Lurgan College

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Coordinates: 54°28′19″N 6°20′53″W / 54.47194°N 6.34806°W / 54.47194; -6.34806

Lurgan College

Address College Walk
Lurgan
BT66 6JW
Phone (+ 44 28) 38 32 20 83
Email info@lurgancollege.lurgan.ni.sch.uk
Location Lurgan, Northern Ireland, UK
Head Teacher Mr T.D. Robinson.
School type Controlled 14–19 Grammar
School Colours Navy, Red, White.
School Board SELB
Enrollment 420 students
Founded 1873 by Samuel Watts Esq.
Motto Meliora Sequor

Lurgan College is a selective age 14–19 grammar school situated in the town of Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Today

The school continues to rank within the top 20 Northern Irish secondary level schools in the Sunday Times Parent Power Survey.[1]

The school has received the necessary funding to proceed with plans to erect a new building, replacing all of the current accommodation except for the listed 1873 portion. Work was to commence in March 2009, but this still has not happened.[2]

Notable former pupils

Albert Lewis, father of the author C.S. Lewis (1898–1963), attended the school from 1877-79 under Headmaster W.T. Kirkpatrick. Albert later became Kirkpatrick's solicitor. When Kirkpatrick retired and began to privately tutor pupils he taught both of Albert's sons, first Warnie Lewis whom he prepared for the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and later C.S. Lewis himself.[3]

William "W.T." Kirkpatrick, headmaster of the school in the late 19th century, was a private tutor to C.S. Lewis in the mid 1910s. He was inspiration for the character Digory Kirke (a professor) who was created by C.S. Lewis for the Narnia books a quarter of a century later.[4]

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, DBE, FRS FRAS, Ph.D (born as Susan Jocelyn Bell, 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist, who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis advisor Antony Hewish, for which he (but not she) won a Nobel Prize. Some feel Bell Burnell's contribution was deliberately understated.[5] She attended Lurgan College Preparatory Department from 1948–56 and returned to Lurgan College in 2007 while filming the BBC bio-doc 'Northern Star' and then again later that same year as the guest of honour at the school's speech day and prize-giving ceremony.[6]

Clubs and societies

The School boasts a large number of clubs and societies:

  • Army Cadets Force,
  • Art,
  • Community Service,
  • Computer,
  • Debating,
  • Drama,
  • Duke of Edinburgh's Award,
  • Environmental Club
  • First Aid,
  • Girls' Hockey Club
  • Geographical,
  • Historical,
  • Modern Languages,
  • Public Speaking,
  • Rugby club – 1st XV, 2nd XV and medallion XV
  • Boys Hockey Club
  • Scripture Union
  • Skiing

Girls' Hockey Success

The 1st XI girls hockey team have had notable success in the past number of years. In 2003 they won the Ulster Girls Senior Schools Cup and went on to win the Kate Russell All Irelands in 2003. They repeated this success twice more in 2011 and 2013. They have been in the final of the Ulster Girls Senior Schools Cup in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The 2nd XI ahve also had great success. They reached the final of the McDowell Cup in 2012 and won this trophy in 2013.

Notes

  1. ↑ See NI Parent Power Rank
  2. ↑ See Lurgan Mail
  3. ↑ See Chronology of the Life of C. S. Lewis
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ See Zuckerman, H. (1977). Deviant Behaviour and Social Control in Science. pp. 87–138 in Sagarin, E. (ed.) Deviance and Social Change. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
  6. ↑ See articles in the Lurgan Mail and Belfast Telegraph.

External links

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