Thomas Rotherham College
Thomas Rotherham College is a college for 16 to 19 year olds, founded in 1967. It is located in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England.
Admissions
The principal is Dr Richard Williams. It is situated on the top of a hill, off Moorgate Road (A618), next to Boston Castle.
History
Grammar school
The college has its origins in Rotherham Grammar School (founded 1483), whose buildings it took over. Its name is derived from the fifteenth century cleric Thomas Rotherham. In the 1960s it had around 600 boys and was administered by the County Borough of Rotherham Education Committee.
Sixth form college
It became the Thomas Rotherham College in 1967, although it was 1968 before it received its first mixed intake. By the early 1970s it had 400 at the college and 500 by the mid-1980s.
The College building (1876)
The main building of what is now the Thomas Rotherham College was built as a theological college training minsters for Congregational churches. The site (originally 8.5 acres) had been bought in 1870, for £ 3,200. But, the building project was delayed owing to the commercial upheaval arising from the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war. The building was eventually executed in "collegiate Gothic" at a cost of £ 23,000, and it was opened on 20 September 1876.
However, the new Rotherham Congregational College was in use for only twelve years. In 1888, it amalgamated with the Congregational College at Bradford and the merged college operated from the Bradford premises. The Rotherham building was no longer needed and it was sold to become the premises of the Rotherham Grammar School.[1] The School moved in around 1890.
Academic performance
It gets A-level results second in Rotherham LEA to Wath Comprehensive School.
Alumni
Rotherham Grammar School
- Bishop Robert Sanderson (1587 - 1663), moderator of the 1661 Savoy Conference. Two of the prayers in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer have often been attributed to Sanderson. These are the "general thanksgiving" and the "prayer for all conditions of men".[2]
- Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin - founded the Austin Motor Company, and Conservative MP from 1918-24 for Birmingham King's Norton
- Sir Donald Bailey - inventor of the Bailey Bridge.
- Prof Robert Auty, Professor of Comparative Slavonic Philology from 1965-78 at the University of Oxford, and President frm 1964-7 of the British University Association of Slavists (became the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in 1989)
- Prof George Bentley, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery from 1982-2002 at the University College London Medical School
- Stanley Crowther, Labour MP from 1976-92 for Rotherham
- Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer from 1998-2010
- Alfred Goldstein CBE, civil engineer, responsible for designing the M23, the Belfast Transportation Plan, Clifton Bridge (A52) in Nottingham, Winthorpe Bridge (A1) at Newark, the Itchen Bridge in Southampton, and the Elizabeth Bridge in Cambridge
- George Charles Gray, organist
- John Harris (novelist)
- Robert Jenkins CBE, President from 1951-3 and 1973-5 of The Welding Institute
- Walter Jenkins, Vice Chancellor from 1953-8 of the University of Dhaka
- Prof Harry Kay CBE, Vice Chancellor from 1973-84 of the University of Exeter, Professor of Psychology from 1960-73 at the University of Sheffield, and President from 1971-2 of the British Psychological Society
- Donald McWhinnie, theatre director
- John Rose (chemist),
- Sgt. Ian McKay. Victoria Cross, Falklands campaign.(RGS 1964-1969)
References
- ^ Information derived from the book "Yorkshire United Independent College - two hundred years of training for the Christian ministry by the Congregational churches of Yorkshire", by Revd Kenneth W Wadsworth MA; published by Independent Press, London, 1954.
- ^ Proctor, History of the Book of Common Prayer, ed 1872, pp 262-7.
External links
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