Enfield Grammar School

The old Enfield Grammar School building.

Enfield Grammar School is a boys' secondary school with academy status in Enfield Town in the London Borough of Enfield in north London.

History

Enfield Grammar School was founded on 25 May 1558. The school's first known headmaster was William Bradshawe who was head until 1600.

At its foundation, the school inherited part of a charitable endowment called Poynetts, originally established at South Benfleet in the will of Robert Blossom (d. 1418). This property had become the endowment of an earlier Enfield chantry-school which precedes and is incorporated into the Grammar School. As Dr. Birkett Marshall points out, there is evidence a schoolmaster existed in Enfield prior to 1524, based on an account of the funeral of a Sir Thomas Lovell. An older school-house which certainly still existed east of the churchyard in 1572 seems likely to have housed the grammar school established in 1558 until the erection in the 1580s of the Tudor building sometimes referred to as the Old Hall. This was built in the grounds adjacent to Prounces house, bought by the parish in 1516 and originally occupied by John Prouns in 1399. The Tudor school building is still currently in use. There were reportedly boarders in this building for part of its history, as reputedly there were much later at Enfield Court (the Lower School).

On the dissolution of the chantries in 1547 the rights to the charitable property passed to the Crown. However, the Court of Augmentations questioned and challenged the King's title so that in 1550 the property was restored. In 1553 Queen Mary relinquished all claims and in 1558 an attempt was made to endow a school with the Poynetts estate. Unfortunately, a proposed trustee died before execution of the deed, which meant a second deed granted only £6 13s. 4d. just sufficient for the salary of the former chantry priest who established a school, the remainder being used for the relief of the poor. Thus from 1558 a schoolmaster began teaching the children of Enfield's poor Latin and English 'according to the trade and use of grammar schools'. In 1586 William Garrett left £50 to build a schoolhouse, and this money is presumed to have been used to erect the Tudor building which is still in use and stands adjacent to the west of St. Andrew's Church.

In 1623, when the Prounces estate property was settled in trust, Prounces house became the schoolmaster’s residence. One headmaster, Robert Uvedale, while continuing in his post at EGS much to the consternation of the trustees and some parishioners opened another rival private (fee-paying) boarding-school, the Palace School, in about 1660, which survived until 1896.

Until 1967 EGS remained a grammar school. In that year, it was amalgamated with Chace Boys School to form a comprehensive school which retained the name Enfield Grammar School. The two schools were separated again in 1970, but both remained comprehensive. Chace Boys School has since become co-educational and has changed its name to Chace Community School.

Location

The upper school buildings are next to the Enfield Town Market Place and St. Andrew's Church, and have been extended several times since 1586. A new hall and further extensions were completed shortly before World War II.^[1]

Originally Enfield Town where the school is situated was of some historical significance, being near Edward VI's palace where Elizabeth I lived for a while a princess, including during the final illness of Henry VIII. Edward was taken there to join her, so that in the company of his sister Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, could break the news to Edward, formally announcing the death of their royal father in the presence chamber at Enfield, on his knees to make formal obeisance to the boy as King.^[2] Later Elizabeth held court there when she was queen (this was remembered in the name Palace Gardens that was a street running behind Pearsons department store and is still recalled in the name of Enfield's shopping centre).^[3][4] In 1924, Enfield Court in Baker Street was purchased to accommodate the lower school. For some years, the first year pupils of the grammar school shared it with the first year pupils of Enfield County School, but it is now used for Enfield Grammar School students in years 7 and 8, and its former gardens provide the school with playing fields. The Enfield Loop of the New River passes through the playing fields, and this is the only stretch of the loop without a public footpath on at least one side of it.

Motto

The school motto, which is incorporated in the school badge (apart from that signifying the sixth form), is 'Tant Que Je Puis', which is Old French, and means 'As much as I can'. It was taken from the Uvedale family, because Dr. Robert Uvedale was master from 1664 to 1676.

Houses

The school has a house system, at least for some internal sporting activities. The names of the houses are: Forty, Myddelton, Poynetts, Raleigh, St. Andrew's and Uvedale.

For a significant period, when the school was a selective one up to the end of the 1960s, the houses above were the basis of a wide range of other competitive internal activities such as drama, debating, competitive sports and so forth.

Notable alumni

• Stuart Gebbie, entrepreneur
• Derek Austin, librarian; author; developer of innovative digital cataloguing systems, creator of PRECIS indexing language in 1974 (used worldwide and for the British National Bibliography); Supernumerary Fellow Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. Royal Signal Corps 1941 – 6. Born 11 August 1921. PRECIS: A Manual of Concept Analysis and Subject Indexing - January 1974, Publisher: Council of the British National Bibliography, 551 pages, ISBN 978-0-900220-42-5
• John Morrell Band, (1902–1943), naval officer^[5]
• Joseph ‘Joe’ Ambrose Banks, Professor of Sociology at Leicester University, academic author, 5 January 1920 – 13 November 2005.^[6]
• Leonard Vivian Biggs, (1873–1944) journalist and politician in Melbourne, Australia^[7]
• Bob Cobbing, avant-garde soundtext poet, performer and publisher; manager famous underground Better Books on Charing Cross Road in 1960s; founding member and vice president Association of Little Presses; council member Poetry Society; 1920–2002
• Jim Crace, prize-winning English novelist, former journalist
• Michael Duberry, association football player
• David Eames, Esquire Bedell, University of London, formerly Secretary and Registrar for Medicine
• Vernon Handley, conductor
• Peter Joseph Hobbs, marketing manager of BOC Murex, Managing Director 1965–1992 UK subsidiary of the Swedish welding and cutting company ESAB, from 1980 Hobbs Fellow of Welding Institute, Cambridge, awarded distinguished service award 1998.^[8]
• Alan Hopes, The Right Reverend, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, Roman Catholic bishop.
• Jack Howe, architect (influenced by Walter Gropius), designer: Royal Designer for Industry in 1961; Master of the Faculty of RDIs, 1975–77; President of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers in 1963-64; recipient Duke of Edinburgh's Design Prize in 1969.^[9][10]
• Christopher Hughes, quiz champion
• David Hutton, footballer
• Hugh Jenkins, later Baron Jenkins of Putney, politician, member of National Theatre Board, chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), elevated to Life Peerage, Lord Jenkins of Putney; 27 July 1908 – 26 January 2004.
• Frederic Wood Jones (1879–1954), anatomist, naturalist and anthropologist; see Australian Dictionary of National Biography Online Edition: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090507b.htm
• Professor Jeffrey A Jupp, University of Manchester, Aerospace Research Institute, non-executive director on the board of Cranfield Aerospace Ltd., Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, joint holder of the 1987 Royal Society "Esso Energy Award" Gold Medal (for the design of fuel efficient wings for Airbus), Royal Aeronautical Society 1992 British Bronze Medal and 2002 Society Gold Medal.^[11]
• Christo Kasabi, international rugby union player for Cyprus
• Sir Peter Large, Shell executive until 1962, disabled by polio; subsequently civil servant; disability campaigner; founded Association of Disabled Professionals, parliamentary adviser; appointed MBE 1974, CBE 1987, knighted 1993 for services to disabled people,; 2004 lifetime achievement award from the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation. 16 October 1931 – 13 January 2005, aged 73.^[12][13]
• Norman Lewis, author, travel writer
• Terry Lightfoot, jazz bandleader and musician, played alongside Louis Armstrong; British Music Industry Award For Excellence for CD The Special Magic of Louis Armstrong 1996; Gold Badge Award from the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters 2000. [Times article]^[14]
• Jake Livermore, footballer
• L.G. Maddox Second-Lieutenant, MC with Bar, 22nd (Queen’s) London Regt.; born 1 November 1898; attended EGS 1907 – November 1915. Joined up February 1918 – awarded MC for ‘Conspicuous Gallantry and Devotion to Duty’ – killed Combles 30 August 1918.^[15]
• Sir Alec Merrison, D.L., B.Sc., Ph.D., D.Sc., LL.D., F.F.C.M., F.R.S., physicist; Institute of Physics' Charles Vernon Boys Prize 1961; Vice-Chancellor Bristol University (1969 to 1984); Director of Lloyds Bank; Fellow of the Royal Society; High Sheriff of Avon 1986-1987. (b. 20 March 1924 – 19 February 1989 d.)^[16]
• Colin Metson, first class cricketer for Middlesex and Glamorgan
• Robin Millar, disabled (blind) successful record producer, for Sade’s Diamond Life album, Everything But The Girl’s Eden, and for the Style Council, Randy Crawford, the Christians and Fine Young Cannibals; Brit Awards Judge since 1993; former brother-in-law of Mick Taylor^[17]
• Steve Morison, association football player
• Walter Pater, nineteenth-century essayist, critic
• Professor Mike Paterson, F.R.S., computer scientist, University of Warwick
• Trevor Peacock, actor
• John Francis Picard, jazz musician^[14]
• Oliver G Pike, pioneering wildlife photographer^[18]
• Ronald Edward Perrin, organist
• William Pratt, actor, aka Boris Karloff.
• Walter George Ridewood, biologist, anatomist after whom a method of cranial dissection is named (1864–1921) [published five important papers on the cranial osteology of teleostean fishes], son of W. S. Ridewood who was headmaster from 1877 to 1909^[19][20]
• Michael J. Smith, cricketer
• Mark Tami, politician
• Derek Taunt, mathematician, codebreaker (Hut 6, Bletchley Park), successively Lecturer, Director of Studies, Bursar and President, Jesus College, Cambridge.
• Professor Philip Tew, academic author and scholar, Brunel University, Fellow Royal Society of Arts, Member Royal Society of Literature.
• Andrew Turnbull, Baron Turnbull, KCB, CVO, former head of the British Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary; life peer as Baron Turnbull, of Enfield, on 11 October 2005.
• Frederic Wood Jones, Professor of Anatomy Manchester and Melbourne Universities, naturalist, anthropologist, public speaker, trustee Public Library, Museum and National Gallery, Victoria, Australia
• Mason Caton-Brown, Rugby League, Represented England Students and London Broncos. Currently plays for the Salford City Reds.

Bibliography

• A Short History of the Enfield Grammar School by Samuel Smith, 1932;
• A Brief History of Enfield Grammar School 1558-1958 by Leslie Birkett Marshall, 1958

References

External links

• Enfield Grammar School's official website
• Information about Enfield Grammar in OFSTED
• A detailed history of Enfield Grammar School at British History Online
• concerned with history of private schools in Middlesex: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1; J.S. Cockburn, H.P.F. King, K.G.T. McDonnell (Editors); 1969: 241 - 55.

'Private Education from the Sixteenth Century: Developments from the 16th to the early 19th century', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1: Physique, Archaeology, Domesday, Ecclesiastical Organization, The Jews, Religious Houses, Education of Working Classes to 1870, Private Education from Sixteenth Century (1969), pp. 241–255. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22124. Date accessed: Friday, 5 October 2007.

External links

Media related to Enfield Grammar School at Wikimedia Commons