Highgate School

Highgate School is a British day-only independent school in Highgate, London, England. Originally a free charity school for local boys, it became during the nineteenth century one of England's public schools. It is a member of both the Headmaster's Conference and the Eton Group. Highgate no longer takes boarders and recently moved 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".

The school was founded as, and still is, a charity, the Free Grammar School of Sir Roger Cholmeley, Knight at Highgate by 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 largely dropped free provision for local parish boys and instead became a boarding-school for boys from the upper and 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 its registered charity status. In the later part of the 19th century the school's current title Highgate School developed, as it competed with other public schools 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.

Cholmeley, a former Chief Justice and local landowner, decided to found a charitable school for poor boys from the local parishes, and acquired from the Bishop of London some land on the site of the old gatehouse to the Bishop's park and hermit's chapel (opposite the Gatehouse Inn, which still exists). A new chapel and buildings for the school and the local curate, who was expected to be the teacher, were built. The chapel also served as a chapel of ease for Highgate residents.

However by the early nineteenth century a dispute arose because the charity was spending more money, and the curate more time, on the local chapel than on the pupils. A House of Commons commission visited in 1819 and found the Master, the Rev Samuel Mence, was paying a sexton to teach the boys. In a long and bitter action brought in the High Court against the Trustees it was contended that this was contrary to its founding charitable deed. Lord Chancellor Eldon, in his 1827 judgment, agreed, finding "the charity is for the sustenance and maintenance of a free Grammar school". The trustees were forced to comply and a separate local church for Highgate, St Michael's, was built in South Grove after a successful local appeal. Mence struggled on at the school until 1838 when there were only 19 pupils.

An expansion of the school occurred under the next Headmaster The Revd Dr John Bradley Dyne (Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford) between 1838â€"1874. Under Dyne the school became a boarding school; fees were introduced and academic standards improved. Like other public schools, Highgate followed Dr Arnold at Rugby School in introducing the house system. Also like other public schools, Dyne mercilessly flogged the pupils with a birch rod.

Highgate School has the greatest concentration of Eton Fives courts in London. The school has two blocks of courts; one structure with ten courts (of which six were built in 1899 and a further four added c.1913) and a second block of eight courts constructed in the 1920s.

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 Vâ€'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. There are currently weekly services for pupils and staff in the Chapel, and monthly celebrations of Evensong, which are open to the general public. There are also twice-termly Communion services, which is a relatively new innovation.

Highgate School also has the oldest Public School freemasons' lodge, Cholmeley Lodge No 1731, formed in 1878, part of the Public Schools Lodges Council.

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 independent schools.

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 boundaries of each house can flex based on numbers and gender balance). 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, which Dyne, like other public school headmasters, copied from Arnold's at Rugby School, 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.

Headmasters

Notable members of staff and governing body

• John Ireton, brother of Henry Ireton, Cromwellian General
• 1st Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, owner of Kenwood, noted for judgment finding contracts for slavery unenforceable in English law
• T. S. Eliot OM (1888â€"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 took Wolverhampton Wanderers to FA Cup victory
• Jon Ingold, author
• Sir Kyffin Williams RA â€" award-winning Welsh artist
• Dr Andrew (Zbigniew) Szydlo FRSC is a current chemistry lecturer. Dr Szydlo appeared on the 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 features in 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
• Alan Palmer, historian and biographer

The Cholmeleian Society

The Cholmeleian Society works to help former pupils of Highgate School, called Old Cholmeleians (OCs) (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. Notable Old Cholmeleians include:

Politics

• Sir Robert Atkins, Conservative MP & MEP
• Peter Beazley, Conservative MEP
• Lord Bowles, Labour MP & Peer
• David Burrowes, Conservative MP
• Sir Robert Andrew Burns KCMG
• Charles Clarke, Labour MP
• Sir John Cockburn, Premier of South Australia
• Anthony Crosland, Labour MP
• Jonathan Hill, Baron Hill of Oareford, Conservative Peer
• Bernard Jenkin, Conservative MP
• Jeremy Lefroy, Conservative MP
• Rupert Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale, Liberal Democrat Peer
• Sir Robert Price, Liberal MP
• Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare, Liberal MP
• Duncan Taylor CBE
• Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford, Conservative MP
• Sir Stanley Tubbs, Conservative MP
• Sir Colin Turner, Conservative MP

Law

• The Rt. Hon Lord Ackner (Law Lord)
• Sir Richard Arnold (High Court Judge)
• Sir Archibald Bodkin (Director of Public Prosecutions 1920â€"1930)
• Sir Peter Crane (High Court Judge)
• Professor Sir Roy Goode CBE QC (academic, Professor of English Law, Oxford University)
• Sir Maurice Gwyer KCB, KCSI (Chief Justice of India and Vice Chancellor of Delhi University)
• Sir George Hayes (judge), High Court Judge
• Sir Anthony Lincoln (High Court Judge)
• The Rt. Hon Sir Frank Douglas MacKinnon (Court of Appeal Judge)
• Michael Mansfield QC
• Lord Mansfield, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (was a School Governor but not an Old Cholmeleian)
• The Rt. Hon Sir Brian Neill (Court of Appeal Judge)
• Sir Patrick, Lord Neill of Bladen QC (Barrister, Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, Warden of All Souls College, Oxford)
• Sir Anthony Plowman (Vice-Chancellor of the Chancery Division and High Court Judge)
• Sir Walworth Roberts, High Court Judge
• Thomas Sargant OBE (Law Reformer and Human Rights Campaigner)

Popular music

• Johnny Borrell of Razorlight
• John Hassall of The Libertines/Yeti
• John Leyton (Singer and Actor. Appeared in The Great Escape and Von Ryan's Express, well known for the single "Johnny Remember Me")
• Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker
• Jon Moss of Culture Club
• Natty
• Aubrey Nunn of Faithless
• Christian Smith of Stony Sleep and Razorlight
• Zak Starkey of Oasis and The Who (son of Ringo Starr)
• Orlando Weeks of The Maccabees
• DJ Yoda

Classical music

• Simon Bainbridge (composer and Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music)
• John Blakely (pianist)
• Alan Bush (composer)
• Anthony Camden (oboist)
• Brian Chapple (composer)
• Gerard Delrez (opera singer)
• Gerard Hoffnung (tubist)
• Daniel Hope (violinist)
• Jan Latham-Koenig (conductor)
• John Rutter CBE (composer)
• Howard Shelley OBE (pianist)
• Sir John Tavener (composer)
• Graham Waterhouse (cellist and composer}
• Peter Wright (organist)

Film and television

• Richard Bebb (Actor)
• John Box OBE (Academy Award-winning ("Oscar") production designer and art director)
• Roland Culver OBE, (Actor)
• Robin Ellis (Actor, the original Poldark)
• Matthew Garber, (Actor)
• Philip Harben (TV chef)
• Freddie Highmore (Actor)
• Tom Hooper (Oscar winning film director, The King's Speech, The Damned United, Les Miserables)
• John Leyton (actor and singer)
• Adrian Lyne (film director, Flashdance, 9½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction (Oscar nomination for Best Director), Jacobs Ladder)
• Christopher Morahan (Theatre, television and film director, directed Clockwise)
• Barry Norman CBE (film critic)
• Robert Nisbet (Europe Correspondent of Sky News)
• Kayvan Novak (actor and comedian, Fonejacker, Facejacker)
• Lloyd Owen (Actor)
• Geoffrey Palmer OBE (actor)
• Robin Ray (broadcaster)
• Paul Rotha (Film maker)
• Harry Thompson (TV writer and television producer)
• Murray Walker OBE (motorsport commentator)
• Simon Craddock filmed many films
• Martin Fisk Actor
• Gregg Sulkin Actor

Sport

• Harry Courtney (Oxford Boat Race Crew, 1875 and 1876)
• Gordon Crole-Rees (Davis Cup tennis player)
• Colin Drybrough (Captain of Middlesex CCC)
• David Hays, (cricketer)
• Thomas Hughes (Two FA Cup Winner's Medals for Wanderers FC 1876 and 1877)
• William Knightly-Smith, Cricketer, Cambridge University, Gloucestershire and Middlesex
• Douglas Lowe QC (Olympic athlete, President of the Bar Council)
• Sir Daniel Pettit (England Footballer and Industrialist)
• Leonard Pike (Cambridge Boat Race Crew, 1876, 1877 and 1878)
• R.D Robertson (Rugby union, Scottish International)
• Walter Robins (England Cricket Captain, Middlesex CC. Also played football for Nottingham Forest)
• Stuart Rogers (Cricketer, Somerset)
• William Seagrove (Olympic athlete)
• Phil Tufnell (Middlesex CCC, England cricket team, TV personality)
• R.G. Warton (England cricket team manager)
• William H "Tagge Webster" CBE, President of the MCC and England Amateur Footballer
• Amin Zahir (fencing, Olympic team)

Science

• David Acheson, President of the Mathematical Association
• Professor John Anderson now semi-retired as a writer and medical lecturer, previously with the ILO and WHO
• Sir Christopher Andrewes FRS (isolated the first human influenza virus)
• Alan Blumlein (inventor of stereo and much of the equipment used for the world's first high-definition television service at Alexandra Palace)
• Dr Alex Comfort (author of The Joy of Sex)
• Sir Charles Douglas Fox, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers
• Richard M. Durbin, Computational Biologist
• John Ellis, theoretical physicist at CERN
• David Keynes Hill FRS (biophysicist)
• Alfred John Jukes-Browne, FRS, Member of Geological Survey.
• Bernard Newmarch, President of the British Medical Association
• Warwick W Sawyer, mathematician. Author of Mathematician's Delight
• Sir Clive Sinclair (inventor of the 'slim-line' electronic pocket calculator)
• Sir Arthur George Tansley FRS (botanist, founder of the British Ecological Society)
• Rev John Venn (created Venn diagrams and was President of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge)
• Paul Weindling, Wellcome Trust Research Professor in the History of Medicine at Oxford Brookes University
• Professor John Zarnecki (space scientist)

Arts

• Hussein Chalayan MBE, designer
• Marcus Clarke, author
• Anthony Green RA, artist
• Gerard Hoffnung, cartoonist and musician
• Peter Kingsley, writer on ancient Greek culture
• Mike Ockrent, theatre director
• H. G. Pelissier, actor
• Patrick Procktor RA, artist
• Ion Trewin, Literary Director of the Man Booker Prize and biographer of Alan Clark MP
• Nigel Williams, author, screenwriter and playwright
• Allan G. Wyon, sculptor

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
• Professor Vivian Hunter Galbraith, historian, Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford University
• Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, historian and official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill
• Ernest Hardy (Principal of Jesus College, Oxford)
• Gerard Manley Hopkins, poet
• James Augustus Cotter Morison, essayist and historian
• 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 (1674â€"1718, Poet Laureate and dramatist)
• Howard Hayes Scullard, historian, editor of the Oxford Classical Dictionary
• 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)
• George Jowett (poet)

Business and commerce

• Piers Adam (nightclub and restaurant owner, KBar, CLICK, Capisce, ROCK, Mahiki)
• Sir Edward Beauchamp (MP and Chairman of Lloyds)
• Sir Robert Clark DSC (Chairman and director of numerous companies)
• Sir Malcolm Field (Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority and managing director of WH Smith)
• Sir Arthur Hetherington (Chairman of British Gas)
• Mr Peter Hetherington (COO of IG)
• Sir James Lindsay (Industrialist and management consultant)
• Sir Percy Mackinnon (Chairman of Lloyds)
• Sir Rob Margetts CBE (Chairman of Legal & General Group Plc and Ensus Ltd)
• Mr Ron Mellor CBE (Vice President Car Engineering Ford Europe & Sec. IMechE)
• Sir Alexander Valentine (Chairman of London Transport Executive and London Transport Board)

Anglicanism

• Stanley Booth-Clibborn (Bishop of Manchester)
• Mgr Ralph Brown (Papal Chamberlain and canon law expert)
• Edward Bickersteth (Founder of Cambridge Mission to Delhi and Bishop of South Tokyo, Japan)
• Samuel Bickersteth (Chaplain to HM the King and Canon of Canterbury)
• The Very Rev'd Philip Buckler, Dean of Lincoln
• Kenneth Clements (Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn)
• Henry Durrant (Bishop of Lahore)
• Joseph Franklin-Ward OBE (Bishop of Shrewsbury)
• William G Hardie (Archbishop of the West Indies)
• Arthur Kitching (Bishop of Uganda)
• The Very Rev Ernest Thorold CB CBE OBE (Chaplain to Kings George V, Edward VII, and George VI).
• Norman Tubbs (Bishop of Rangoon and Dean of Chester)
• Charles Turner (Bishop of Islington)
• Henry Venn (Canon of Canterbury)
• Edward Waller (Bishop of Madras)

The Armed Forces

• Vice Admiral William Alderson
• Rear Admiral Bob Baylis
• Major-General Neil Carlier CB OBE, Royal Engineers, Commander of British Forces in the Falkland Islands
• General Joyanta N. Chaudhuri, Commander-in-Chief, Indian Army, Military Governor of Hyderabad
• Brigadier General Thomas Cole Porter
• Lieutenant Colonel Peter George Davis DSC (a.k.a. Pug Davis), co-founder of the Special Boat Service (SBS)
• Major General Sir John Donnelly, Permanent Secretary to the Department of Education and Science
• George Goodman (RAF officer) DFC, Flying Ace and one of "The Few"
• Major General Sir Frederic Gordon
• Brigadier General Sir William Horwood GBE KCB DSO, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
• General Sir John Leach
• Air Vice Marshal Barry Newton, Gentleman Usher to HM Queen Elizabeth II
• General Sir Edward Pemberton Leach VC KCB KCVO, awarded the Victoria Cross in the 2nd Afghan War
• Brigadier General Harold Pemberton Leach
• Major General John Richardson
• Lieutenant General Sir Michael Rimington, HQ Staff, Indian Cavalry Corps
• Major General Robert Robertson, Indian Mutiny
• Major-General Anthony Rogers, Director of Army Legal Services
• Brigadier General Frank Rowley
• Vice Admiral Sir Guy Sayer
• Air Marshal Sir Anthony Selway DFC Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at RAF Coastal Command.
• Rear Admiral Donald Titford
• Major-General Henry Wood

Other

• Richard Attree formerly with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and now a freelance independent composer
• Peter Austin, brewer
• Sir Martin Furnival Jones KCB (Director General of MI5, 1965â€"1972)
• Anthony Howard (political journalist)
• R.C. Lehmann MP (Editor of The Daily News and Punch. Coached both Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race Crews)

References

External links

• Highgate School website
• The Cholmeleian Society
• Profile at the Good Schools Guide