The Latymer School

The Latymer School

Motto	Latin: Qui Patitur Vincit ("He who endures wins")
Established	1624
Type	Voluntary aided grammar school
Headteacher	Maureen Cobbett
Founder	Edward Latymer
Location	Haselbury Road Edmonton Greater London N9 9TN England 51°37′30″N 0°04′28″W / 51.6250°N 0.0744°W / 51.6250; -0.0744Coordinates: 51°37′30″N 0°04′28″W / 51.6250°N 0.0744°W / 51.6250; -0.0744
Local authority	Enfield
DfE number	308/5400
DfE URN	102055 Tables
Ofsted	Reports
Staff	137 (as of Nov 2014)
Students	around 1,396 pupils
Gender	Coeducational
Ages	11–18
Houses	Ashworth      Dolbé      Keats      Lamb      Latymer      Wyatt
Colours	Royal Blue
Publication	Clio(School History Magazine)
Website	www.latymer.co.uk

The Latymer School is a selective, mixed grammar school in Edmonton, London, England, established in 1624 by Edward Latymer. According to league tables, Latymer is one of the top state-schools in the country. Its current headteacher is Maureen Cobbett.

History and traditions

Latymer was established in 1624 on Church Street, Edmonton by bequest of Edward Latymer, a London City merchant in Hammersmith. Although most of his wealth passed to the people of Hammersmith and the Parish of St Dunstan's (now Latymer Upper School), he named certain properties and estates to fund the education and livelihoods of "eight poore boies of Edmonton" with a doublet, a pair of breeches, a shirt, a pair of woolen stockings and shoes distributed biannually on Ascension Day and All Saints' Day. Pupils were educated in "God's true religion" and reading English to the age of thirteen at existing petty schools. The boys had to wear the red Latymer cross on their sleeves and were under a duty to carry out the provisions of his will "unto the end of the world".

The school has formal links with St John's College, Cambridge (Edward Latymer's College) and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (the College of Edward Latymer's father, William Latymer) which have endowments which may be used for the furtherance of the studies of former Latymer pupils at those colleges.

In 1662, John Wild of Edmonton made a bequest, including £4 per annum for the maintenance of a schoolmaster and a similar sum to maintain a poor scholar at Cambridge. This was followed in 1679 with Thomas Style's request of Edmonton of £20 per annum for teaching "twenty poor boys ... Grammar and Latin tongue." Several similar benefactions produced about £550 per annum, which funded the instruction of more than one hundred boys, of which sixty were clothed. For more than a century, no further significant bequests were made until in 1811, Ann Wyatt, an eccentric widow from Hackney, left £500 5% Navy Annuities to build a new school, and £100 in the same securities for its maintenance. The school-room was built in 1811 in accordance to her will.

The school did not take on Latymer's name for some centuries, when it finally did, it was known as Latymer's School. At some point, the apostrophe was dropped and the name modified to the Latymer School. It has been situated on its present site since 1910, when it also became coeducational. The school motto, Qui Patitur Vincit ('Who endures wins'), was also adopted in 1910 by Richard Ashworth, then headmaster. Prior to this, the motto was Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat ('Let he who bears the palm (of honour) deserve it').

Internally, Latymer history is propagated by school assemblies. It is traditional for headmasters to lecture pupils on the school's origins, and their personal interpretation of the school's motto during the first assembly of the academic year, as well as the school's Foundation Day.

While the Latymer school song was said to have been written in the 1950s by Alice W. Linford, with music by Ronald Cunliffe on the school site and was quoted here, the school song was definitely written before 1935 as pupils in that year learned it and Ronald Cunliffe wrote it within an autograph album in 1935 for a 12-year-old pupil. Ronald Cunliffe died in August 1944.

It is sung on Foundation Day and at the annual awards ceremony. Guests at the awards ceremony have included Robert Winston, Boris Johnson, Michael Portillo and Margaret Thatcher.

Former headteachers

In 1724 Thomas Hare, the parish clerk, was appointed Latymer schoolmaster by the vestry, while the Revd. John Button taught the boys funded by the donation of Thomas Style. In 1737 Zachariah Hare succeeded his father; two years later the various charities were amalgamated and land and a school-house were purchased, Zachariah becoming the first headmaster under the new scheme.

In 1781 John Adams was appointed headmaster. His friend, J. T. Smith, related that plates of Hogarth's Industry and Idleness hung in the schoolroom; once a month Adams read a lecture on these examples and then rewarded the industrious boys and caned the idle. He was succeeded in 1802 by his son, John Adams junior, clerk to the vestry and an able and efficient teacher. Adams numbered the 106 boys in the school according to their seniority. Each number was on a leather medal which, together with eight other medals recording school position in particular subjects including Latin, mathematics and behaviour, was strung on a cord worn by the pupil. The numbers were registered from time to time and prizes were presented by the trustees to boys who had excelled.

Charles Henry Adams succeeded his father in 1821 but failed to maintain the standards of the school. A vestry inquiry in 1848 found that the system of education was unsatisfactory; Latin was no longer being taught and many of the pupils were not receiving clothing. Nevertheless, he was still in charge of the school with his son, as usher, a member of the fourth generation of the family to teach in the school, when it was inspected in 1865. There were 89 boys on the books, of whom 65 were present in the morning but only 29 returned after lunch. Latin teaching was confined to reading aloud from a grammar and the standards in elementary subjects were very low; the income of the Cambridge scholarship was used for church repairs. In 1868 Adams agreed to retire on a pension.

The Revd. Dr. Charles. V. Dolbé was appointed headmaster, and under a new scheme £210 of foundation income was diverted to elementary schools attached to St. Paul's, Winchmore Hill, Christ Church, Southgate, and St. James, Upper Edmonton. The residue was to provide two Latymer schools: an upper for foundationers and fee-payers in the existing buildings, and a lower or elementary school.

In 1897 W. A. Shearer, the new headmaster of the upper school, found not only that the buildings were inadequate and defective, but also that R. S. Gregory, Vicar of Edmonton, wanted to close the school and use the funds for the Church of England elementary school, a proposal which aroused much opposition, especially from the Edmonton Urban District Council. In 1901 the lower school was accommodated in new buildings in Maldon Road, and a site in Haselbury Road was acquired for a new upper school, but in 1908, before building began, Shearer was killed in an accident. The upper school was temporarily closed, but in 1910 it reopened as a co-educational grammar school with 25 pupils and R. Ashworth as headmaster. Numbers increased rapidly and the school was enlarged in 1924 and 1928. Soon after this Ashworth died while still in office, leaving a flourishing school of over 700 pupils. V. S. E. Davis, who became the next headmaster, was a young man and guided the school with great skill through one of its most difficult periods through the Second World War. The school was granted voluntary aided status in 1951. Davis retired in 1957 and was succeeded by Dr. Trefor Jones. In 1964 there were nearly 1,100 pupils.

Name	Year began	Year ended	Name	Year began	Year ended
Revd. John Brooke, M.A	1634	Unknown	John Adam II	1802	1828
Thomas Hare, BA	1662	1666	Charles Henry Adams	1828	1867
Daniel Callis	1666	1667	Revd. Dr. Charles Vincent Dolbé, MA, LL.D	1867	1897
John Hare, BA	1667	1679	William A.C. Shearer, BA	1897	1909
Benjamin Hare	1680	1724	Richard Ashworth, BA	1910	1928
Thomas Hare II	1724	1737	Victor S.E. Davis, MA	1929	1957
Zachariah Hare	1737	1742	Trefor Jones, MA, PhD	1957	1970
James Ware	1742	1771	Edward S. Kelly	1970	1983
James Ware II	1771	1772	Geoffry T. Mills, MA	1983	1998
James Draper	1772	1773	Jackie Hardie, B.Sc., M.Ed., F.I.Biol.	1998 (Acting Headteacher)	1999
Samuel Draper	1773	1780	Michael J Cooper, OBE, BA, M.I.Biol., FRSA	1999	2005
John Adams	1781	1802	Mark E.Garbett, MA, M.Ed., NPQH	2005	2015
			Maureen Cobbett	2015	current

Bold names have Houses in their honour.

Houses

The school has six houses in each year group. The houses compete annually in a range of competitions including music, sport, art, debating, drama and cake baking to win house points. The house with the most points each year wins the Dormer Shield, with the runner up winning the Jones Cup.

Each house has a house master and/or house mistress. Teaching staff are allocated to a house and will usually stay in that house for the duration of their career at the school. Senior students are elected to be house officers. The houses have house assemblies which encourage interaction between different year groups. It is common for siblings to be placed in the same houses and children of old Latymerians are placed (where possible) in the same houses as their parents.

Despite rivalries, there is often collaboration between the houses, such as the annual Dolbé-Keats bazaar - which aims to raise money for the charities of the respective houses.

     Ashworth

Ashworth house is named after the former headmaster, Richard Ashworth. Its house colour is sky blue. Of note the school library is named in honour of Ashworth.

The school was moved to its current site on Haselbury Road under the tenure of Richard Ashworth. Without his input the school would not have been able to expand and become as successful as it is today.

Richard Ashworth is recalled by those who knew him best as a short, rotund man of great dignity, part natural, part the playing of a role, shrewd and just, gentle and kindly, a person of great magnetic charm as well as power, entirely without pomposity, affectation and guile. He was, too, what Americans aptly call a live wire, brisk and energetic, full of joie de vivre, a man who went “blithely on his business all the day” with gaiety, humour and disregard of convention. Few headmasters could maintain their authority if, on their way to school, they walked across Pymmes Park, muching an apple and practising French vowel sounds between the bites.

     Dolbé

Dolbé house is named after the former headmaster, Dr Charles Vincent Dolbé. Its house colour is Oxford blue. An oil portrait of Dolbé is hung outside of the Great Hall. There is a tradition, established by one of the longest serving house masters Mr Terence Jacob, in house assemblies of being read a tale from Winnie-the-Pooh and relating it to everyday life. The house traditionally selects and supports a charity on an annual basis.

Dr Charles Vincent Dolbé was a strict, formidable and fair headmaster. Under his tenure the school started to develop its reputation and ethos. The old schoolhouse was refurbished and expanded during his time to accommodate for the surge in popularity of the school under his shrewd direction.

Dr Dolbé was keen to impart his philosophy of education. At each prize day he would say "Hardworkers and those possessed of ability were sure to get to the top. It's a nice thing to receive a prize, but much better to earn one. What was Euclid’s definition of a straight line? That which lies evenly between its points. Take that definition and apply it. Have in view as the extreme point some worthy object, something worth looking for. Then having once made your determination, make all things like evenly towards it. Don’t allow the littleness of life to turn you from your purpose.”

     Keats

Keats house is named after locally educated poet, John Keats. Its house colour is red. There is a tradition of Keats' poetry being read at house assemblies. The house selets a charity to support on an annual basis.

John Keats published three books of poetry in his lifetime but was dismissed as a middle-class interloper by most critics. He had no advantages of birth, wealth or education; he lost his parents in childhood, watched one brother die of tuberculosis and the other emigrate to America. Poverty kept him from marrying the woman he loved. And he achieved lasting fame only after his early death in 1821. Yet grief and hardship never destroyed his passionate commitment to poetry.

     Lamb

Lamb house is named after local literary essayist, Charles Lamb. Its house colour is purple. Members of the house often refer to themselves as the purple sheep.

Charles Lamb was an essayist with Welsh heritage. Due to family commitments, he never married, but lived with his older sister. Both Charles and Mary Lamb suffered with mental illnesses, despite this Charles Lamb produced some excellent work. From about 1828 Charles and Mary lived in Church Street, Edmonton. Charles Lamb is buried in Latymer All Saints' Churchyard, Edmonton. His sister, who was ten years his senior, survived him for more than a dozen years. She is buried beside him.

     Latymer

Latymer house is named after the founder of the school, Edward Latymer. Its house colour is dark green.

Edward Latymer was appointed in 1594 as Deputy and Clerk to the Receiver General at the High Court, a position involving collecting monies owed. Over the next 25 years he became a man of wealth from his fees, particularly from complex inheritance cases.

     Wyatt

Wyatt house is named after a benefactor of the school, Ann Wyatt. Its house colour is yellow. The house traditionally supports a charity each year and raises money for it.

Ann Wyatt, a widow of Hackney, left £500 5% Navy Annuities to build a new school and £100 in the same securities for its maintenance. This was after living in circumstances which suggested she had very little money.

The vicar of Edmonton, to whom she gave the money, said “she was a miserable looking, dirty pauper, so ragged and untidy that I should have concluded she was an object of charity herself rather than in a condition to afford charity to others.”

Despite appearances, her gift provided in those times a whole new school where over time thousands of children were educated.

School site

Much of the north end of the school (principally the Small Hall and surrounding rooms) was built in 1910 after the Old Latymer Schoolhouse (Built mainly by Anne Wyatt and extended in the time of Charles Dolbé) in Church Street was abandoned. The buildings on the present site were provided by Middlesex County Council at a cost of £6,782, and accommodated 150 pupils. Twelve classrooms built in 1924 in the North Block allowed pupil capacity to triple.

The Great Hall, science laboratories and South Block were opened in a ceremony in 1928 by the Duke and Duchess of York (later to become King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother). Fully equipped with stage and seating for over 1,000 people, the hall is used for school assemblies, concerts, drama productions and other major events. The hall has been refurbished twice since it was built, most recently in 1999. It is home to the Davis organ, which was repaired and upgraded in 2005.

The gymnasia, art studios and technology block were opened in 1966 by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The 12 science laboratories and 6 technology rooms (including facilities for graphic design, product design, textiles and cookery) were re-equipped and modernised in the late 1990s.

Much of the school was modernised in the time of Dr. Trefor Jones. The balconies were altered in the Great Hall so that the pillars were not so obstructive to the view of the stage and the balustrade removed and replaced with panels of fluted light oak. Dark green tiles adorned the walls below the dado rail in much of the older parts of the school which were removed and the walls refinished. There has been a recent programme of modernisation and refurbishment of the classrooms, including the integration of ICT into each room.

There is a suite of three ICT rooms containing in total approximately 100 computers (networked and accessible to pupils and teaching staff) and another 100 or so in every classroom, music rooms, media department and the technology department, which are used extensively in the teaching of a large number of curriculum subjects. The school network is accessible to pupils from the internet via the Latymer Integrated Learning Environment (LILE).^[1] All classrooms have interactive white-boards. There are also 3 laptop trolleys, 2 of which contain 32 laptops, which teachers can book for lessons. Another laptop trolley containing 32 laptops is located at the library for use. All staff are issued with their own laptop computer. The sixth form study area, careers library, learning resources centre and technology block also have computer workstations.

The Ashworth library holds approximately 20,000 volumes and is run by a chartered librarian. A separate Learning Resources Centre (LRC) contains a further 2,000 reference volumes, a vast selection of periodicals, and computing facilities. There is a Connexions Careers Library with facilities for accessing the latest information on university courses and future career directions.

The sixth form common room was converted in 2000 from the Jones Lecture Theatre, which had itself been converted from a gymnasium to mark the retirement of Dr. Jones as Headmaster in 1970. The sixth form study area was built as the common room in 1984 to mark the retirement of Edward Kelly. Upon the conversion of the Jones Lecture Theatre to the common room, the 1984 building was made into a space for the sixth form to study in their free periods and a connecting building was built between the two, housing offices for the Head of the Sixth Form.

The 'Mills Building' (after the vision of Geoffrey Mills), a performing arts complex, was opened in the spring of 2000 to service the Music, Drama and Media Studies departments. It was funded by donations from former pupils, parents and friends of the school. The complex offers a range of studio-space, larger rooms for music and drama, and air-conditioned individual music practice rooms. This facility and the new Sports and Dining Complex, were envisaged by the then Headteacher Geoffrey Mills and the Governors in 1995.

The school owns a residential outdoor pursuits centre in Snowdonia National Park, Wales. The centre, Ysgol Latymer, was established on the site of an old primary school situated in the small village of Cwm Penmachno (5 miles from Betws-y-Coed) in 1966, as a 'school away from school'. Since, the school has developed it into a well-equipped residential centre, accommodating up to forty staff and pupils. It acts as a base of operations for week-long trips in the first and third years. Activities include hill walking, orienteering, mountain biking, rock climbing, abseiling, canoeing, swimming, rafting and skiing. Pupils participating in the Duke of Edinburgh Award, GCSE AS and A-level PE also visit the centre. It is the heart of the annual "Fourteen Peaks" challenge when staff and senior pupils may undertake an extensive programme of hill walks.

The school owns 12 acres (49,000 m²) of playing fields laid out for football, hockey, rugby union, cricket, rounders and athletics according to season.

A new Sports and Dining Complex was opened in a ceremony by Princess Anne on 18 May 2006. It includes a fitness suite (complete with aerobic and fixed weight equipment), specialist sports science classroom, a social studies room, a new computer suite, changing rooms with showers, and a multi-purpose gymnasium, which allowed the broadening of the sports curriculum to badminton, volleyball, table tennis and health and fitness. The facility is a brownfield development, occupying only slightly more area than the previous catering facility from the 1940s. Various environmentally friendly measures are incorporated into its design, including solar panels providing hot water, sun pipes reducing the need for artificial lighting and wind catchers to provide ventilation. Fresh, hot meals are cooked every weekday in the catering facility which seats 280, and sandwiches are prepared onsite. A coffee shop service is provided for staff and sixth-formers in the Sixth Form Common Room.

In February 2010, a new multi-purpose suite entitled the "Seward Studio" replaced the old boys' gym, boasting a full HD Surround Sound cinema, 180 ranked seats and the capability of being a space for Music, Media, Drama and Art performances and exhibitions. The studio was officially opened on Tuesday 23 February 2010 by Dame Margaret Seward.

Ethos and extracurricular activities

According to official canon, the school aims: "To provide a first class, liberal education where pupils achieve their full potential and show consideration for others."

OFSTED report

The school underwent its most recent OFSTED inspection on 14 September 2012, receiving inspection grades of 'Outstanding' for both school and sixth form.^[2] Inspectors praised the maintenance of "top class academic standards while continually seeking to widen and enrich the curriculum." The Good Schools Guide called the school "A top-notch academic grammar school which produces mature, confident pupils."^[3] The school is also a Specialist Arts College in the UK government's Specialist Schools Programme for art, media and drama.

League table results

The school received the accolade of 'State Secondary School of the Year' in 'Parent Power', published by The Sunday Times newspaper in 2009. In that same year, 91.9% of GCSE examinations achieved grades A and A*, and 76.4% of entries gained A-grades at A-level (more than any other state school), while 93% obtained A or B grades. Approximately thirty to forty pupils gain places at Oxbridge each year.^[4]

Notable former pupils

In entertainment

• Clare-Hope Ashitey, Actress^[5]
• Dame Eileen Atkins DBE, Actress^[6]
• Sir Bruce Forsyth, CBE, Entertainer^[7]
• Tim Pope, Director^[8]
• Mike Scott, Television producer and presenter^[9]
• Joe Shaw, Actor
• Leslie Welch, Radio and television personality, the "Memory Man"^[10]
• Aubrey Woods, Actor, best known for performing "The Candy Man" in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
• Vivian Oparah, Actress, "Tanya" in Class, Spin-off of Doctor Who

In politics

• Syed Kamall, Conservative MEP^[11]
• Albert Meltzer, Anarcho-communist writer^[12]
• David Walder, Conservative Party politician^[13]

In academia

• Mark Abrams, Social scientist^[14]
• John Horlock, FREng FRS CBE, Vice–Chancellor, Open University, 1981–90^[15]
• John Prebble, FRSL, OBE, Historian and novelist^[16]
• Yorick Wilks, Artificial intelligence pioneer^[17]

In sport

• Ted Blake, Trampoline pioneer^[18]
• Johnny Haynes, Former Fulham F.C. and England football captain^[19]
• Arthur Sanders, Footballer^[20]
• Leslie Medley, Former Spurs and England footballer.^[21]
• Mark Warburton, Manager of Nottingham Forest Football Club^[22]
• Timothy Shuttleworth, Competed for Team GB in Rio Olympics 2016

In music

• Richard Cook, Music writer, former executive of PolyGram records^[23]
• Archie Newman, former director of public affairs and sponsorship of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra^[24]
• B.J. Wilson, Original drummer of Procol Harum^[25]
• James Blake, British electronic artist.
• Grace Chatto, Member of British electronic group, Clean Bandit
• Debbie Smith, guitarist in Curve, Echobelly.
• Simone Butler, bass player with Primal Scream.

In health

• Tony Smith, former Chief Executive of the National Board for Nursing^[26]

Other

• Shaw Clifton, General of The Salvation Army

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Latymer School, Edmonton.

• The Latymer School's official website
• Latymer Integrated Learning Environment
• A summary of Latymer's academic performance
• 2005 OFSTED report
• A detailed history of the Latymer schools at British History Online
• Profile at the Good Schools Guide