Highgate School

history

, | website = »http://www.highgateschool.org.uk/ | website_name = }} Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate (Highgate School) is a British independent school in Highgate, London, England. It is a member of both the Headmaster's Conference and the Eton Group. Highgate recently made the move towards co-education ending over 400 years of single sex education. According to the Good Schools Guide, "Its decision to go co-ed has helped to put its popularity and academic standards on upward trajectories."»http://www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/school/highgate-school.html

When founded the school was legally documented as the Free Grammar School of Sir Roger Cholmeley, Knight at Highgate in letters patent of Queen Elizabeth I in 1565. In this period up to 1871 it was known commonly as The Free Grammar School at Highgate, The Highgate Grammar School or the Cholmeley School, when not referred to legally. By the 1870s the school had lost free provision and instead served gentlemen esquire and the upper middle classes. For this reason the name was changed to Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, which it is still known by today in the charitable status list. In the later part of the 19th Century the school's current title Highgate School developed, as it competed with better-known public schools with area names like Eton College, Harrow School and Winchester College.

Three separate schools now come under the Highgate Foundation, which manages not only the Senior School but also a prep school and a pre-prep school.

History

The school was established in 1565 by a Royal Charter of Elizabeth I giving permission for Sir Roger Cholmeley to erect a free grammar school for boys. A significant expansion of the school occurred under Headmaster The Revd Dr John Bradley Dyne (Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford) between 1838-1874. During this period the current chapel and main buildings were erected, designed by Reginald Blomfield (who had also designed Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford). A fragment of the older school building, a gateway with a rusted bell mechanism above between the porter's lodge and the main school building, remained intact until 2006 when the bell was refurbished and the old entrance itself rebuilt in a more modern style.

During the Second World War the school's buildings were commandeered by the British government and the school was evacuated to Westward Ho! in Devon, returning to Highgate in 1943. This return was maybe slightly premature because one afternoon in 1944 a V-1 Doodlebug flying bomb landed and exploded in the field behind the Junior School. Luckily, the only serious casualty was a cricket scorebox.

By 1965 the school occupied a large site in Highgate Village, as well as extensive sports fields and several boarding houses in the surrounding area.

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was buried in the school chapel, his grandson an Old Cholmeleian. However, in 1965 after a row with the council there was a ceremonial disinterring of Coleridge at which the then Poet Laureate John Masefield spoke and the remains were reburied at St Michael's parish church just a few hundred yards away.

Highgate School is also home to the oldest school freemasons lodge in the world, Cholmeley Lodge No 1731, formed in 1878.

In 2003, the school took the decision to become fully co-educational ending over four hundred years of single sex education.

Administration

Due to the Foundation's significant ownership of land and properties around the school, it has been able to invest greatly in the school's facilities; the relatively recent conversion from boarding to day school has increased the space available for this to continue. The Foundation's governing body consists of 12 members; 5 are nominated (one each by the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, by the Bishop of London, and by the Lord Chief Justice), and the rest are co-opted. The school is a member of the Eton Group of leading independent schools.

Notable members of staff and governing body

  • T. S. Eliot OM (1888–1965), American-born British poet, dramatist, and literary critic, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
  • The Right Hon Sir Robert Stopford KCVO, CBE, Bishop of London, Chaplain to The Queen
  • Rev Kenneth Hunt, footballer who was instrumental in taking Wolverhampton Wanderers to FA Cup victory
  • Jon Ingold, author
  • Sir Kyffin Williams RA - award-winning Welsh artist
  • Dr Andrew Zbigniew Szydlo FRSC - Dr Szydlo made a name for himself by appearing on Channel 4 TV Show That'll Teach Them/ BBC FOUR Absolute Zero. Author of Water that does not wet hands: The Alchemy of Michael Sendivogius. He has featured in National Geographic's Big, Bigger, Biggest; Cargo Plane in which he demonstrates how a jet engine works, Highgate School does feature during the program.
  • Albert Knight, England cricketer
  • Graham Wallas, socialist and founder of the Fabian Society
  • William Grylls Adams FRS, Professor of Astronomy
  • Charles Burney FRS, music scholar

Houses

The school operates a house system like many other public schools and on entering, pupils are placed in a house according to where they live (although the system does appear inaccurate, on occasions). These houses are Northgate, Southgate, Westgate, Eastgate, Queensgate, Kingsgate, Midgate, Fargate, Heathgate, The Lodge, School House and Grindal. Each house has a Housemaster in charge of the pastoral, as well as academic well-being of house-members, and tutors for each year group. This system was established to create 'house spirit' among the students, allowing for both academic and sporting competitions among the houses. Some of these, like School House, Grindal, Cordell and The Lodge used to be boarding houses. Grindal and Westgate are the only houses to have their own old boys' clubs, the Mitre Club and the Zephyr Club respectively. However, other houses, such as Kingsgate, are newer, having been created by a dissaffected group of Westgateans in the 1970s.

The Cholmeleian Society

The Cholmeleian Society works to help former pupils of Highgate School, called Cholmeleians (after Sir Roger Cholmeley, who founded the school in 1565), stay in touch with each other, and with the school. To promote this, social events are organised, and a magazine, The Cholmeleian, is published twice a year. Well known Cholmeleians include:

Politics

Law

Popular music

Classical music

Film and television

Sport

  • R.G. Warton (England cricket team manager)
  • William Seagrove (Olympic athlete)
  • David Hays (cricketer)
  • Douglas Lowe QC (Olympic athlete, President of the Bar Council)
  • Walter Robins (Captain of the English Cricket Team)
  • Phil Tufnell (England cricket team, TV personality)
  • Colin Drybrough (Captain of Middlesex CCC)
  • R.D Robertson (Rugby union, Scottish International)
  • Gordon Crole-Rees (Davis Cup tennis player)
  • Amin Zahir (fencing, Olympic team)
  • Leonard Pike (Cambridge Boat Race Crew, 1876, 1877 and 1878
  • Harry Courtney (Oxford Boat Race Crew, 1875 and 1876
  • Thomas Hughes (Two FA Cup Winner's Medals for Wanderers FC 1876 and 1877

Science

Arts

Scholars and poets

  • Owen Barfield, influenced both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Sir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate, taught by T. S. Eliot
  • Ernest Hartley Coleridge, literary scholar, grandson of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • John Bradley Dyne, President of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge
  • Professor Vivian Hunter Galbraith, historian, Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford University
  • Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, historian and official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins, poet
  • James Augustus Cotter Morison, essayist and historian
  • Howard Hayes Scullard, historian, editor of the Oxford Classical Dictionary
  • Sir Charles Grant Robertson, academic historian, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and Principal and Vice Chancellor of Birmingham University. Tutor to HM King Edward VIII.
  • Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718, Poet Laureate and dramatist)
  • Martin Seymour-Smith, poet and biographer
  • Walter William Skeat, philologist
  • Philip Stanhope Worsley (first published translations of the Odyssey and Iliad)
  • Edmund Yates (novelist and chose Lewis Carroll as pen name for Charles Dodgson)
  • Charles Pollock (Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
  • Ernest G Hardy (Principal of Jesus College, Oxford)

Business and commerce

  • Sir Edward Beauchamp (MP and Chairman of Lloyds)
  • Sir Percy Mackinnon (Chairman of Lloyds)
  • Sir Alexander Valentine (Chairman of London Transport Executive and London Transport Board)
  • Sir Arthur Hetherington (Chairman of British Gas)
  • Sir James Lindsay (Industrialist and management consultant)
  • Sir Malcolm Field (Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority and managing director of WH Smith)
  • Sir Rob Margetts CBE (Chairman of Legal & General Group Plc and Ensus Ltd)
  • Piers Adam (nightclub and restaurant owner, KBar, CLICK, Capisce, ROCK, Mahiki)

The Church

  • Mgr Ralph Brown (Papal Chamberlain and Canon law expert)
  • Stanley Booth-Clibborn (Bishop of Manchester)
  • Kenneth Clements (Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn)
  • Ernest H. Thorold (Chaplain to Kings George V, Edward VII, and George VI).
  • Norman Tubbs (Bishop of Rangoon and Dean of Chester)
  • Arthur Kitching (Bishop of Uganda)
  • William G Hardie (Archbishop of the West Indies)
  • Edward Waller (Bishop of Madras)
  • Henry Durrant (Bishop of Lahore)
  • Samuel Bickersteth (Chaplain to HM the King and Canon of Canterbury)
  • Edward Bickersteth (Bishop of South Tokyo, Japan)
  • Charles Turner (Bishop of Islington)
  • Henry Venn (Canon of Canterbury)

The Armed Forces

  • Anthony Rogers (Major-General, Director of Army Legal Services)
  • Neil Carlier CB OBE (Major-General Royal Engineers, Commander of British Forces in the Falkland Islands)
  • Barry Newton (Air Vice Marshal, Gentleman Usher to HM Queen Elizabeth II)
  • Henry Wood (Major-General)
  • Donald Titford (Rear Admiral)
  • Bob Baylis (Rear Admiral)
  • Joyanta N. Chaudhuri (General; Commander in Chief, Indian Army, Military Governor of Hyderabad)
  • Sir Anthony Selway (Air Marshal)
  • Sir Guy Sayer (Vice Admiral)
  • Sir William Horwood GBE KCB DSO Brigadier General; Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police)
  • William Alderson (Vice Admiral)
  • Sir Frederic Gordon (Major General)
  • Frank Rowley (Brigadier General)
  • Sir Michael Rimington (Lieutenant General, HQ Staff, Indian Cavalry Corp)
  • Thomas Cole Porter (Brigadier General)
  • Harold Pemberton Leach (Brigadier General)
  • Sir John Leach (General)
  • Sir Edward Pemberton Leach VC KCB KCVO General; awarded the Victoria Cross in the 2nd Afghan War)
  • John Richardson (Major General)
  • Robert Robertson (Major General, Indian Mutiny)
  • Sir John Donnelly (Major General Permanent Secretary to the Department of Education and Science)

Other

  • Richard Attree formerly with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and now a freelance independent composer
  • Rufus Barnes (erstwhile Chief Executive of London TravelWatch)
  • Christopher Vezey erstwhile BBC music producer
  • Stephen Ward (of the Profumo Affair)
  • Alexander Chales Moock (of the Moock Mansions)
  • Professor John Anderson now semi-retired as a writer and medical lecturer, previously with the ILO and WHO
  • Christopher Wright (founder of Single's Club)
  • Sir Martin Furnival Jones KCB (Director General of MI5, 1965–1972)
  • Anthony Howard (political journalist)
  • Rudolph C Lehmann MP (Editor of The Daily News and Punch. Coached both Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race Crews)
  • Duncan Taylor (Governor of the Cayman Islands)

References

External links

See also

home | This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. See full license termsIt uses material from the Wikipedia article "Highgate_School ". | compliance | September 03rd 2010