at the school.

A school play is produced at the end of every Summer Term, and each house also produces a play once a year. There are also many visits to concerts, plays and other outside events.[17]

In 1925, W. H. Auden played Caliban in the school's production of The Tempest.[21]

Combined Cadet Force

Cap badge of the Gresham's School 0TC from the 1930s

Gresham's has a long military tradition, from Sir Christopher Heydon, who took part in the capture of Cádiz in 1596, to Tom Wintringham, commander of the British Battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and General Sir Robert Bray, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe[2].

Before the Second World War, the school had an Officers Training Corps. During the 1940s, OTCs in British schools were renamed 'Junior Training Corps', and the school's JTC was amalgamated into the Combined Cadet Force in April, 1948, which continues to provide military training.

The CCF's Army section is now associated with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment (previously with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, to 1959, and the 1st East Anglian Regiment, 1959 to 1964) and has some 270 students as cadets. About another 130 are in the CCF's Air section, and training takes place on one afternoon of each week. Activities include shooting, expeditions, combat manoeuvres, ambush and continuity drills, signals training, orienteering, climbing, kayaking, line-laying, first aid and lifesaving, motor mechanics, and hovercraft construction.[17]

A Biennial Review of the Gresham's School CCF Contingent was carried out on 10 May 2006 by General Sir Richard Dannatt KCB CBE MC, Commander-in-Chief Land Command and Chief of the General Staff designate.[17]

Scholarships

Scholarships are available, giving a reduction in school fees. These include Open Academic Scholarships, Music, Art and Drama Scholarships, Lockhart Academic Scholarships, Edinburgh Scholarships, Fishmongers' Company Open Scholarships and Fishmongers' Art Scholarships, Sports Scholarships and All Rounder Scholarships. There is also an award called the 450th Anniversary Boarding Award.[17]

Examinations for Academic Scholarships are held every November for admission the following September, while Scholarships in Music, Sport, Art, and Drama are awarded on the basis of interviews and practical work.[17]

Sixth Form Scholarships for Sport, Music, Art, and academic distinction are awarded in December for the two years beginning the following September and are open to external and internal candidates.[17]

The maximum value of a Scholarship is half of the school's fees, but the value may be increased by a bursary in cases of financial need.

Roughly one in four Gresham's pupils hold a scholarship, and about one in eight receive a bursary for financial need.

Enquiries about Scholarships should be made to The Registrar, Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk NR25 6EA (registrar@greshams.com).[17]

Fees

The school's annual fees for the academic year 2008-09 are:[17]

In September 2005, Gresham's was one of the leading British schools (including Ampleforth, Eton, Charterhouse, Harrow, Haileybury, Marlborough, Rugby, Shrewsbury, Stowe, Wellington and Winchester) which were considered by the Office of Fair Trading to be operating a fee-fixing cartel in breach of the Competition Act 1998. All of the schools were ordered to abandon the practice of exchanging information on their planned fees.

Governing body

Arms of the Fishmongers' Company

More than half of the school's Governing Body represent the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, who have been the school's trustees since 1555[2]. The Chairman of Governors (currently Mr A.N.G. Duckworth-Chad, D.L., a Norfolk landowner)[22] is always a past or present Prime Warden of the Fishmongers' Company. A previous Chairman was the late Admiral Earl Cairns, after whom the school's Cairns Centre is named.[2] The present Prime Warden, Sir Richard Carew Pole, is also a governor.[22]

The governing body includes a representative of Cambridge University, currently Lady Perry of Southwark, and one of Norfolk County Council[22], and it also seeks to include some distinguished Old Greshamians.

The Clerk of the Fishmongers' Company also acts as Clerk to the Governing Body, and its meetings are held at Fishmongers' Hall in the City of London[2].

The Grasshopper

The Gresham grasshopper

The Grasshopper is used as the badge of several Gresham's School clubs, and a long-established school periodical is called The Grasshopper. The green insect appears as the crest above the school's coat of arms, commemorating the Founder, Sir John Gresham, whose family crest it was. The Gresham Grasshopper is also used by Gresham College and can be seen as the weathervane on the Royal Exchange in the City of London, founded in 1565 by Gresham's nephew Sir Thomas Gresham, and the similar weathervane on the Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, which is modelled on the Royal Exchange's. The first Royal Exchange was profusely decorated with grasshoppers.

According to an ancient legend of the Greshams, the founder of the family, Roger de Gresham, was a foundling abandoned as a new-born baby in long grass in North Norfolk in the 13th century and found there by a woman whose attention was drawn to the child by a grasshopper. A beautiful story, it is more likely that the grasshopper is simply an heraldic rebus on the name Gresham, with gres being a Middle English form of grass (Old English grœs).

In the system of English heraldry, the grasshopper is said to represent wisdom and nobility[23].

Development and external relations

During the celebrations of the school's 450th year in 2005, the establishment was announced of a Foundation to focus on encouraging legacies and donations for scholarships, bursaries and specific major projects. A Director of Development and External Relations has since been appointed, as part of a programme of reaching out to Old Greshamians, and gatherings are planned around the UK and overseas.[17]

Bibliography

Archives

The arms of the Fishmongers' Company and Sir John Gresham, which Gresham's used side by side until its own arms were granted

The Manuscripts Section of the Guildhall Library in the City of London holds the following Gresham's School records[25]:

The Norfolk Record Office also holds some Gresham's accessions,[26] including a bundle of correspondence relating to the school from 1799 to 1810 between the Fishmongers' Company and Adey & Repton, including copies of statutes.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Formerly head of King William's College, Isle of Man, see Latest News dated 9 January 2008 at greshams.com (accessed 5 June 2008)
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 I Will Plant Me a Tree: an Illustrated History of Gresham's School by S.G.G. Benson and Martin Crossley Evans (James & James, London, 2002) ISBN 0-907383-92-0
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Herbert, William, (1771-1851) The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London (London, Wm Herbert, 1836) pp. 80-81 at books.google.co.uk
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Commissioners for inquiry into charities, The endowed charities of the City of London; reprinted at large from seventeen reports of the commissioners (London, M. Sherwood, 1829) pp. 571-575
  5. ↑ The Worshipful Company of Fishmongers official site (accessed 15 August 2007)
  6. ↑ Potts, Robert, Liber Cantabrigiensis (1855) p. 373
  7. ↑ A Catalogue of the Foundation Library of Gresham's School, by P.J. Lee (Holt, 1965)
  8. ↑ Monroe, Paul, ed. A Cyclopedia of Education (London, Macmillan, 1926), online edition of archive.org
  9. ↑ Earle, Peter, The Making of the English Middle Class, p. 258 (University of California Press, 1989) at escholarship.org
  10. ↑ John Holmes (1702/3–1760), schoolmaster and writer on education by David Stoker in Dictionary of National Biography (OUP, 2004)
  11. ↑ MS 11936/540/1172699 at nationalarchives.gov.uk
  12. ↑ 'Statement of the Fishmongers' Company', in City of London Livery Companies Commission Report, Volume 1 (1884), pp. 324-327, accessed 18 September 2008.
  13. ↑ Image of main Gresham's campus at art-e-mail.com (accessed 29 August 2007)
  14. ↑ The Checkley Collection at holtmuseum.org.uk (accessed 24 May 2008)
  15. ↑ When Heroes Die by Sue Smart (Breedon Books, 2001) ISBN 1-85983-256-3
  16. ↑ Eastern Daily Press, Norwich, July 2005
  17. ↑ 17.00 17.01 17.02 17.03 17.04 17.05 17.06 17.07 17.08 17.09 17.10 17.11 17.12 17.13 Gresham's School online
  18. ↑ *Gresham's at the International Baccalaureate Organization (accessed 15 August 2007)
  19. ↑ Designation of Schools Having a Religious Character (Independent Schools) (England) Order 2004 (accessed 15 August 2007)
  20. ↑ The Times of London, Monday, 10 June, 1912, page 4
  21. ↑ Wright, Hugh, Auden and Gresham's in Conference Common Room, Vol. 44, No. 2, Summer 2007 online at schoolsearch.co.uk (accessed 25 April 2008)
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 List of Governors List of governors of Gresham's School] at gresham's.com
  23. ↑ Symbolisms of Heraldry at digiserve.com (accessed 9 October 2007)
  24. ↑ Howson, George William Saul, Sermons by a Lay Headmaster, Preached at Gresham's School, 1900-1918 (Longmans, Green and co., 1920) online at books.google.com, accessed 24 November 2008
  25. ↑ Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section (Accessions 7282, 7789A/1-2, 7791/1-4, 20341 and 20342/1-2)
  26. ↑ Norfolk Record Office
  27. ↑ Gresham's accessions, reference NRA 27820 Repton (accessed 15 August 2007)

External links

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