History
In lieu of the establishment of Lurgan Model primary school in 1863, the town of Lurgan required a secondary education school which met the educational needs of the growing industrial town. The owner of a local brewery, Samuel Watts, set out plans for an endowment fund in his will for the formation of a middle class, secondary school which provided education to boys in Agriculture, Classics and English. After Watts’s death in February 1850, a Trustee Committee was formed to ensure the £9000 in Watts’s will would contribute towards creating a new school. However, it was not until December 1872 that the Trustee Committee had gathered enough funds to commence construction of the school. [4]
The school was established at a residence on Market Hill, Lurgan in March 1873. The first headmaster was E. V. Boulger of Dublin. The construction of the school buildings in the township of Brownlowsderry was completed in August 1873 and the school accepted its first cohort of students in October of the same year. [5]
Boulger was a Classical scholar and uncomfortable among small boys, and left in 1875, [6] to be replaced by William T. Kirkpatrick of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Kirkpatrick oversaw the student population grow numerically and was responsible for the growth in academics at the college. Kirkpatrick retired in 1899 and James Cowan of Manchester Grammar School assumed principality of the college. Cowan was responsible for the introduction of Science education in the college in 1905 and the further integration of female student admission in 1918. Cowan retired in 1922 having failed to rectify the school's dwindling numbers with under 30 pupils enrolled when he retired. [7]
In 1968, it became 'a selective, non-denominational, co-educational 14-19 Grammar School, offering a predominantly academic education up to Advanced Level in a wide range of subjects.' [8]
Lurgan is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and roughly 18 miles (29 km) southwest of Belfast. The town is linked to Belfast by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. Lurgan had a population of about 28,634 at the 2021 UK census, and falls within the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon district. For certain purposes, Lurgan is treated as part of the "Craigavon Urban Area", along with neighbouring Craigavon and Portadown.
The education system in Northern Ireland differs from elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but is similar to the Republic of Ireland in sharing in the development of the national school system and serving a similar society with a relatively rural population. A child's age on 1 July determines the point of entry into the relevant stage of education in the region, whereas the relevant date in England and Wales is 1 September.
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The Dickson Plan is a school transfer system implemented in North County Armagh in Northern Ireland. It is a two tier system in which the majority of pupils in the Craigavon Borough Council Area and parts of Armagh City and District Council Area attend Junior High Schools for 3 years before transferring to Senior High Schools to complete their compulsory education in Key Stage 4. It does not exclude the possibility of academic selection at age 11 through the 11 Plus exam, whereupon pupils may proceed to the grammar school system on completion of primary education or carry on to other secondary schools. For those who opt out of the 11 Plus or don't pass it, they may go through an academic selection process at age 14 by taking internal exams that are set by the individual grammar schools, and entering the grammar sector at age 14.
In England and Wales, a public school is a type of fee-charging private school originally for older boys. They are "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession; nor are they run for the profit of a private owner.
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William Thompson Kirkpatrick was an Irish teacher and grammar school headmaster. He is best known for having been the tutor of the two Lewis brothers from Belfast, Warnie Lewis and C. S. Lewis. C. S. Lewis, who would later become well known as a literary critic, novelist, and Christian apologist, lived as a resident pupil with Kirkpatrick from 1914-1917. In his autobiography, Lewis reports that he was significantly influenced by his tutor.
Edward Vaughan Boulger, generally known as Vaughan Boulger or E. V. Boulger, was an Irish academic whose career included Professor of Classics in the University of Adelaide. A Protestant by birth, he converted to Catholicism in his later years.
Thomas Edward Clouston was an Irish-born Presbyterian minister and academic in New South Wales.
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